I once put a sign up in my front yard saying:
The Source
Arenzville Population 450 Altitude 623 Presbyterians 7 Total: 1280
It caused a bit of a stir in town. Car after car would stop in the middle of the street in front of my house, as people would simply stare, trying to figure out what it meant. And of course it meant nothing. Somehow a picture of my sign got submitted to a national magazine and was distributed across the country. Even though my identity wasn’t revealed in the photo’s cutline, I received several inquiries from around the U.S. as to what the sign meant. The answer was still “nothing.” Several years ago the Springfield Journal Register sent a writer and photographer to do a feature story. It’s been my experience that photographers are nicer than writers. Maybe they have more fun in their jobs. This camera guy was a real hoot and we spent a delightful afternoon laughing our way through posed shots of burgoo kettles, swing sets in the Arenzville park, and pretended to be creative at my computer. The Journal Register finally chose a picture of me leaning against the town’s west boundary marker. The sign said: Arenzville Population 21 Due, I suppose, to our little town’s fast-changing demographic, the numbers had been applied with those stick-on numbers that you buy at Midland Farm Supply and the “4” had blown away in the last storm, immediately erasing four hundred of the town’s inhabitants. The editors thought that the smaller number more adequately depicted the smallness. The sign of course meant nothing. When I was in high school I lived in Perry. If you were out for a wild evening you headed toward Pittsfield. They had an actual pool table and ten times more girls than my little town had to offer. However, it was hard to tell the distance of your trip. Leaving Perry the sign said, “Griggsville 7 miles,” but when you returned home that evening after a wild night of slamming 8-balls around the green velvet while dreaming of a Saukee princess, you left Griggsville to be greeted by a sign saying, “Perry 6 miles.” Seven miles from Perry to Griggsville, but only six miles on the return trip…on the same road. I never won any math award while attending Perry High School, but I was smart enough to know that sometimes a sign means nothing. I feel the same way every time I drive across Illinois and see signs proclaiming, “Improvement Ahead.” Really? In Illinois? The only time you’ll see much road improvement in Illinois it’s accompanied by a sign that says, “Welcome to Missouri.” Once upon a time while teaching Jr. High English I put a young man in the passenger seat of my car and we trolled our way down Morton Avenue. The young fellow shot video of the signage up and down Jacksonville’s busiest strip. When we brought the video back to class it was their assignment (and delight) to find all the punctuation mistakes on the town’s most traveled thoroughfare. Apostrophes were the biggest bugaboo of most Morton Avenue businesses. Although they may have been good at business, grammar was not a strong point among the entrepreneurs. Among the offenses that even my seventh-graders could spy were: “Special: Double Cheeseburger’s!” “Todays Bargains!” “Mens’ Suit Sale” I told my little charges that some people use punctuation like saltshakers. They spread their words out on their plate then they just sort of sprinkle the commas and apostrophes over the top, letting them land where they may. And, without the right punctuation the signs mean…well…nothing. It seems that everywhere you turn there’s a doomsday prophet ready to tell us the last earthquake, tsunami, paralyzing winter, and bedbug invasion is a sign that the end of times is near. Frankly, it’s tough enough to endure a natural catastrophe without some weirdo shouting blame from the nearest hilltop. Besides, according to my reading of scriptures the final curtain call will come as a surprise. As to the other signs…well…I have a notion that they mean….nothing.