Strong Winds May Exist
Ok, this is awesome.
First, let me explain something. When driving across New Mexico, you have to get through some moderately dangerous spots. Usually these are bridges across chasms. Depending on the shape of your car, your speed, and random natural occurrences, you could be plucked off these bridges and tossed down to your death. It’s rare, but it happens.
In these spots and others, there are signs that say “Strong Winds May Exist”. I, being a student of philosophy and a smart-ass, always thought that these signs were hilarious. They seem so contemplative, as if they were inviting the driver and passengers to explore the nature of Wind. Is wind something which exists? In the same way that a car exists? Is wind so much a thing as it is a description of movement? Can all things be described this way?
The absurdity, of course, being that it was just a dumb sign put there to advise people that their lives may be in danger. Never mind whether they could actually do something about it. It was those two words: “may” and “exist” that just cracked me up.
I know. Philosophy students are weird. I know. Weird senses of humor. I know that Jason was in on this joke.
So some of you may think this is funny, some may not. But this article about Douglas Adams made my day. Specifically page 5, the story told by Mark Wheaton:
… Adams talked about the nature of humor, recalling a story about driving in the American Southwest and passing a sign reading: “Strong Winds May Exist.” He extrapolated on this for awhile, making eloquent use of his trademark humor …
I need to get Jason or someone to snap some photos of one of these signs for me.
May 1st, 2005 at 4:36 pm
Word. A picture of the sign may, at some point in the near future, exist.
May 2nd, 2005 at 9:46 am
I love those signs, too. For the same reasons, even. I always found them ridiculous in the “what is someone going to do with this info?” sense. Think about it; imagine you’re a truck driver, and you see one of these signs. You also know it’s kind of windy. Do you stop? Do you go around the zone via alternate routes, assuming your truck can fit on the tiny, windy roads that pass for alternates to the interstate? Of course not…you would press on and hope that your truck wasn’t thrown over the edge.
Seriously…I think someone in the NM Leg put them up as a joke long ago.
May 5th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
It could also be a new inventive form of poetry? How fulfilling it would be to have a line of your deep thoughts posted on the sides of a New Mexican interstate.