for Shannon, a nicer car trip

October, 2013

Those Who Can Read, And Don't, Are No Better Off Than Those Who Can't Read At All.

You see different things as a driver than you do as a passenger. Of course, drivers are more intent on traffic and possible hazards; passengers get the chance to looky-loo. But there are things that filter through. For example, two blocks away from our favorite Chinese restaurant is a sporting goods store with stunning shadow portraits of different athletic performers along the wall. All done in dark pumpkin, gold, tan and brown, it's a mental cue to get ready for a left turn on a side street that's so small you can't see it until you pass it.

Polar Ice Skating Rink is another eye catcher. Their outside wall is studded with running LED lights; fly past at 45 and it feels like you're in the Millennium Flacon and Chewie just punched hyperdrive. (Ducky likes to take his glasses off to enhance the experience.)

Then there's the dreck that floats by without acknowledgement. Cookie cutter housing developments. Boring mini-malls. Billboards.

Okay, some billboards are not bad. There's a pretty one, rather Art Nouveau-ish, flogging—of all things—high tech camera inspection of your sewer lines.

A local arts and crafts store resurrected the old Burma-Shave campaign of a four-line poem (plus a last line promoting the store) on signs leading to their store—they change on a weekly basis, and some employees are more creative than others. The only one I remember is My boss said I have to / Make up the sign / If I want to keep / The job that's mine. The last sign normally read Shop Krafty's; the employee had added his or her own bits so it read, Dear God, Please Shop Krafty's so I can pay my rent! I'd like to think they had banner sales that week. (If we tried that promotion with Papyrus, I shudder to think of the results. My employees are all a bubble off plumb, just like their boss.)

While we were on our way to replace the pile of clothes that Lexi had managed to outgrow overnight, Ducky spied one that made him literally groan out loud. Two Out of Five Children Is Not Reading at Grade level. "Who is their copy editor, George Bush?" he muttered.

Lexi was staring out the side window behind me, and I could see the growing look of horror. "What is it?"

"Wook!" She pointed up.

We were at a red light, so I glanced over. It was a Truly Nolen Pest Control sign—but instead of their cute car with the tail and ears (the Corgis all go bananas when they see one of those cars drive by), the billboard was promoting reading and early childhood habits. The picture of parents with a child and a big storybook on their laps was captioned, READ WITH YOUR CHILD 15 MINUTES A DAY!

I was baffled. Lexi is as big a reader as anyone else in the house. Why would she object to a billboard celebrating reading? "What's the problem?"

She was beyond aghast. "They make them stop after fifteen minutes?!"

Okay. Now I get it.