Roadside

Black Hole Facts, the sign said. It seemed perfectly normal: a poster, explaining this particular scientific phenomenon the way textbooks and guides in the Science Center often did. In fact, I would have seen nothing wrong with it if I had, at that time, been in a school or the Boston Museum of Science. What made it decidedly odd was the fact that I was driving past it at 40 miles per hour on a rural New Hampshire highway. It was stuck on a stake, like a yard sale sign, three feet from the edge of the road.

A mile later I saw a second. Supernova Facts, this one blared. On the back – I could see it in my rearview mirror – someone had drawn an approximation of an exploding star with crayons. My mind raced…. Why were these here? Not by any house or school; just planted by the side of a forested road.

I envisioned a board meeting of self-important bureaucrats, discussing educational problems over a sparse metal table. They were meeting to discuss the children of the travelling yard sale types New Hampshire abounds with. Such types travel all over the country, buying old things and selling them at diverse flea markets. Their children, claims an ascetic lady with thick glasses, never get the chance to settle into a decent school. They miss out on our indoctrination, on the essential truths of our society that we make so readily available to the rest of the children. Something must be done! Sundry bureaucrats nod sagely. Something indeed.

It is up to the President of Learning in Sullivan County – a pale man working on a third and supplemental chin – to come up with an idea. I’ve got it! he cries. Listen up, it’s a real corker. He then outlines his plan of roadside signs. As the children travel with their parents, gazing listlessly out of dirty station wagon windows, their attention will be drawn to posters placed one per mile along the road. The signs would follow various themes. In Plainfield, it would be astronomy; in Cornish, it would be chemistry; and so on. Those around the table nod sagely again, mumbling to each other that the idea is indeed the cat’s meow.

I was interrupted by a third sign – The North Star – and the scene was gone from my mind. I was relieved, for the ascetic woman reminded me too much of an old Sunday School teacher. Those memories were better left unearthed.

Perhaps, then, the signs were for future generations. Perhaps it was similar to what the ancients did: preserving our knowledge of astronomy as a historical marker. A new window opened in my mind, and I saw a group of six-year-olds gathered around papers and crayons on the living room floor. The oldest of them just read a book on Stonehenge, and is determined to ensure that those a millennium from now would know that we knew a lot about the heavens. There were encyclopedias open, and a set of scribes – entirely female, since they had the nicest writing – copying the data into bullet-point format. Another group – three males and a tomboy in overalls – is busy at work on the exploding star picture.

I smile a little sadly; it is an admirable attempt on their part. Unfortunately, I would guess it is doomed to last not nearly as long as Stonehenge. Those a millennium from now will be unable to find the signs, long disintegrated, and will be forced to conclude that we knew nothing about astronomy.

I blinked. There had to be a more likely explanation for all of it. Alas, none occurred to me before I reached my destination and drove such thoughts from my mind.