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The Herald, Friday, April 13, 1990
Article 43
Signs mark the way
It's light reading time again, brought to you by all the signs, billboards,
mailboxes and license plates across America.
Marshville, N.C., is seriously proud of its most famous resident, country music
star Randy Travis. At the town limit is a welcome sign built on a stout brick
foundation. Randy Travis' name is far more prominent on the sign than the word,
"Marshville."
Dovesville, S.C. has a famous resident as well. A handmade addition to the
Dovesville sign proclaims, "Home of Flat Nose the Tree Climbing Dog." Since I
didn't have a celebrity map of Dovesville, I rode on through. Flat Nose hasn't
given many interviews since he had his pacemaker installed.
I rode through an area of Kansas where elaborate mailbox ornaments were the
thing. Pardon me, mailbox statues. The
first one I came to was a marvelous work of art. It was a cowboy relaxing on a
split rail fence with a whip in his hand. I had to get within 10 feet of the
thing before I could tell it was hand-built from odd-shaped pieces of scrap iron
welded together.
Further down the road I came to a pretty fair likeness of the tin man. This guy
was standing with a hard hat on and a cigarette in his mouth.
Obviously mailbox vandalism hasn't yet spread to the Midwest. I wondered how
long either of these statues would last on this side of the Mississippi.
At a stoplight in North Carolina I saw a personalized license plate -- JKLMNOP.
The middle letters of the alphabet? Beats me.
A breakfast house in Stateville, N.C., had several skinny parking spots in front
of a sign, "Compact cars only." I had the strange desire to park a dump truck
right there.
In the North Carolina mountains I passed a sign pointing to Camp Cheerio. That
sounded like a great place for kids to have breakfast.
Not far from Camp Cheerio I came to a settlement that displayed a blunt version
of a familiar message -- "WARNING! This community is watching you." Suddenly I
felt dozens of eyes staring at me. The town's residents were masters of covert
surveillance, as I looked all around but never saw a soul.
At the Colorado state line is a sign, "Fine for littering $1000." No wonder the
roads are spotless. At rest stops I would eat sunflower seeds and collect the
hulls in my hand, afraid to throw them down. I imagined a Litter Patrol officer
hiding behind every rock.
A mobile home dealer's sign in Wilkesboro, N.C., bragged, "Stop in and see
convertible mobile home." What a trick. I almost stopped, sheerly out of
curiosity. Would it be a ragtop or a removable hardtop? How fast could you get
the roof back on if it started raining? (Note: I am forever amazed at the
bizarre ideas I come up with on the road.)
I stopped for a rest break near the Marshall Steam Plant on Lake Norman and took
a photo of my bike leaning against one of Duke Power's "No Trespassing" signs.
It was a stealthy maneuver. I ate pizza very close to the chain link fence that
guarded the top-secret woods. I even kicked around a few of their private
gravels. I rode away feeling like I was truly one up on the world. Strange
what a difference a "No Trespassing" sign can make.
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