Sunday, July 25, 2010

Signs of the Times

Took a drive across mid-America last week.

Along the way were signs of the times.

Billboards, to be exact. And other signs.

West of St. Louis on old-Route-66-cum-Interstate 44, a business has posted a billboard against current government policies. Elsewhere on the same highway: “Missouri loves Arizona (Mexico, too).”

One Midwestern billboard proclaims a quote from John Adams: “Liberty once lost, is lost forever.”

An upper middle class Michigan neighborhood has political-style yard signs proclaiming “Taxed Enough Already.”

What really got my attention were black-on-white wooden signs in Illinois cornfields along the interstate in the manner of the old Burma-Shave jingles that were popular from the 1920s to the ‘60s. For those too young to remember, Burma-Shave advertised around the country on sets of a half dozen red-on-white signs about a foot high and a yard wide. Each sign contained part of a rhyme with the last sign having the Burma-Shave logo. As seen below, some series of signs advertised the product, others functioned as kinds of public service announcements:

Our fortune
Is your
Shaven face
It's our best
Advertising space
Burma-Shave

Or

Dim your lights
Behind a car
Let folks see
How bright
YOU are
Burma-Shave

Regarding the political jingles in Illinois, I can’t recall what any of them said. They came up too quickly to write down. Also, they were difficult to read at 70 miles per hour, which is exactly the reason Burma-Shave abandoned its roadside advertising campaign as the interstates spread during the ‘60s. However, I was able to make out the last sign in the series: “billboardsforillinois.com” and upon entering that URL into my computer I was directed to a site entitled “Billboards for America.”

There I found that a group of small business people began an organization that is gradually buying billboards to make claims against growing government encroachment. Now they have billboards in eleven states and are collecting donations for more.

Their web site (http://www.billboardsforamerica.com/) gives samples of their billboard messages:

“Liberal Plan: They Spend. We Pay. Children Owe.”

“The Bigger the Government, the Smaller the Citizen.”

And my favorites, two billboards designed to look like electric-lit road work signs:

****ALERT****
50 STATE PILEUP AHEAD
SEEK ALT RTE - NOV 2 2000

And

****ALERT****
GOVT SPENDING OUT OF CONTROL
SEEK ALT RTE - NOV 2 2000

It was interesting last week to drive across the county’s heartland, where people tend not be flamboyant and are inclined to mind their own business.

But they’re restless.

Something is stirring.

You can see the signs.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Mike....How about this for a sign from Pueblo America

    Make Love, Not War
    Make Obama President, Of the Gulf Shore
    Let him stew in all the oil
    Till America returns to it's truthful soil

    Just a thought
    Shawn

    ReplyDelete