Sign me in, please

     A friend who read the foregoing (Maine-ly Maine) suggested I look around our local area. She thought we might have our own examples of humor or wit in road or other signs.

     We do have one example I’ve seen of  … well, humor, I suppose, although of  an indirect, possibly unintentional sort. Actually, it may be more indicative of a bureaucratic mindset – there’s a form line that must be filled, and we’ll fill it, by golly – or, to give the author credit for wit, perhaps a smidgen with bit of irony larded with a dose of sarcasm.

     Along highways and state routes in recent years, departments of transportation have taken to posting signs identifying the rivers and streams those byways cross. As with the “Mousam River” sign to which I referred in Maine.

     Such tasks aren’t always cut and dried. Sometimes finding the names of those streams can be problematic. I’m reminded of a Reader’s Digest-type item I saw years ago about one such transportation official who wanted to identify a small stream somewhere in the Appalachian South. “What’s the name of that creek?” he asked a local. “That? That’s just the crick,” the local said. So, naturally, the sign that eventually went up over the stream read, “Crick Creek.”

     In Pennsylvania, there is a meaner or maybe supercilious streak in the bureaucracy, apparently.

     Route 402, which runs north from our home county of Monroe into neighbor Pike County, at one point crosses a fair-sized stream called the Bushkill Creek. The sign says so. Not far south of the crossing is a small stream that flows into the Bushkill a mile or so downstream from the 402 bridge. I can imagine the transportation guy asking around about the name of that stream. He must have run into some locals who either didn’t know its name or didn’t think it was any of his business, and probably told him so.

     But, see, there is a line that must be filled on the form. There is a requirement that a sign be placed identifying that stream for the casual or curious passerby. And there may even have been a comeuppance to be paid. So the wheels ground out the larger-than-usual sign that graces the stream to this day:

     “Unnamed Tributary to Bushkill Creek.”

     Oh ye of literal, and stubborn – sardonic? -- minds.

Maine-ly Maine

     I had wanted to start a conversation, and said so. And any conversation has its pauses. But this ... it's months long! C-mon!
     So let's try again:
     Despite their flint-hard reputation, reflected in the rock-bound coast that defines their state, Mainers do have a sense of humor. Dry, yes. But seasoned with the salt that blows in from the sea. Or perhaps a dash of Old Bay.
     Just a small example: Road names.
     I saw a piece yesterday about the tiny town of Embden, Maine. (Tiny? How about population, 993!) Officials run through several hundred dollars a year to replacing their frequently-stolen street sign, Katie Crotch Road, a name the origin of which no one really knows. Maybe a "Katie" family near a crotch or fork in the road. Or a fold in a nearby hill, or maybe even a long-deceased, gnarled, old tree. But no one wants to change the name, so they just keep replacing the signs that others --  college students? -- keep stealing.
    I have my own name to offer as evidence of that Maine sense of humor.
As you travel south down the Maine turnpike, not far south of Portland, you cross a river. The river's name, thanks to conscientious transportation officials and their signs, we know is the Mousam River. How pronounced? "Mouse-am?" Or "Moose-am"? Being Maine, you might favor "Moose." But I think the former, because about a quarter-mile down the road you drive under an over-pass. The road you are passing under? "Cat Mousam Road."
     You can't accept "Moose" with that pun hanging out there over I-95.
     Why the name? Some family names Mousam who lived alongside that stream, probably. But "Cat"? That's the unexpected wry wit.
     Anyway, we don't have to investigate the provenance of either the river's or the road's name. We only have to enjoy the chuckle and the Maine sense of humor.