verse by the side of the road frank rowsome

Throughout the country, enterprising horses were discovering that, by sidling under an overhanging sign and humping slightly, a richly sensuous scratching could be achieved and often, in some transport of equine ecstasy, the sign would snap.' revealed that the signs were being installed at a perfect height to serve as horse back-scratchers. Signs in field where horses were pastured would be found broken off forcibly at the attachment point. 'In the first decade the strangest natural enemies of Burma-Shave signs were horses.One of my favorites, combining my love of black humor and puns, is: Some of the Burma-Shave signs were public-safety and road-safety messages, rather than explicit advertisements for shaving cream.Short enough to read during the first half of a Sunday NFL game.

So the actual text, in my edition, is only 68 pages. But nearly half of that is an appendix featuring the text of every Burma-Shave sign ever produced. 1 A typical set would feature six signs, spaced apart for reading by passing drivers, with messages such as:Īs I said, it's a short book at only 121 pages. It is, as the title explains, the history of Burma-Shave's rhyming roadside advertising signs, which could be found all across the United States in the middle of the 20th century and still have a firm place in our popular culture and collective memory. It was first published in 1965 and has gone through many printings and editions over the years, including a 25th anniversary edition in 1990, so used copies are plentiful and available for just a couple bucks, in most cases.

A short and enjoyable book I finished recently is The Verse by the Side of the Road: The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs and Jingles, written by Frank Rowsome Jr.

Verse by the side of the road frank rowsome