Roadside Rest

BY: Don Dedera,Sam Negri

Roadside Rest Remember Burma-Shave? It Covered a Lot of Chins and Even More Miles

The number of silly and surprising circumstances that can make one feel older apparently doubles and redoubles with passing years. And I don't mean aches and pains, wrinkles and limps. For me, the other day, it was the belated realization that Burma-Shave has utterly vanished from drugstore shelves. It happened when we were reminiscing my bride and I - about our journeys west as children. We both fondly remembered our word-and-mind games, especially on the long, uncluttered stretches of U.S. Route 66 that crossed Arizona in its joining of Chicago and Los Angeles. Burma-Shave signs provided a welcome diversion.

THE ANSWER TO A MAIDEN'S PRAYER IS NOT A CHIN OF STUBBY HAIR. BURMA SHAVE

The sets of five or six easily readable boards were affixed to stout posts about 50 paces apart. Always the distinctive logo script of the brand name appeared on the last sign. Eventually the unique coast-tocoast advertising campaign was so effective that by 1942 the company could boast:

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHOSE SIGNS THESE ARE YOU CAN'T HAVE DRIVEN VERY FAR.

Five years later, the Midwestern family that launched and lyricized brushless shaving cream could boast:

ALTHO WE'VE SOLD SIX MILLION OTHERS WE STILL CAN'T SELL THOSE COUGH-DROP BROTHERS

(The bearded Smiths also ap-

peared on roadside signs.)

In these modern days of lunatic television beer commercials and zany print ads, it's hard to relate to a time when virtually all advertising was direct and to the point. BurmaShave practically laughed granddad's shaving mug and brush into extinction.

BENEATH THIS STONE LIES ELMER GUSH TICKLED TO DEATH BY HIS SHAVING BRUSH

The advent of the electric shaver likewise inspired another competitive jibe.

A SILKY CHEEK SHAVED SMOOTH AND CLEAN IS NOT OBTAINED WITH A MOWING MACHINE

Not only did the purveyors of Burma-Shave change an ingrained national habit, but in the process they also created a business art form. The jingle ultimately found full force in broadcast media, but it first was voiced by backseat kids as America entered the Automobile Age in the 1920s.

HINKY DINKY PARLEY VOO CHEER UP FACE THE WAR IS THROUGH

We "little shavers" were also adept at memorizing and swiftly unscrambling the backwardreading signs on the other side of the road. It wasn't easy.

BUT HIS SMILE NOTHING IT TOOK OFF HE GAVE A TRIAL TO A SUBSTITUTE

In the beginning Burma-Shave's godfather, Clinton Odell of Minneapolis, and a son, Allan, wrote the ditties. The family also perfected a nationwide network of partners mostly farmers and ranchers who for a few dollars agreed to rent sites and maintain the signs. Messages would be changed every year or two. Avoiding duplicates taxed the Odells when sign sets multiplied to 7,000 in post-World War II. Then an annual contest drew 50,000 entries including a few rejected as being off-color. Instead, a squeaky-clean boy-girl theme dominated the all-time favorites.

LISTEN BIRDS THESE SIGNS COST MONEY SO ROOST AWHILE BUT DON'T GET FUNNY SAID JULIET TO ROMEO IF YOU WON'T SHAVE GO HOMEO

Another immortal rune from 1934:

HE HAD THE RING HE HAD THE FLAT BUT SHE FELT HIS CHIN AND THAT WAS THAT

Don't ask why, but my own unforgettable and today perhaps politically incorrect rhyme went:

THE BEARDED LADY TRIED A JAR SHE'S NOW A FAMOUS MOVIE STAR

By Don Dedera Another measure of the popularity of Burma-Shave signs was a book, The Verse by the Side of the Road written in 1965 by Frank Rowsome Jr. By the time I obtained a copy in 1979, it had gone into 16 printings with more than a quarter million copies out there. The book pur-ported to contain all messages ever used. Rowsome had a theory why the Burma-Shave ad campaign ran out of gas.

By the 1950s, it was evident that the magic was draining from the spritely little signs. Increased car speeds, broad superhighways, and the impossibility of reaching important urban and suburban markets with rural road signs were all factors. The company regretfully began to experiment with TV advertising, and gradually the signs were removed. One survives in the Smithsonian Institution:

WITHIN THIS VALE OF TOIL AND SIN YOUR HEAD GROWS BALD BUT NOT YOUR CHIN

That the signs are gone has been obvious to me for a long time, but our nostalgic conversation recently prompted me to go looking for a tube of the good-humored cream. None was displayed in any of six huge drugstores. Nearly all the choices were lathers in pressurized cans. Somebody else changed shaving habits for the next generation. I dialed Minneapolis in-formation, and the operator said there was no such listing.

You'd think the telephone company could play a suitable recording of: