Place names and wonder

As I continue to make my way through the Old Testament, I am often tempted to jump ahead and leap past the long and enumerative portions where land is apportioned amongst the tribes of Israel. Leaving aside the question as to why it seems to have been done at least twice (and I certainly don't have the discipline or time to go back and validate that impression), I try as best I can to resist that temptation and just read the text, because you never know when something's gonna jump out at you. For example, Joshua 19:17-22 tells us that "The fourth lot was cast for the sons of Issachar family by family. Their boundary included Jezreel, Kesulloth, Shunem, Hapharaim, Shion, Anaharath, Rabbith, Kishion, Ebez, Remeth, En-gannim, En-haddah, and Beth-pazzez."

This brings to mind nothing so much as the wonder of reading place names in Dr. Seuss, themselves likely drawn from the etymo-topological base of the Bible. The names were fresh and mysterious when reading them as a parent to Graham and Natalie and so must have been doubly so when I first read them as a child.

Which makes me ponder the impact on imagination of the shrinking of the planet and the omni-availability of all information via the interweb. While it has many beneficent effects, it also dims the power of our imaginations to conjure worlds from nothingness, much as Google Maps makes it harder for us to remember to learn how to get around places, because we don't have to anymore.

Or, perhaps, I am just turning into Andy Rooney, whose cantankerous 60 Minutes segment was inaugurated, per Wikipedia, when he was just about the age I am now.