Now or never now, now, now

Briefly Appreciating the Small Things with Linda 
Today's topic: Signage on the highway 

I like thinking about the person who chose the Pantone 348 Forest Green background color of all the mile markers, exits, and interstate signs. It must have been someone's job, and I wonder if they picked green as a small apology to nature. ("Sorry for paving dirty asphalt stripes all over your face, Earth. From now on we'll try to blend in.") I like thinking about how long it would take me, personally, to install a single exit sign, to jam the rod in the ground at a remarkably accurate perpendicular and bolt on the sheet metal face securely enough to survive a tornado. It causes me to notice the sheer number of signs on the road and how elegantly they're coordinated, the comforting pacing of the two mile, one mile, half mile, and quarter mile warnings before every exit. My favorite road signs -- and the ones most likely to become a point of conversation in the car -- are the unnecessary ones: signs that let you know the name of the lake to your right, or that the next exit will take you to the local community college. When the highway slides under an overpass, a sign is usually there to tell you the name of the crossing road, even though you can't get to it. Signs like that aren't vital; even in the pre-GPS days, we could all get by without them. But they're courteous. They give you a firmer sense of place and help you get to your destination with fewer errors and less grumbling.

(I like the fact that, in doing some curious-minded research for this post, I discovered not only that all our highway signs use a standardized front developed by the U.S. government called Highway Gothic, but also that there was a challenger font called Clearview that was introduced but never quite caught on, much to the chagrin of Clearview supporters, who exist.)