How One Drove Across the Country

Imagine a turquoise 1956 Chevy Bel Air hardtop with the proud new owners up front, their adorable son in the back, heading from the suburbs of New York across the country to Salt Lake City (and thence to Las Vegas and Anaheim). The trip, if you don't kill yourself but it you do get up every morning at the crack of dawn (I can remember my parents pulling me out of the motel cot before the sun had risen—yes, dear reader, I was that adorable son), takes about five days. So you load up the back seat with just about every portable entertainment that you can dig up to keep the adorable son entertained, and you're successful for at least a few hours on the first day, but let me tell you, even now my eyes tear over with boredom just reminiscing about it. The prairie, which in 1955 stretched roughly from Hoboken to Hollywood and Vine, was one damned nothing after another. Occasionally you would catch sight of Laura Ingalls Wilder collecting cow pies to cook the family dinner, but that was about it. The most memorable part of the trip was getting stung by a bee, since we drove with the windows open (no air conditioning back then) and the wildlife was free to visit at will. As you drove along you prayed for something interesting to look at, which is why roadside attractions sprung up in the first place. It wasn't that you really wanted to visit the Living Dinosaur Museum or the Home of the Giant Corn Cob or Great Big Hole in the Ground, because you knew that it wasn't worth a stop and it would just slow you down, but at least you got to look at the signs telling you "Only 50 Miles to the Great Big Hole in the Ground," or "Only 20 Miles to the Great Big Hole in the Ground," or "Turn back! You missed the Great Big Hole in the Ground."

And then there were the Burma-Shave signs.

Jimmie said a naughty word
Jimmie's mother overheard
Soapsuds? No!
He preferred
Burma-Shave

Some of the signs were actually about Burma-Shave (a brushless shaving cream).

All these years
Your skin has dried
Why not moisten
Up your hide
Burma-Shave

Some were advisory in a general sense.

You can beat
A mile a minute
But there ain't
No future in it
Burma-Shave

What kind is this?

The midnight ride
Of Paul for beer
Led to a warmer
Hemisphere
Burma-Shave

As the adorable son in the back seat, it took me a while to realize that the Burma-Shave part wasn't supposed to rhyme. I couldn't figure out why it was there at all, but then again, I was a kid. The signs were taken down (except for some recreations) in 1963 when the company was bought by Philip Morris, whose lawyers advised them to discontinue. Those same lawyers didn't advise them to discontinue selling cigarettes?

Get all the signs and a little backstory at The Motion-Graphic Ads Of Burma-Shave: 1927-1963.

[Via Salon]
.