JOHN PEPIN

“Pappy ain’t smart, he ain’t good at quizzin’, but one thing he knows: how to keep ma hizzin’,” – Roger Miller

The lush and green countryside flashed past as I watched out the window.

I was noticing farms big and small, little towns and brown or green-gray rivers that twisted around bends, under the spreading arms of gigantic trees nourished by that same water.

I also spent some time noticing billboards.

One asked whether I was planning to meet Jesus and had an electrocardiogram printout in the background. Another sought to attract me to a “mattress barn” where big sales were supposed to be happening.

Many years ago, Burma Shave advertised along highways by putting up funny messages touting their shaving cream written one line on one sign at a time.

A lot of that creativity seems to be sorely lacking in a lot of today’s roadside advertisements. Although a few years ago, I did see a billboard in Los Angeles that said, “Big Boy’s got gas,” which was advertising the fact that a morning radio personality was giving away gasoline gift cards.

One of the Minneapolis-based Burma-Vita company’s signs produced one message that read this way:

“Beneath this stone lies Elmer Gush, tickled to death by his shaving brush. Burma Shave.”

The company was trying to sell shaving cream applied directly, without a brush.

Another sign read: “The bearded lady tried a jar, she’s now a famous movie star. Burma Shave.”

In one ad, the company wanted to remind readers what the signs were all about.

“We’re widely read and often quoted, but it’s shaves, not signs, for which we’re noted.”

The signs were popular for more than 30 years before the Phillip Morris Co. bought the company in the 1960s.

“He’s the boy the gals forgot. His line was smooth, but his chin was not. Burma Shave.”

Roger Miller wrote a song about the Burma Shave signs the year I was born that was recorded and released a year later by the Everly Brothers called “Burma Shave.”

That’s the first version I heard. Miller’s version is better, though less rock-and-roll, as you might expect.

Miller was a genius and hero to many radio disc jockeys who often used to plug his short songs into spaces when there were only scant moments left in a broadcast.

Miller’s “Burma Shave” clocks in at 1 minute and 52 seconds.

“Way down yonder, by the forks of the branch, the old sow whistled and the little pigs danced. Burma Shave,” Miller sings. “I bet I’ve seen million rows of them little, red, po-etic signs up and down the line.”

His last lines employ typical Miller style of bending the rules of songwriting.

“Roses are red, and violets are blue. You chase me and so will I. Burma Shave.”

Another thing I like to read while on the road are the messages churches put up on their signs composed from individual plastic letters.

The best one I ever read so far was posted at a church along the highway in my own hometown.

It read, “God wants spiritual fruits, not religious nuts.”

The bus ride I was on was taking me home from a trip to Washington, D.C. The bus was bringing me back through Pennsylvania, which seems to be the countryside model train sets were patterned after with tunnels and hills, trains going here and there, green valleys and picturesque riparian scenes.

Ohio was less scenic, which is likely why I started reading billboards.

Back at home, I found the grass of the lawn was overgrown, as I knew it would be. Quite a few of our garden perennial flowers were blooming — beautiful pinks, blues, purples and yellows.

Ox-eye daisies and buttercups, purple lupine and more. Across the county road, by the mailbox, pink roses with white striping were in bloom. I wondered who planted them. This type of rose is common along roads and railroad tracks in this region.

It might have been the county’s road crews or maybe someone who owned the property and lived there many years ago.

Either way, these flowers were delicate and beautiful.

The nighttime skies were much clearer than they were in the city and the view from the ground here much more inviting that the fifth-floor window offered at my District of Columbia hotel room.

I was one of three adult chaperones on a trip that brought 29 Michigan kids to Washington to learn about civic engagement through a 4-H program called Citizenship Washington Focus.

This was the third time I have been on the trip. My wife was the leader.

It’s a lot of fun and it’s cool to see young people learning about our democracy and government and exploring the great monuments that stand to attest to the price our freedom has cost or to honor ideas and great men and women who served our country, either as soldiers, presidents or in other ways.

The monuments also recall great tragedies and sacrifices made to try to help all of us live better and freer lives. It is a very moving experience to visit these places.

The night air is much cooler and cleaner here at home.

Stepping outside, I was pleased to see some of my toad friends had come to visit.

This is a nightly ritual.

The toads like to sit outside our back door to catch mosquitoes, moths and other insects. I like to go out there to see who shows up and to talk with them briefly.

I also sometimes will spray the garden hose around them and up on the house in hopes of attracting more bugs for the toads. I let the spray fall over the toads too. They seem to like it just fine.

It’s interesting to me to see what happens each night. These are American toads, the only toad species we have in the Upper Peninsula.

On some nights, an assortment of sizes of toads will have come to the concrete warmed by the daytime sunshine. Usually, there are no more than three that come to the back deck and a couple that come to the front porch.

Last night, there was only a small toad that was about the size of a quarter out back. In the front, there was another small toad and one that was on the large size tucked into a corner up against the house.

Some nights, there are no toads, but that is the exception.

I go out every night for at least a minute or two. It’s a fun thing for me.

I often also get to see the stars and planets and maybe hear a loon singing from the lake across the way. By early morning, the toads have all gone back to the rock garden or the lawn where they hide themselves quite effectively.

The northern flickers that had built a nest in one of the old tree trunks now have young that can be heard calling for food each time one of the parents returns to the nest hole.

Some shorebird species have already done their breeding at are heading south for the wintertime. The woods are full of blooming blackberry and raspberry plants. Blueberries are already ripe. It won’t be long now until it’s pie time.

Meanwhile, summer is doing what it does — largely drifting past like a very pale ghost whose movements you hardly detect. You only fully understand it has been here when it’s gone.

These past few days, I have felt sentimental and have been missing a lot of people -those I haven’t seen in a long while, some I’ve seen recently and those I will likely never see again.

I have also been missing things I used to feel, places I have been before or things I enjoyed doing.

I figure I must be like a stick floating on a river that’s caught in an eddy. I’m going around in circles and can’t really break out to move back on downstream with the flow.

It’s a lagging, helpless kind of groove.

I go to sleep thinking about rain and thunderstorms. Maybe when I wake up, I’ll be riding high, zipping along atop the current, finding my way to the sunny, big, blue ocean somewhere – seeing everything there is to see along the route.

Perhaps there will even be signs.

“Don’t lose your head to gain a minute, you need your head, your brains are in it. Burma Shave.”

Editor’s note: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.