The Linda Letters by Gabriel O'Sullivan: It's That Time Again

07, September 2024

1125

R. Linda:

Everything in bucolic New Hampshire has been as it should be before Leaf Peeper Season. The place is lush with verdure, and the trees have a hint of colour. The natives are enjoying the peace of summer's end, but hark! The rattle of political signs has begun to be heard as these posters on wire prongs are pushed into the ground overnight, and the natives awaken to the blight of the highway, political signs! Why can't we enjoy summer's end? Why must we be subject to the red, white, blue and sometimes green signs that seemingly pop up overnight on our road corners like weeds? I ask ya! I know, you'll tell me it's New Hampshire's insistence to be the First in the Nation bullshit and all that, and we have brought this upon ourselves, well maybe. I'll give you that digging in heels to be first brings with it these ugly consequences.

We even have cartoon characters running; see here:

And it's GREEN! Okay, it's spelt differently, but you get the drift

I have complained about this every year, and the signage grows worse every year. There is always more of it, and the worst of it is the sign carriers. Yes, R. Linda, the people who risk life and limb to stand on New Hampshire speedways, I mean highways, where pickup trucks speed by at 100 mph and they somehow don't get run over.

I overheard a conversation by one such sign carrier that she was standing on the lip of a concrete curb where a lot of vehicles make u-turns. She was tempted to put her toe in the road to see what it felt like to be run over. I was like, WHAT? I find out she's not from here; she's from Massachusetts, and THAT, my dear R. Linda, says a lot. All I could think of was the tedious hours of standing in the hot sun or drenching rain and being mindless.

However, there is one cowboy in our town who has taken this a step further. Yes, this guy decided if we would pollute our lovely scenery with signs, he'd put one in, too. I thought it was genius. Look here: