SIGNS OF TIMES GONE BY

Someone recently sent me an e-mail with a bunch of those old Burma Shave saying that were popular years ago. That's where there were four signs spaced along the highway that made up a funny saying dealing with safe driving, then a fifth one with the words, "Burma Shave".

They were popular when my sister and I were kids, and we always looked forward to reading them while on a trip. My parents enjoyed them, also, but that was probably because it gave them a brief respite from hearing us argue or asking how much further we had to go.

Along with Burma Shave signs, we also enjoyed looking at regular billboards. Reading them not only gave us something to do but also told us things to look for while passing through a new town, such as auto dealers and restaurants. We also played a game called "Alphabet" that relied on signs. In case you're not familiar with that game, it was guaranteed to create several arguments about who saw what letter first. An argument always made the time go faster, though our parents might not agree.

Maybe those signs from long ago are why I have difficulty understanding why people complain about billboards today. For one thing, not only do they tell my wife and I how far to an exit that sells certain brands of gas, but we also use them to locate our preferred (healthy) fast food restaurant when we don't bother to bring a cooler of sandwiches and bottled water. We also depend on them to help locate a motel -- a big help while exhausted from driving all day.

The people who do complain, say it takes away from the natural beauty of the forests and farmlands. Personally, after staring at nothing for forty or fifty miles but trees and plowed fields, it's a relief to see anything else, including signs. I'd gladly welcome more advertisements along the road, not less.

Maybe the lack of billboards is why most drivers feel a need to drive ten to twenty miles an hour above the speed limit on freeways. They're simply bored and in a hurry to get where they're going where they'll have something to look at. I'll bet if Burma Shave signs ever come back into style, people will slow down to read them. Sure, and pigs will line up to take turns at the trough.

TIME MACHINE?

Since the beginning of technology, scientists have been trying to invent a time machine. Personally, I don't think it's possible to travel backwards or forward in time. Think about it. Everyone would be going back trying to change their past, which would also change their future, which would then change their past, which would then change their...okay, maybe you get the idea. For example, how about if you went back a bunch of years and tried to convince your former self not to do something because it would turn out badly. Say he told you to go fly a kite and the next thing you know, the two of you are rolling around on the ground punching and kicking each other? Remember, you're both of these people. It adds a whole new meaning to the idea of a guilt trip, and they'd have to open drive-through therapy clinics.

On the other hand, you could go back in time and tell your former self to do dangerous, daring feats for huge sums of money, because he couldn't be killed. Otherwise it wouldn't be possible for you to be there from the future telling him he couldn't be killed.

The possibilities boggle the mind. Not only that, but congress would go crazy trying to come up with a whole new set of laws to cover time travel. Of course, they could travel into the future and bring back the set they'd already come up with. Except if there was a law against doing that.

Even if a time machine were possible, I honestly believe that all this back and forth travel to change the past, then the future, then the past, would eventually bring everything to a screeching halt and the entire universe would become one giant, shapeless glob, frozen in time and space for eternity. Sort of like an old fashioned alarm clock that had sprung its main spring.

Now a device to speed or slow the passing of time - well, that's different. And it's already here. Many of us know this device by its common name: computer.

The way it works is, if I want to slow time down, I simply click to download a very large file, or queue up a bunch of text pages for the printer or worse yet, pictures, and it's a sure bet I'll soon be beating my head on the desk, yelling, "Hurry up!"

On the other hand, if I want to speed time up, like when I'm hungry and know lunch won't be for quite awhile, I simply sit down to write a few lines on my latest story. Next thing I know, I'm on page twenty-seven and my wife is calling me for the sixth time to come and eat, while I keep telling her I just need to finish this one last sentence.

So forget time travel. It isn't going to happen. Now, the speed of time, on the other hand...oops, I think it's time for supper.