Signs of Intelligent Life

The other day I was driving into the city of Great Bend. There was a sign at the side of the road which read: “Jack Kilby Nobel Prize Winner 2000 Physics”. Now, I assume the sign was there because Great Bend was claiming one of its own. The brainy Mr. Kilby must have been born in town or at least spent some of his formative years there. There was no explanation whatsoever, so this is all conjecture on my part. As it stands it could simply be a wonderful little tidbit of information kindly placed on a sign as a public service to individuals who are traveling the highways and byways of the great state of Kansas.
This may be something the Commissioner of Education should discuss with the Highway Commissioner. (They both work in Topeka. It shouldn’t be that hard to find each other. I’m sure the education guy has the alphabetizing skills to look up the highway guy in the directory and the highway guy ought to have the map skills necessary to navigate to the education guy’s office.) The government could place signs all over the state which would offer a vehicular curriculum.
Many people think driving through Kansas ranks on the exciting meter somewhere between watching paint dry and watching paint dry on the Regis and That-Girl-Who-Isn’t-Kathie-Lee television show. Placing thought provoking and intellectually stimulating material every few yards would fight that stereotype, as well as some other preconceived notions about the intelligence level of your run of the mill Kansan. Face it; Kansas hasn’t exactly gotten the best press over the past few…decades. I was watching a television show the other day and one character made reference to something which he considered obscure news. The response by the hip young executive woman was, “People in Kansas know about it.” This is verbal shorthand for even people who are horribly backward and out of touch know about it. Ouch! I do not subscribe to this school of thought. If I did I would have to contemplate going into the nearest biker bar and calling the largest and hairiest person available a showtune loving nancy boy. (At least it is a creative suicide.)
Pardon the digression please; I will get back to the idea of a “Road to Enlightenment.” Every other state in the country will continue to use the same old numbering system for their highways. You know, “Take 40 for about fifty miles then jump on 25 going south.” Boring! Kansas will have all these great educational signs on our roads and we can name them after the subjects they teach. So if a person wants to go to Salina from Dodge City the directions would sound more like this: “Head east on highway Introduction to Psychology, then you can turn left onto state highway English Literature…” Doesn’t that sound interesting as well as educational?
The highways that go the length of the state could have an entire course of study. The American History highway starting at the Colorado border would begin with the Asian migration to Northern America via the Bering Straits land bridge. At about Colby Leif Erickson and his Viking buddies are discussed on those green and white reflective textbooks. At Hays we start colonization and by the time we get to Missouri we have completed the Civil War. If people want to get up to present day they need to make a u-turn and go back to Colorado. This helps with economic development as well. People who need that sense of completion, or the college credit, have to keep eating at our restaurants and staying in our hotels.
Experts often say the best way to learn a new language is to immerse yourself in it by going to another country. The idea is there is greater motivation to speak the unfamiliar tongue. If Kansas makes the highway system surrounding Wichita all in French learning it would become a priority. If the only way to get out of the construction zones on Kellog was to translate the following phrase: “L'allée gauche est le seul moyen pour échapper ce purgatoire de baril orange” people would parler le français.
Some subjects could be tailored to fit in specific locations in the state. Existential archetypes found in the collected works of the Harlequin Romance series would just about fit between Hutchinson and South Hutchinson. Hugoton to Elkhart is a stretch of road people might actually be willing to do algebra as they traveled it. This idea just might work.

P.S. I love the fact the internet can be used to quickly find the French words for: The left lane is the only way to escape this orange barrel purgatory. Cool huh?