Road signs.
Sometimes the things you’ve lost can be found again in unexpected places.
-Lemony Snicket
I can remember, when I was a kid, driving across Nevada on a two-lane highway, back before I-80 was completed. It was endless and the scenery was quite bleak – just miles and miles of semi-arid desert dust and sage brush. In between tiny clumps of civilization, there were no houses, no fences, no livestock and no trees. Just a whole lot of nothing. The road was, for the most part, straight as a rifle barrel, with only a few curves here and there.
There was, however, something that broke up the monotony a little – Burma-Shave signs. On the side of the road were a series of signs, spaced about 100 feet apart, that bore poetry of a sort. The signs would be maybe a foot wide and four feet long, placed low, about three feet above the ground. Each sign had a line of poetry, except for the last sign that said, in an artistic logo, Burma-Shave. For example:
HER CHARIOT RACED
AT EIGHTY PER
THEY HAULED AWAY
WHAT HAD BEN HUR
BURMA-SHAVE
Or:
SLOW DOWN, PA
SAKES ALIVE
MA MISSED
SIGNS FOUR AND FIVE
BURMA-SHAVE
Or:
SUBSTITUTES
ARE LIKE A GIRDLE
THEY FIND SOME JOBS
THEY JUST CAN’T HURDLE
BURMA-SHAVE
They were quite entertaining and served well to break up the seeming endlessness of the trip.
At one time, there were some 7,000 signs in 45 states, mostly touting the product, a shaving cream. But, like those above, some referred to safe driving and even romance. Their history goes back to the 1920s, when a guy by the name of Alan Odell got the idea of posting a series of signs (usually four or five) advertising his father’s product. In 1963, the
company was sold to Phillip Morris and the signs were taken down on advice of counsel.
I haven’t thought about those signs much, over the years. Then, I saw a movie, “The Fastest Indian in the World” and there was a scene where a driver and passenger read the signs as they went past them. I remembered the built up of anticipation, driving along and only being able to read one sign at a time, and waiting for the final punchline. It was fun. So many nice things have been lost as time marches on.
I have had the idea of leaving little markers, circular and about 3.5 inches in diameter, on the sides of the trails that Waldo and I wander down. On the sign would be a sketch of Waldo with his head and paws above and hanging over a sign that says, “WALDO WAS HERE.” I would design it so it was reminiscent of the “KILROY WAS HERE” sketches that the GIs left all over Europe during WWII. Wouldn’t it be fun to leave other little signs along the way as well, like the Burma-Shave signs? Well, I may be willing to try to leave the “WALDO WAS HERE” signs as we explore the world and people might even leave some of them up for a while. But, I
fear, there are too many people out there who would take exception to a series of signs like that and make it even more likely for them all to be taken down. Sigh. Still, wouldn’t it be amusing to be hiking somewhere and come across a collection of signs, with silly poetry, that lead you on your way, and end with “WALDO WAS HERE”? Something like:
ALMOST EVERYTHING
HAS A SMELL
SINCE I’M A DOG
I SNIFF THEM WELL
WALDO WAS HERE
Waldo and I are back to walking the rail-trail near our home and looking for other trails to explore. There is no dearth of trails to choose from, they are everywhere, and we’re sure to be wandering down more. Who knows, maybe we will even be able to venture down some not so well-worn paths in some other part of the world someday. Wouldn’t it be wonderful for people to go hiking all over the world and see “WALDO WAS HERE” signs, along with some “poetry?”
If only I thought of this when I was younger…
The commercial.