FUNNY SIGNS OF THE TIMES and Other Times

I enjoy those outdoor church signs. If they’re not too wordy and I’m not driving too fast I have time to read the whole sign. I laugh so hard at the really funny ones it wiggles the steering wheel. So it’s no longer just the sign that’s funny, my driving becomes funny. But a cop wouldn’t think so.

Here’s one that got me gurgling by surprise: “Try Jesus. If you don’t get along together the Devil will always take you back.”

Instead of my long list, I’m betting I’ve stimulated you into remembering your own favorites. If so, let us hear 'em in the comments section.

There are at least two kinds of funny communications. FIrst are statements that are intended to be funny, like the above. But often even funnier are statements meant to be serious that get twisted into the opposite. Just a bit of inept wording can do it. “We chose our winner due to her poise and personality.” That looked OK when typed on the speaker’s notes. But hearing it left the audience wondering who and how died because of her lethal personality . Best to read aloud stuff you mean to be spoken unless you’re aiming for that kind of a laugh.

Foreign language throws humor curves at us too. I once was in a Germanic-mock-up Rathskellar Tavern. I decided to forego drinking and just ate the peanuts. No desire to open up the wrong restroom door until I figured out the ‘Damen and Herren” signs. I tried using ‘reason,’ like our teachers tried so hard to instill in us. It worked, but backward ... “Herren’ had “Her” in it. And any mobster might dash through the other door he read as “Da Men.” Poor jerk.. Cuz dose men wasn’t in dere.

But the church signs will have to do until the once-famed but now almost forgotten Burma Shave road signs come back. Driving across the USA before the interstates replaced our more leisurely highways, you’d find them. Sets of separate signs spaced for easy reading of a poetic phrase at a time. They were ever-changing. Written by clever, even brilliant rhymesters. Here is one I saw blooming among the prairie wildlflowers of southern Wyoming:

SPRING HAS SPRUNG
THE GRASS HAS RIZ
WHERE LAST YEAR’S
CARELESS DRIVERS IS.

...were the first four signs. Then always ending with
the last sign: BURMA SHAVE.

Hoping that even if you’re too young to shave you pay heed to the first four signs. Then you might live to BE old enough!