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Rev. Joey N. Welsh: Lessons from those Burma Shave signs ANOTHER ANGLE: the occasional musings of a Kentucky pastor By The Rev. Joey N. Welsh WISDOM FROM THE ROADSIDE This essay first printed in The Hart County News-Herald, January 8, 2006. First posted, CM, This story was posted on 2007-05-20 at 11:22:21 Back in the late 1980's Robert Fulghum became a celebrity with the publication of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. That book was a collection of essays about wisdom found in everyday places. I remember liking that book a lot, and the idea of finding great truths in common circumstances has always appealed to me. A recent article about the anniversary of the publication of Fulghum's book reminded me of another source of wisdom. Clinton Odell and his son Allan were promoting their new product, Burma Shave, 80 years ago. Burma Shave was a shaving cream sold in jars and squeezable tubes, a new idea in a world where men's shaving needs were usually met with the use of shaving soap in a mug lathered up with the bristles of a small brush. Allan proposed an idea: advertise the product with roadside promotional signs using short, pithy rhymes. Beginning in 1925 with an advertising outlay of $200.00, the Burma Shave ad signs eventually spread across the country and numbered in the thousands. This form of advertising flourished throughout the next 38 years. By 1963, though, times had changed. The advent of interstate highways, faster cars, billboards and gimmicky broadcast ads spelled the end of any more new little white-on-red Burma Shave signs. The Burma Shave product and name were acquired by the Phillip Morris Corporation. The signs have now been gone for a longer period than they existed, and a majority of Americans have grown up without experiencing Burma Shave rhymes. Still, for people of a certain age, much of what we needed to know we learned from Burma Shave signs. (The signs helped me learn to read. When I was a first-grader those signs were like an early lesson in speed reading at a time when I was still sounding out my words slowly and deliberately.) Today's people are missing out on a lot of roadside wit and teaching, because: Burma Shave taught highway safety:
If this column is your first encounter with these roadway verses, you have my sympathy. Burma Shave was a good teacher of clear language cleverly used in an age when people drove slowly enough to absorb the wisdom of the roadside. I'm sorry you missed that era! This story was posted on 2010-09-05 10:26:26
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