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Good idea, Stan.
Hi,
I gotta get in the habit of posting one of these a day....
1927
Goodbye Shaving Brush
Half A Pound
For
Half A Dollar
Very Fine
For The Skin
Druggists Have It
Cheer Up Face
The War Is Over
Burma-Shave
Now, these all used all upper case lettering. I am not here because then y'all will think I am shouting at you!
Some signs had double lines and so I am putting those down as I did above. The blank line between each means a different sign a bit down the road. I suppose I could stick more blank lines in, but then the posts grow a tad large.
Anyway, read a line, pause a second, and then read the next to get somewhat of the cadence the signs had whilst motoring along.
Later on, about five more posts in, we get to 1929 and the first of the rhyming sign sets. They become a lot more fun then. There were ever more signs per year as they went along, and it is a long way to 1963. Lots of fun still to come.
Stan
My Col. Williams became a doughnut today. I’m not sure how many Fridays are left in it but it will signify the end of 2 pucks. Col conk lime and Williams. I think I will put my new puck of tabac in rotation next.
AoM; B.O.S.S.;Knight of the Veg Table;WISE;CoA;4yr/10yr Sabbatical
How many shaves did you get from your Williams puck?
I’m right at 100 shaves minimum with it. It’s part of a daily rotation and only gets used on Fridays for the most part since the first of April 2018.
But, those are 6 pass face/head shaves. 3 passes each.
AoM; B.O.S.S.;Knight of the Veg Table;WISE;CoA;4yr/10yr Sabbatical
Just face shaves, I could easily get 200 shaves or more from 1 puck.
AoM; B.O.S.S.;Knight of the Veg Table;WISE;CoA;4yr/10yr Sabbatical
It's still early to tell, but I may be able to get 350 single pass shaves out of my current puck. The number could be way off as I'm keeping the puck moister than in the past.
Hi,
I had an idea a couple years ago for a year-long theme: Burma-Shave. As in the roadside signs from Way Back. Enter one a day for the duration.
Never did it, though. Other folks had better ideas, or at least I thought theirs were better than mine.
And, there are a lot more Burma-Shave roadside signs than needed for a single year. It would have been pick and choose on my part. But, for this. Ten Years. Yeah. Sounds like the place to stick them all.
The early ones aren't rhyming, but the list is by Year as they went out alongside the roads. Start at the beginning, I think.
For those that don't know, this was a very old advertising methodology. A series of signs placed at intervals which gave a message and told who it was advertising. We can still see billboard versions alongside Interstates. Like I-90 500 miles each side of Wall, South Dakota for Wall Drug. Or, I-95 200 miles either side on the NC / SC line for South of the Border.
I think Burma-Shave began it all, though. Small wooden signs on steel posts, painted red with white lettering. Mostly trying to tell everyone who passed that Burma-Shave was a brushless shaving creme. Early ones were pretty straightforward, but later they rhymed. Ran from 1927 until 1963 when ever faster driving pretty much meant no one was reading them any longer.
Some, and my favorites, were Public Service Ads. They usually talked about being safe on the road, with the only ad part being the always-used last sign in the series which always read: Burma-Shave.
Note, that Burma-Shave has nothing to do with the current items we see with that name on it. That's someone who is just using the old brand name. And, I don't think anything with the name on it nowadays is a brushless shaving creme at all. Not even akin to What Was....
Anyway, if I pop one a day, or every couple of days, it will give some fun traffic in what is likely to be, ahem, a long road....
Here is a PSA version, randomly picked from the list. 1939:
Past
Schoolhouses
Take It Slow
Let The Little
Shavers Grow
Burma-Shave
The way this worked, is they sat alongside a straight stretch of road 10-20 feet apart, 6 feet off the ground. The board sizes varied over the years, but originally were 3 feet long, 10 inches high, and an inch thick made of pine dipped in paint and then having 4 inch lettering.
The signs were white on red or black on orange but eventually just the white on red. At least, I never recall seeing black on orange ones. When I was a kid, there were still some around on the roads even though Burma-Shave wasn't around to be bought any more. The last set I recall was in the 1990s alongside Old US 1 between Raleigh and Southern Pines, NC that a farmer kept up on his own.
Some museums have them still. But, the set I recall had been placed there long ago and maintained by successive generations because they liked the things alongside the old road in front of their farm.
So, as you went down the road, you'd read one line at a time. You'd have to remember all the lines as you read them to get the message. The backside of each side all read Burma-Shave so no one was trying to read the other side of the road. Yeah. I bet that worked out. I can see necks swivelling like mad in my mind's eye.
Way back when personal computers were 4.88 MHz and ran DOS, I wrote a program that ran at boot time and popped the lines out in a cadence like you were driving past the signs at 45 MPH. Yeah. I made you wait for it. And, remember the lines. At the end, I put them all up for a few seconds before the program ended.
Anyway, I have all the sign texts still, by year they came out, and could stick them out here as we roll along for a decade.
What do folks think?
Stan
Gentleman, I am going to have to respectfully withdraw from these two competitions. As much as I love saving money, I also know that I’m about to pull the trigger on some new soaps. I have a few feeling the sabbaticals just aren’t for me. I have lots of respect for those that stay in, but I have no willpower to not purchase stuff, ha.