Inadvertent Insistent Sign

A highway running north and south and parallel to railroad tracks (except when crossing them) is known to locals as the Dixie Highway, and to Jimmy Buffett fans and others it is known as (State Road) A1A. It is a roadway I have taken frequently of late while traveling to unpaid work filled with both demolition and construction. I travel northward in the morning, and back southward in the afternoon. To the left as I go north the road is mostly lined with trees, which hide the residences from the passing cars, but I do not think it shields the residents too much from any noise. On the right (still heading north, since it is morning still) the cinder-gravel railroad track bed is not fully shrub-lined but the bushes that grow up to fill the right-of-way are generally allowed to stand.

There are several fully arbored roads within a dozen miles of here, branched and be-leafed over by the banyon trees on either side if one should wish a scenic drive, but this stretch of Dixie looks more rustic rather than a highway one would picture in a magazine or calendar. There are road signs on the way, of course, advising of connecting roads; or cautioning that passing is prohibited; or warning of the penalties for littering, and advertising sponsors who supposedly are keeping sections clean; and in addition, signs that show how fast you are allowed to go.

The signs declare the speed limit is 45 (in miles per hour) and sometimes, when some heavy traffic fills the lanes, or a school bus, or a truck that lumbers languidly, the cars obey the sign’s command, but mostly the speed limit sign is seen as telling us to go no slower.

And a couple mornings past, as Sun was shining through and just above the forest to the east, I was myself proceeding with velocity designed to keep the car behind from testing my back bumper, while the radio was playing upbeat tunes, when up ahead I saw the sign with the 45 in Bold Helvetica begin to flash: bright!, then dull, then bright!, then dull, then bright! again and so on. My foot instinctively eased back on the accelerator, and the driver to my rear must also have observed the flash since there was no collision. I proceeded cautiously, and looked for law enforcement.

But speed signs placed on roads not rural rarely are illuminated by an artificial light source, and no lamp had been attached on any prior outing. Was it, perhaps, a new device, like those rude admonitory flashing screens that tell you that your car is moving 22 inside a zone and at a time when it should be 20, or still better, less, lest some pedestrian be broken on your car hood like those lovebugs smeared upon a windshield driven on the turnpike in the Spring? But no, the sign post stood right where it had been, and the sign, long tilted slightly from the vertical, retained its list. The sign continued bright then dull then bright again.

Were my eyes deceiving me? Were my retinas detaching? Was the car in front engaging in some urgent form of signal? I passed a lengthy gap between the shrubs and illumination was provided. A freight train moving boxcars to the south emerged from the concealing vegetation. I had not heard it due to singers, backed by fiddles and by banjos, warbling of Casey Jones and the Wreck of 97. As each boxcar passed between the Sun and sign the face went dull, since Sol was low enough that shrubbery still cast some shade around the metal plate; and through each gap between the cars the full Sun’s rays came through and made the sign stand out.

Surely there was some significance to draw from that solitary sight? I pondered swiftly but could find none, so sped on.