As bunch of errands had me on the freeway yesterday. A little congestion slowed everybody down in time for me to look up and see this on the highway signage:
Keep your speed down
Wear your safety gear
Get home in one piece
It was more interesting than the usual signage and as it was three lines, I automatically starting counting the syllables, wondering if it was MNDots idea of highway haiku. Not haiku.
When I got home, I wondered if I could find any information online about the signage. I was surprised to find out that there is actually a program called “Message Monday” that encourages safe driving. You can even submit your own idea for a message on the website. Some of the messages are actually quite funny:
Fly under
The radar by
Obeying speed limit
Give blood
The right way
Not on the highway
Don we now our
Fastened seatbelt
Fa la la la la la
I’m not sure I want to increase my highway time on Mondays to see more of these messages, but I do find it intriguing that this program exists. Of course, if I submit something it will have to be
Speedy Gonzalez
You’re not. Please keep the pedal
Off of the metal
What message would you like to submit?
Trail Baboon 
I don’t know you.
Kindly get off
my azzzz.
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Decades ago, fresh out of the Army, I moved into an apartment with two high school classmates, one of whom was Chicano. I was VERY culturally oblivious. One day he started talking about cartoon characters like The Frito Bandito, Speedy Gonzalez, and other “comic Mexicans”, revealing his ire. Though I didn’t understand him at that moment, I took something to heart. Your Speedy Gonzalez message is clever, but I don’t think it will pass muster as “inclusive and respectful.” But then, maybe a certain part of the zeitgeist might see me as “woke.”
I remember a Burma Shave sign from when I was even younger: “drinking drivers, nothing worse, they put the quart before the hearse.”
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Speedy was shelved and then brought back. He is very popular in Latin American on the whole, with a minority objecting to the stereotype. I was pretty young when it debuted. It was of the things that made me aware of stereotype at a young age along with Charlie Chan and a host of portrayals Native Americans and African Americans.
Clyde
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I was astounded to learn that the actor in the Charlie Chan movie was actually Swedish.
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And the other prolific Charlie Chan was an American actor. What was astounding is that I didn’t think either one of them were very good actors, but between the two of them, they made about four dozen Charlie Chan movies!
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Put your damn phone down
And pay attention to the
road, you idiot!
Chris in Owatonna
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Laughing out loud!
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Look! I made a Haiku. 🙂
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I knew you had it in you.
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Pretty good “flash fiction” for a novelist, eh? 😉
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Texting and driving
Isn’t surviving
Hang up and drive
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Text or drive.
As Thoreau said,
One world at a time.
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Apropos this morning:
It’s a beautiful 74° morning.
Turn off the AC.
Roll down a window.
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Those other autos
Are not merely obstacles
They are people; slow down
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At the next stoplight
You’ll join the cars you sped past.
What, then, is the point?
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Or maybe this is better:
Those cars you just passed
Will join you at the next light
So what was the point?
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Perfect!!
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There are deer lurking here.
The bumper you save
Might be yours.
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Turn signals tell
What you are going to do.
Not what you are doing.
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Snort!
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Actually, I snorted at several of these…
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Red, my friend, is red
It is not green or yellow
Learn to tell the difference.
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OT They slipped up on ordering and ran out of morphine. Being delivered now. She is shaking in pain.
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Oh dear…
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Stepson used to have one similar to Chris’ –
(Holy cow, it works as a haiku!)
Do you think you could
drive any better with that
cell phone up your butt?
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Some more gems from the Burma Shave archives:
A NUT AT THE WHEEL
A PEACH ON HIS RIGHT
A CURVE IN THE ROAD
FRUIT SALAD THAT NIGHT
THE ONE WHO DRIVES WHEN
HE’S BEEN DRINKING
DEPENDS ON YOU
TO DO HIS THINKING
IF DAISIES ARE
YOUR FAVORITE FLOWER
KEEP PUSHIN’ UP
THOSE MILES-PER-HOUR
HE LIT A MATCH
TO CHECK GAS TANK
THAT’S WHY THEY CALL HIM
SKINLESS FRANK
and the one I remember from childhood drives:
SPRING HAS SPRUNG
THE GRASS HAS RIZ
WHERE LAST YEAR’S
CARELESS DRIVER IS
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