A good sign

I guess my theme for the day is SIGNS. In just my immediate neighborhood I realized there was a variety of signs that I go past daily without thinking about them very much... Here is a sampling.


This sign in on the sidewalk on the way to the Jr. high school. The elementary school children are walking one way, the Jr. high kids are riding their bikes the other direction and when they meet... Who is going to give way? Supposedly the elementary walking-to-school leader is supposed to keep everyone in line so that the bicycles can pass. Still, there is the occasional bump... Or the bicycles go out in the street and cause cars to swerve.

This is a "Pick up after your dog!" sign that is directly in front of my house.


And THIS is a "Pick up after your dog!" sign in the empty lot next to my house... Do you think someone is trying to send me a message? (By the way, I DO pick up after my dog.)


This sign is on the main gate of a large lumber factory. Can you figure out what they are trying to say? The trucks are NOT supposed to park in front of the factory before opening hours (that is what that white block is supposed to be... a parked truck) because students walk and ride their bicycles to school along the road.

This sign is fairly new. Why? Because last year a high school boy was riding his bicycle along the road, not looking anywhere but at his bicycle basket and HE crashed into a parked truck! How you could not see a parked truck I don't know. Although the boy suffered minor injuries, an ambulance was called and the factory and the neighborhood and the schools got very upset about early morning trucks. I felt sorry for the poor truck driver. Just minding his business, taking a morning nap in front of the factory before the gate opens and bang, someone crashes into his truck and he gets blamed!

This is a sign right in front of the forest entrance warning hunters that there are houses nearby. MINE to be exact! We are the first house bordering the forest and if any stray bullets are going to come this way they are going to come to our house first. Tetsu thinks this a humorous sign because it says,

"There are houses nearby. Be careful!"

Tetsu wonders if they are warning hunters to be careful of irate house owners. Either way, the sign is so covered with vegetation I don't think anyone will get any message.

I just went out and washed this sign down in honor of today's blog post. This sign is one Tetsu and I put up right across from our driveway. We live on a corner and cars come down the narrow farm road and are in danger of hitting whatever might be coming out of our driveway. (Thus the mirrors... which the city put up so that cars can see around the corner). Children would race out of my driveway after English and many years ago, one child had a near mishap. We put up the sign after that and I also started the custom of making the children look both ways and calling out "Right! Left! Right!" in English before they left my yard. This was even before my crosswalk duty days.

Now, how many of those signs would you understand if you couldn't read Japanese and didn't have my explanation? That is the sign of a good sign!