A yard full of signs, some bought, some not | Eastern North Carolina Now

    My recent post about a walk in the neighborhood ended with a collage of some of the signs everywhere. Here is a link to that article. Stan, commented about the signs and of course it brought to mind my clean out of dad's house after he passed. Here is the article written for the Grandpa Diaries, but never intended for publication outside of the family. But since the spotlight is on and the stage is clear, I felt obliged to offer another self-serving post about life in the Bobby Tony menagerie. I have made some minor edits for BCN publication. Stan, Don't encourage the old man.

    My family's obsession with signs could be a genetic problem? During the constant roadwork in Dekalb County over the years, my brother picked up signs left in the road by the construction crews. Most of the signs would lie in the weeds for months. Dad's five acres became the resting place for many of those signs as well as some store bought ones. After he died, I photo-documented the signs before disposing of them.

    I checked with the county to see how they disposed of the old signs, thinking that they must have a recycling center for old road signs. They did not. I had the idea of taking them to a private metal recycle location but since they were government property that would raise suspicion. I did not know the statue of limitation on county signs but just to be safe I assumed it was over 50 years. The county website listed no solution but it did have a full list of ordinances covering zoning and sign usage. I am 100% certain that Jim and Dad had broken almost all of them. I was just an innocent bystander in the whole matter.


    I finally decided on just putting them in the bottom of the dumpster that I used to clean out the 50 years of accumulation from one of the foremost 'PACKRATS' that ever existed. It took two loads to complete the clean-out.


    This was after numerous family members pored over the articles and took what was of interest to them.

    I would like to say that was the end of our family obsession with signs, but I am sworn to tell the truth in this Grandpa Diary. The obsession continues.
    So here is a collage of a few of my current sign.
    And my Brother Jim's signs (This is not all inclusive, the battery died)

    I uploaded a YouTube video for private family viewing. I changed the privacy setting since no one in the family has watched it yet. It shows the signs from the old man's yard along with the audio from the era about Signs, Signs, Everywhere a sign available at a record store near your keyboard.

    Here is the video showing a few of the signs that magically appeared in the yard over the years along with the obligatory rock song about signs.

Rays Road Clean-Out