Does your husband
Misbehave
Grunt and grumble
Rant and rave
Shoot the brute some
Burma-Shave
Who is old enough to remember reading the now historic Burma-Shave road signs that dotted the nation’s roads from north to south and east to west from the late 1920s through 1963?
Nostalgists and those uninitiated can revisit such signs again this week thanks to the Warren Conservation Commission. Warren Conservation Commission chair Jito Coleman and the commissioners began installing a series of Burma-Shave-modeled signs on Route 100 from Granville to Warren this week.
“We’re trying to make a statement and it’s a way to add a little fun to what we do and also to celebrate what we’re trying to do and the fact that we have a vision of making our river corridors knotweed free,” Coleman said this week.
The sign featured in the picture with this story is one of the six that will be fully installed by tomorrow, August 17, 2023. Watch for more pictures in The Valley Reporter’s Friday Mad River Run Down newsletter.
Coleman said the signs are starting just north of Plunkton Road because they need to be down near the Mad River headwaters.
“We have no plans to put them elsewhere right now and this little jingle will probably have a half-life of a few weeks. We want people to realize that it’s a pretty big thing that we’re doing, and to realize that we could indeed get the knotweed out of our rivers. Our goal at the end of the day is to get people to realize that we have a bigger vision and that we’re doing what we say and that our efforts are paying off,” he added.
Warren, Waitsfield and Fayston are working collectively to control knotweed in each town with the help of a cadre of University of Vermont interns. Organized efforts include work days in each town, having people adopt a section of roads or path or river bank, educational opportunities, experimental drying stations, and more.
The local Burma-Shave style signs will also go up on social media.
Here is the text of the first two signs:
Mad River is born here
Wild, cold, clean, clear
Keep an eye out for the rest of the signs to complete the jingle.
