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                        Driving Tips for Maine
                            ==============
    Living smack in the middle of a place like Maine means that you have to
drive a fairly good distance to get anywhere that doesn't look like a Jack
Daniel's ad.  You know the ones where there's a black and white picture of some
old redneck with no teeth to speak of, wearing overalls and a baseball cap with
the visor flipped up, and he's sitting on the back of a '68 Ford flatbed pickup
truck whittling toothpicks out of a two-by-six pine plank?  I have to drive a
long way to escape that sort of thing up here.
    One of things I've noticed while driving across this great land of ours is
this:  The people who make road signs have Q-tips Cotton Swabs(tm) for brains.
    I'm not talking about your average, humdrum road sign like "STOP" or "YIELD
"
to which the average, intelligent American driver pays little or no attention
in the first place.  No.  I'm talking about the kind of road signs that make
you wonder if the guys down at the DOT are running with a full frame of
resident pages, if you get my proverbial drift.  These are some of my
favorites:
                          LOW-FLYING AIRCRAFT
    Tell me, does the placement of this sign on the highway imply some action
on my part as a motorist?  I mean, just how "low-flying" are these aircraft?
What am I supposed to do if I see one?  Duck?  Should I assume that the
aircraft has the right of way?  This sign is about as valuable as its cousin:

                        WATCH FOR FALLING ROCKS
                   (little picture of an avalanche)
    "Well officer the reason I rear-ended the school bus was because I had my
eyes peeled on that mountainside so I could swerve to avoid any boulders that
happened to come loose as I drove past..."

                        ROAD UNDER CONSTRUCTION
                         PASS AT YOUR OWN RISK
    What this sign means is, if, as you are driving through the construction
area past the ten or twelve road workers who are standing around in small
groups with their hands in their pockets discussing whether or not the color of
the steam-roller conforms to their union contract, and one of them flicks a
cigarette butt your way which ignites your gas tank and your car explodes, you
cannot hold them liable for damages.

                          NO TRUCKS LEFT LANE
    No verb this sentence.

                BLASTING AREA.  TURN OFF TWO-WAY RADIOS.
    I wonder how many crazed pyromaniacs drive around with a carload of
walkie-talkies looking for these babies, hmm?

                              MEN IN TREES
    Don't worry guys, evolution is your friend.

                 LAST SANITARY FACILITIES FOR 30 MILES
    "Gee, I guess we'll have to use the unsanitary ones..."

                  HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR TIRES LATELY?
    This is on the Maine turnpike just after you come over "The Bridge" from
New Hampshire.  It serves as a reminder to tourists that it could snow at any
minute without warning.