(This is my most recent monthly article in Brazos Monthly magazine)
Sometime or another I watched a man ruin his outfit by not paying attention to a Wet Paint sign when he sat on a bench to light a cigarette (he obviously hadn’t paid attention to the Surgeon General’s warning about cancer either).
I bet he paid closer attention to signs after that. It reminded me of this truism by Mark Twain: “If a cat sits on a hot stove once it will never sit on a hot stove again. Or a cold one.”
The man on the wet bench at least had a warning, unlike that cat.
We’re given warnings all the time, many for parents of small children. About items with tiny enough parts that can be swallowed, about laundry pods that look enough like candy to be enticing, about unguarded electrical outlets that can prove to be shocking, literally. Warnings aimed at adults in charge of that particularly vulnerable segment of the population are plentiful. But the rest of us are also constantly cautioned about dangers and risks, like ‘Slippery when Wet,’ ‘Microwave in Use’, ‘Merging Traffic’, and ‘Slow Children Crossing’ (which usually doesn’t have a much needed comma inserted, which makes me wonder if not very bright youngsters might be in the road). People my age are regularly warned to beware of scams, probably because we’re believed to be too naive in our dotage to not be taken in, by rascals intending to take our savings out. I choose to believe that it’s because we’ve lived most of our lives in a world that had fewer scammers.
When I was a kid up in East Texas my mother would warn me to watch out for water moccasins while swimming in a pond or lake (there were no swimming pools in Oakwood, but plenty of stock tanks and ponds). Then when we would vacation in Galveston she warned me to beware of undertows, which I heard as ‘under toes’ until I was well into my teens and learned the definition of the word. Either danger – stepping barefooted on a stingray or being sucked out to sea by a hungry vacuum – was worthy of a warning. And good mothers always have one ready.
These days my morning walks take me through some nicely manicured landscaping beside a creek. Every so often there is a handsome metal sign that contains a warning about some fellow residents thereabouts, specifically snakes and alligators. At the bottom it focuses on the allegators. “Don’t Feed Them,” it says. “Don’t Get Close to Them. Don’t Agitate or Tease Them. Don’t Approach an Alligator’s Nest.” The blunt statements aren’t followed by exclamation marks. But I can sense them being there.
It’s thoughtful of some entity – the city, state, or Parks Department – to look out for us and keep us out of harm’s way. But when I sometimes stop to consider that sign, part of me always thinks that if I have little enough sense to agitate or tease an alligator or approach its nest, then I’ll just have to take whatever I get.
Warnings are good things, even though some, like that last one, should be self-generated, born of common sense. Another example is posted every few yards beside the swimming pool where Karen and I live that says ‘Depth Four Feet. No Diving!’.
One important warning is firmly embedded in our history. And with July 4th right around the corner it’s a good one to close with.
During the final days of the second continental congress in Philadelphia in 1776, wise old Benjamin Franklin provided a not too subtle caution for his fellow delegates before they signed the Declaration of Independence, which England most definitely would not take kindly to and would be resolute in holding them accountable. Making sure his cohorts realized the danger they were putting themselves in, and the absolute need to stay devoted to their mutual cause and to each other, he cloaked the warning in his usual clever phrasing. “We must all hang together,” he told them, “or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
A few hours later, when the document was signed and the deed done, someone in the crowd outside asked Franklin a question.
“Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
That’s when Benjamin Franklin planted a very real warning in his answer. One that he surely intended not only for that generation but for every one that has come after it.
“A republic,” he said, “if you can keep it.
Ron Rozelle Wordsmith 