THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 13, 1996 TAG: 9601130001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Rewards, large and small, were ours when my wife and I, over the holidays, made another of our winter highway loops westerly, then northerly, then back again.
The big prize was our success in maneuvering around any significant weather trouble (though some places, like Minnesota, were plenty cold and had plenty of winter's white on the ground). The feat was made all the more remarkable by the snow-cum-slush-cum-icy-paralysis this area skidded into just as we returned.
Less dramatic than finessing the weather once more, but happy in small ways, were the little snippets of life and landscape that we imbedded in memory along the way - apt or breezy proclamations on signboards, curious little evidences of human thoughtfulness, things like that.
For instance, in a motel at one point along our loop, we discovered an exception to the usual indifference to guests' puzzlement in showers where the mechanics of water control can vary so crazily. Under the nozzle, at easy eye level, was this message: ``Pull handle to turn water on.'' How simple, How sensible. How neat an escape from madness, a scalding or both.
Then there was the snappy headline on a Minneapolis newspaper article about some of the nonmercantile activity in the megamall there:
``When the shoppers drop, the bars hop.''
Another display of economy in the use of language was the billboard outside a car-repair garage, some place in Michigan, I think. Two words did it: ``FENDER MENDER.''
One day we came across a roadside announcement of an up-coming fast-food place. We were told that at such-and-such an intersection ahead we should ``HANG A LEFT.''
At one approach to a major highway we wanted to enter, a bold sign saved us a heap of confusion with advice that went something like this: ``Eastbound ramp to Interstate is just beyond traffic signal.''
To return to Minnesota for a moment, there was this fragment of advertising honesty - a signboard inviting passersby to an establishment that operated a flea market, sold antiques and offered an array of ``Country Clutter.''
Back there, we also liked the name they give the fairyland parade of lighted units that the downtown merchants put on night after night in Minneapolis, both before and after Christmas Day: ``Holidazzle.''
At one home we visited a little later, nearer the end of our trip, we added some Yule lore of another kind. It seems that one young man in the family had said, when asked, that what he wanted for Christmas was cold, hard cash. What he got from one ingenious relative was a piece of paper money frozen solid in the middle of a brick of ice.
And - as a passing comment on this wintry log of ours - that last was as close to a frigid entry as I seem to have come up with. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk. by CNB