From the back roads in Indiana (there’s more!) – SCN Encourager 6/28/2013

Here a sign. There a sign. Always potential trouble.

Yesterday I described how I found myself on some back roads in Indiana while heading home from North Carolina.

I wasn’t attempting to “channel” the late Charles Kuralt or anything. It’s just that I spotted some unique signs dotting the landscape, and I couldn’t keep from wondering what my superintendent’s reaction would be if he also saw them.

Thursday’s Encourager was not meant to be a heart-warming Americana-esqe travelogue. Nor was it meant to stand as a metaphor for my own career “journey.” (although the reality of not cruising “in the fast lane” wasn’t lost on me…)

I wrote about road signs. Nothing more.

And now I have three follow-up items I need to clean up.

All from an article about road signs. Go figure.

#1   You may think I’m nutty about what I write about – but many of you are almost “certifiable” members of the very same club. Your responses prove it. Some topics I write about illicit zero feedback. One like yesterday’s (Hog Wild at the Grant Co Fair) generated more than a few. The best was “Do you think their website is translatable into pig latin?” See my point? Face it. We probably deserve each other.

#2   My superintendent is a great guy and lives with the “every child can learn” purpose with integrity. My reference to him yesterday highlighted the fact that he simply doesn’t miss much. And when he sees or hears something that’s “relevant”… he follows-up. As our district’s communications specialist I’ve accepted “Su relevancia is mi relevancia.” This is a good thing. We probably deserve each other, too.

#3   I love the back roads of Indiana. I’m not dissing Indiana. While my dad grew up in Chicago, my grandparents, mom, and many aunts and uncles were native Hoosiers. My folks met while undergrads at Purdue. They’re all retired now, but my Indiana family members included four public school teachers, including my grandma. My mom was a school district food service director. Yep, this meant I could never EVER utter anything bad about school cafeteria food without being grounded. Whether we deserved each other or not never came up – but perhaps my parents wondered about this quietly to each other, though. I can’t say. We were family.

So there. Now that you have the full and complete background revolving around yesterday’s Encourager, here’s another back roads sign that – had he seen it – my superintendent would’ve likely asked me about.

I can just hear him ask, “Tom, this looks like your work. You weren’t the marketing consultant for these folks were you?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope he doesn’t actually ask me. He’d probably want me to return the check.

Tom Page, SCN