SIGNS

Remembering Burma Shave’s messages

our Nevada highway friends

always there to bring a smile

    On curves ahead
Remember, sonny
That rabbit's foot
Didn't save
The bunny
Burma-Shave

But dwarfed they were

by goliath billboards

Slots that pay

Dancing girls to die for

All day breakfast

Low room rates

Outrageous they were

But mostly my memories

of highway advertisements back then

pale in recalling one that seemed repainted every year

we took our summer vacation

captured in snap shots from my Brownie

three years in a row

letters red

jungle black

never faded

“Orangutan from Borneo – 1 mile ahead”

Always stopped

gassed up the ’46 Hudson

your pride and joy

sat down in the café

coffee for you

Jello for Mom

‘rang cage for me

Didn’t matter there was nothing in the cage

Dead?

Never knew.

but

mini-stuffed versions galore

movie-flip pages

of really keen sketches

probably done when it was alive

I guess

Collected fourteen in all

flip

flip

swing

swing

vine to vine

branch to branch

a hero he was

at that lonely desert stop

on the way to yet the bigger fantasy Strip

So just thought you’d appreciate

a simple memory

you gave me

never forgot how it all started

those lessons you taught

how it began with shined windows of the car

so I’d be able to see clear

the signs

every summer

every season

so many behind us now

the guideposts

the buried lessons

the simple things

so long in the past

I keep finding

these many years later

So…

Thank you Dad

wish I’d been able to speak this to the pews

but never lost my fear of crowds

and

oh my

the many here to say goodbye

Damn…

Know I’m dragging this out

but...well

I’ll fold it now

pastor said okay to put it in your hand

Think of this paper

as just another memory

we shared

kinda

Signs

More coming up for you Dad

Lots more