Signs and portents
Many moons ago, when I first visited Dubuque, Iowa (home of Wartburg Seminary), I noticed an odd series of words on an overpass:
I understood this- correctly, as it turned out- to be Dubuque's city slogan, and that struck me as odd. So I asked about it. I mean, after all, if you're going to have a city slogan, it ought to say something positive about your city- or at least a little more than that it's... well, a place to live.
It seems that the state slogan of Iowa at the time was "A Place to Grow." "A Place to Live" was meant to be sort of a play on that phrase which even the people of Dubuque realized didn't quite work. So the local paper, the Telegraph-Herald, sponsored a contest to find a new slogan. The problem was that all of the entries were even worse: "Dubuque: A Place to Leave." "Dubuque: The Mississippi River Goes Right By, and If You're Smart, So Will You." "Dubuque. Caution: Mind Narrows." "Dubuque: Gateway to the Middle Ages."
At the time, Dubuque- whose economy depended heavily on a packing plant which had recently closed- had the highest unemployment rate in the country. It was shrinking in population, because so many of its families- most of which had lived there for generations- had been forced to relocate in search of work. It was at the time the largest city in America without access to an interstate- and paid the economic price. That made one entry in the contest especially poignant: "Will the Last Person to Leave Dubuque Please Turn Off the Lights?"
I only recall two entries in the contest which weren't self put-downs, and both of them were rather lame: "If You're a Dubuquer, You'd Better Play Euchre," and "D-B-Q-E. The Only Thing Missing is U."
Poor Dubuque. It has its interstate now; in fact, it has replaced the street which that overpass used to adorn. "The Pack," as I understand it, has a new owner for the second or third time since I first arrived in town. I have no idea whether Clocktower Square in downtown Dubuque, where I used to wander with a freshly-cashed paycheck of a Saturday morning after getting off from work at the group home at the top of the Fenelon Street elevator ("the longest vertical railway in the world," or so it was somewhat dubiously claimed) has reclaimed its former adequacy as a place for shopping. I hope so. As is so often the case when you live in a place of marginal viability as "a place to live," I actually developed an affecton for it during my time there, and there are doubtless places in America where I would less want to live.
For a while, anyway.
What inspired this reminiscence was the sign I noticed at one of the many places of worship in these parts which habitually display really, really bad messages on their signs. How bad, you ask? Well, one of them once actually repristinated that last, proposed slogan for Dubuque, only with "C-H-R-C-H" instead of "D-B-Q-E."
Until now, the worst- easily- has been
The one I saw today wasn't quite in that league, but it's still pretty bad. How's this for a works-righteous theology of glory:
The larger of the two congregations in my last call had a small sign on a hill, set far enough from the side of the road that nobody ever read it. I did, shortly after I arrived. For five long years, I held my tongue, but finally I was compelled to speak.
The sign was meant to read,
Apparently I was the only one who read it during the first five years I was there (I have no idea how long it was there before I arrived), because nobody seemed to have noticed that whoever had put that message on the sign had put the "H" at the wrong end of the word "heart". What it really said was
We replaced it shortly thereafter with a sign which could easily be read from the road, and which simply told those who happened by that we were St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, that we worshipped at 9 AM, and that Sunday School was at 10:15.
Dubuque: A Place to Live.
I understood this- correctly, as it turned out- to be Dubuque's city slogan, and that struck me as odd. So I asked about it. I mean, after all, if you're going to have a city slogan, it ought to say something positive about your city- or at least a little more than that it's... well, a place to live.
It seems that the state slogan of Iowa at the time was "A Place to Grow." "A Place to Live" was meant to be sort of a play on that phrase which even the people of Dubuque realized didn't quite work. So the local paper, the Telegraph-Herald, sponsored a contest to find a new slogan. The problem was that all of the entries were even worse: "Dubuque: A Place to Leave." "Dubuque: The Mississippi River Goes Right By, and If You're Smart, So Will You." "Dubuque. Caution: Mind Narrows." "Dubuque: Gateway to the Middle Ages."
At the time, Dubuque- whose economy depended heavily on a packing plant which had recently closed- had the highest unemployment rate in the country. It was shrinking in population, because so many of its families- most of which had lived there for generations- had been forced to relocate in search of work. It was at the time the largest city in America without access to an interstate- and paid the economic price. That made one entry in the contest especially poignant: "Will the Last Person to Leave Dubuque Please Turn Off the Lights?"
I only recall two entries in the contest which weren't self put-downs, and both of them were rather lame: "If You're a Dubuquer, You'd Better Play Euchre," and "D-B-Q-E. The Only Thing Missing is U."
Poor Dubuque. It has its interstate now; in fact, it has replaced the street which that overpass used to adorn. "The Pack," as I understand it, has a new owner for the second or third time since I first arrived in town. I have no idea whether Clocktower Square in downtown Dubuque, where I used to wander with a freshly-cashed paycheck of a Saturday morning after getting off from work at the group home at the top of the Fenelon Street elevator ("the longest vertical railway in the world," or so it was somewhat dubiously claimed) has reclaimed its former adequacy as a place for shopping. I hope so. As is so often the case when you live in a place of marginal viability as "a place to live," I actually developed an affecton for it during my time there, and there are doubtless places in America where I would less want to live.
For a while, anyway.
What inspired this reminiscence was the sign I noticed at one of the many places of worship in these parts which habitually display really, really bad messages on their signs. How bad, you ask? Well, one of them once actually repristinated that last, proposed slogan for Dubuque, only with "C-H-R-C-H" instead of "D-B-Q-E."
Until now, the worst- easily- has been
For All You Do, His Blood's For You
The one I saw today wasn't quite in that league, but it's still pretty bad. How's this for a works-righteous theology of glory:
Triumph: What happens when you add a little "oomph" to "try"As my former seminary roommate, who hailed from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Poland, used to say, "Gross me up and gag me with spoon."
The larger of the two congregations in my last call had a small sign on a hill, set far enough from the side of the road that nobody ever read it. I did, shortly after I arrived. For five long years, I held my tongue, but finally I was compelled to speak.
The sign was meant to read,
THE BEST EXERCISE FOR THE HUMAN HEART IS BENDING OVER TO LIFT SOMEBODY ELSE UP.
Apparently I was the only one who read it during the first five years I was there (I have no idea how long it was there before I arrived), because nobody seemed to have noticed that whoever had put that message on the sign had put the "H" at the wrong end of the word "heart". What it really said was
THE BEST EXERCISE FOR THE HUMAN EARTH IS BENDING OVER TO LIFT SOMEBODY ELSE UP
We replaced it shortly thereafter with a sign which could easily be read from the road, and which simply told those who happened by that we were St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, that we worshipped at 9 AM, and that Sunday School was at 10:15.
Comments
Just think what I could have done with "A Place To Live."!
Thanks for the chuckles.