Why would the GPS device in my truck not recognize an address along Route 28 near Brookville? On the same day, an address along Route 36 also came back as “not found.”

The houses were there, complete with number-labeled mailboxes out front, near the main highways. The GPS had been remarkably accurate even on the remote stretch through State Game Lands 74 in far northwestern Jefferson County.

Heck, it had even guided me through that region on, of all names, Frozen Toe Road.

But along two of the main traffic routes through Jefferson County, Routes 28 and 36, the GPS came up blank — until I had an “A-Ha!” moment.

That moment came when I traveled a road I already knew, Milliron Road, to get from Richardsville Road to the next address while delivering Meals on Wheels, this time east of Brookville. I had not bothered to set the GPS to that address because I knew where the recipient lived.

The GPS contented itself with letting me know the name of the road that I already knew, Milliron Road, and where I would be in 2.5 miles. It displayed, “Route 28 — North”!

I pulled over to the side of the road, and entered “2xxx” then “Route 28 North” and the GPS said, in effect, “Let’s go this way!” It led me right to the house.

Hmm.

If the GPS needed to have Route 28 entered as “Route 28 North,” what about the other address, the one along nearby Route 26 about 10 miles further west?

I entered its number, “4xxx.” Then I entered “Route 36 North.”

Voila! The GPS told me where to go to get to that address. I felt triumphant, never mind that I had already found the Route 36 dwelling by the old-fashioned method of driving along Route 36 slowly and viewing the numbers adorning mailboxes.

Similarly, a road that is within a mile of our house had always been the “Sigel/Roseville Road” to me. That is the name plainly displayed on road signs along its 10-mile length. The same name appears on my county issued Jefferson County Development Guide map.

But, no.

To the GPS, “Roseville/Sigel Road” is SR (for “state route) 4001. I had not entered the address along that road for Meals on Wheels delivery because I had been at that house, been inside it, in fact. It had previously been owned by friends of ours.

Delighted that I seem to have broken the GPS code, I entered “2xxx” for the number part of the address, then “Roseville/Sigel Road.” Predictably, on my nearly 10-year-old GPS, the address came back as “not found.”

Hah!

I actually sneered as I hit the “back” key and then typed in “SR 4001.” Sure enough, the GPS now told me how to get to a house that I already knew how to get to. Neener neener, GPS! I got you! You can’t outsmart me!

Whoa.

It’s not nice to challenge a GPS, just as it is not nice to challenge Mother Nature. Both will do what they do, with no regard at all for the wishes of mere humans such as me.

Five years ago, a GPS took an unfortunate lady from the Corsica exit of Interstate 80 on the “shortest route” to Bradford, in midwinter. That “shortest route” led her right past our house, but only halfway through the sweeping right-hand curve on the pavement of Caldwell Corners Road. Instead, it enticed her to go straight — straight down the ice-covered, winding steep slope of frozen-clay Park Road. She rolled her vehicle, luckily not suffering major injuries. But the GPS, though sometimes definite, is not always right.

I will need that GPS to visit family, in the megalopolis that stretches from Boston through Philadelphia to Baltimore and Washington DC. Other family members live in western Ohio, eastern South Dakota, and central Florida.

Though I knew intellectually that the GPS is at bottom a soulless machine, I propitiated it as though it were a deity of sorts.

“Nice GPS,” I murmured. “It is my fault, not yours, that I failed to properly encode the addresses that I had been seeking. Deliver me from the wildernesses of Okeefenokee and the Badlands.”

Stupid, yes. But oddly satisfying. I was raised to put some trust in higher beings, e.g., saints and angels. Why not propitiate a GPS? It couldn’t hurt. It might help. It also feels comfortable, this giving over of a task that I should be able to complete by myself, to get from Point A to Point B, entrusting it (and my life) to a black-framed four-inch-wide screen linked to a computer.

In some matters, I am a blithering idiot. In other matters, I am a non-blithering idiot. And in a very few matters, I am in control … sort of.

But I do not yet know enough.

Neither does the GPS.

Denny Bonavita is a former editor/publisher at newspapers in DuBois, Brookville, New Bethlehem and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: notniceman9@gmail.com