The Backslider

I love reading signs.

• Like the one welcoming you to Kettle Falls, Washington, the home of “1255

friendly people and one grouch.”

• Along Oregon’s winding coast, another warns: “Emergency stopping only. Whale

watching is not an emergency. Keep driving.”

• One I saw at a BP gas station saying, “You are responsible for spilt oil”.

• I pulled into a service station once. A bold sign proclaimed, “We have Mexican

food. We have gas.”

• But my favorite of them all is posted on an Alaska highway: “Choose your rut

carefully. You’ll be in it for the next two hundred miles.