More Signs From the Road of Life

I’m sick of the news.  So, I decided to ignore it at least long enough to work on a blog post.  That meant that I had to come up with something more entertaining than depressing, which didn’t seem likely to be too difficult.  Guess what?  It wasn’t.  I realized that it’s been a while since I did a post based on the collection of signs which I keep finding and/or people send to me because they seem amusing.  So, I looked in my files (which are MUCH bigger than they should be) to see what I could find.  I don’t know that there’s any sort of “theme” to this, just a few signs which leapt off the screen at me as entertaining.  I hope they may make someone else’s day more pleasant, as they have helped me.

My brother-in-law sent me this picture of an art gallery in Santa Fe, NM, a while back.  I found it to be great fun.  I’m not sure what the dragon says about art, or Santa Fe, or about anything, but it amused me a lot, so here it is!  Make of it whatever you wish.

This next pic isn’t really a sign at all (although it shows one in use) and most people will probably think that it’s some sort of attempt on my part to imply that cheerleaders aren’t very smart.  Believe me, that is NOT my intent.  I will confess that I don’t think that I knew any collegiate level cheerleaders, but I knew most of the girls who held that position when I was in high school (and, I should point out that my high school was quite large with about 3600 students when I was there, so the competition to be a cheerleader in those pre-Title 9 days was pretty high).  In any case, I did know those young ladies and, at least as I remember them, I thought all of them were fairly attractive, pretty skilled at those things cheerleaders did, and, in fact, quite bright.  I was in some classes with some of them and they were regular members of many “advanced” classes, including Advanced Placement classes as Seniors and, I believe that I am correct, that they all went to what I would have called “good” colleges.  

Still, I will admit that cheerleaders, as a group, do not, generally, enjoy the reputation of being unusually smart, so I understand where the person who took this picture is coming from, even if I do NOT believe that it is a truly accurate representation of the mental abilities of cheerleaders.  So, even though it is clearly playing to an unflattering stereotype, I found this picture amusing.  Perhaps others will, too.

To shift the focus back to actual signs which someone has encountered, I offer this little gem.  I confess that I got quite a laugh out of seeing it a while ago (which is why I saved it), as it may be one of the truest things said so far this century…

Some signs are just too wonderful to ignore.  Take, for example, this one which is, of course, a perfectly legitimate, standard, National Park Service sign being used for a perfectly legitimate, standard purpose.  At first glance, one would find nothing unusual about it.  However, a moment’s thought gives it a twist into “The Twilight Zone!”

​Here’s another example of a sign which requires at least some thought.  I suppose that it makes perfect sense that it was in front of a bookstore, which suggests that strange people (like English Majors) might be hanging around.  Well, I wasn’t an English Major (although I confess that I did hang out with some) but I found it amusing, in any case.

I don’t think it takes an English Major to “get” this sign.  It might require an IQ above the level of a piece of gravel, but I’m not sure.  Still, it seems to have been a real sign, although I wonder how long it stayed up.

This one isn’t exactly a “sign,” but it’s close enough that I’m going to include it.  I suspect that most people have had the experience of a “bad bug season,” so most of us can identify with it.

THIS one, other the other hand, is, apparently, an actual, official sign posted by Transport For London on some Underground (Tube) interchange to warn patrons of the presence of an actual goose which had, apparently, taken over Platform 2 and had proven sufficiently unpleasant to patrons that it was felt necessary to provide a warning, thus reassuring the public of the essential decency and politeness of the British public.  I found it quite refreshing.

This, final sign (at least for this time) is a picture I took of a sign my wife used to have on her desk at the Honors College at Western when she was working there for a number of years.  I have always admired the truth of what it says and consider it to be a sign with rather universal application.

I shall return in a couple of weeks.  Who knows where my mind will have taken me by then…?

🖖🏼 LLAP,
​
Dr. B

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children."
                                                                                      — Nelson Mandela
“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”                                                            ― Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows           
 “Not everything which can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”                                        
​                                                                                     — from a sign in Albert Einstein’s office