Barbara was born in southwest Nova Scotia, and we spend a few weeks each summer in the 150-year-old family home that was built astride the tidal Abrams River for a family of fishermen/farmers who worked the cold North Atlantic a few miles south.
To get there, we usually drive the nine hours due north to St. John, New Brunswick, where we catch the ferry to Digby, Nova Scotia. From there it’s a 90-minute drive along Route 103 to the tiny hamlet of Abrams River and a multitude of LeBlancs, most of them Barbara’s relatives, who live there.
But sometimes we take Route 1, which dawdles along what is known as the Acadian coast past the villages of Clare, Church Point, and Mavilette. We always look forward to driving through Weymouth and past the Weymouth Church of Christ, which sits astride Route 1, because it has a signboard that’s usually clever. Once, we drove by in the middle of what passes for a heat wave up there. The sign read, “Too hot to keep changing sign. Sin bad. Jesus good, Details inside.”
This year we drove by and the sign said, “Adam and Eve: The 1st People to Not Read the Apple Conditions.”
I’m guessing that more than a few people have made a mental note to try a worship service at that little church in the hope that they will be engaged and even entertained.
If it’s done well, humor works. If it’s not, don’t do it.
So before you hang up a sign or post to Twitter or Instagram, try your message out on a few other people. You don’t want potential customers to cringe when they drive past YOUR signboard!
— BOB UNGER