Signals Catalogue

Have any of you ever gotten this one? It simply says "Signals" on the front cover. I first became aware of it during the Elena years. It's so full of clever, witty, brainy little gifts that it makes me really sad that I'm always broke these days. I thought of all of you as I read through this little booklet. The hat and matching mittens which bore the visages of owls naturally made me wish I could get them for Jocy. The sweatshirt which bore the legend "I am the grammarian about whom your mother warned you" kept me chuckling for hours. I long to give it to Mother.

There was a cutting board that I loved. I guess some call them "chopping boards." It showed a simple portrait of a young Pole in nineteenth century garb, his back turned to his piano, his chin in his hand, and his face the very image of what Sherlock Holmes called "the enui." Its title was "Chopin Bored."

Another shirt made me laugh explosively. It said, "Non sequiturs are like Bicycles: They don't bathe." Somehow I could just hear Jacob's characteristic Michael Landon laugh.

Another features a simple drawing of two mushrooms. The label beneath them says "Fun Guy."

There's a marble spoon rest in this catalogue. Down the left side it proclaims: "Many people have eaten my cooking and gone on to lead normal lives." But it doesn't describe just what a normal life is. Some objects make statements: "English Major: You do the math." Others ask pithy questions: "i before e except after c..............weird?" "At what age am I old enough to know better?"

The catalogue feature lots of Edward Gorey art and quotations for those who love PBS Mysteries. A clear and obvious threat is on one shirt: "Careful or you'll end up in my novel." And, just to show that teachers can be as silly as their students, a tan shirt urges us to believe that: "The dog ate my lesson plan." I have to smile at that one. A number of times in my curtailed career our principal would proclaim that all our lesson plans had to be written out so that he could look at them early in the morning if he so chose. These absurd requirements must have been New Years resolutions as they practically never checked them. I think I recall one time when the administrator came into the room and asked to see my "lesson plan." I simply opened the lecture notes I'd already been using for maybe a dozen years, pointed to the place I intended to start that day and the place I intended to reach by the end of each hour. I was never asked again.

Speaking of Jocy (weren't we just a little while ago?), page 47 features some great owls, so perfectly made that they make ME want to become a collector. The necklace on page 48 quotes the text of Philippians 4:13 but doesn't then say "for Pete's sake!" I guess the maker doesn't read the Father Tim novels.

Two whole pages feature items to encourage the fight against what I sometimes call "Shayne's Disease." A silhouette on a white shirt shows a man and woman sitting expectantly with wine glasses. It says, "Waiting for Bordeaux." I had to explain that to a couple of people, but it was worth it. A Wagnerian woman is drawn on a shirt with her arms open as if to give freer passage to her words: "Don't make me use my opera voice." All the California Haeberles, several of the Humphries, and at least three of my kids would smile to see one that says: "E=Fb, the musical theory of relativity." There's also a door mat which welcomes you to its exact longitude and latitude.

I identify wholely with the shirt which wails "I was promised there would be no math involved." The world stood in awe of Dr. Einstein, but most quotations from him seem pretty humble: "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research."

All the Bill Mauldin cartoons which he drew while simultaneously fighting WW II and getting a Purple Heart are featured in a book named for his two characters, "Willie and Joe." Near that is a black sweatshirt which quips "A Pun at Maturity is Fully Groan." All of Bill Cosby's early comedy albums are featured here on CD! Various action figures from Monty Python and the Holy Grail can be purchased here. One is the Black Knight with detachable limbs. "Come back here; I'll bit your kneecaps off!" You can also get Monty's livestock-tossing catapult, complete with cows, geese, ducks, etc. You can buy two souvenirs of A Christmas Story. Ralphie's late forties house can be had in very fine detail. So can his father's "major award." The lamp can glow only under the shade, or the leg can get in on the act, too.

For those of us who are beginning to received jests at our expense regarding our age, some positively-thinking soul has created a shirt that says "Chronologically Gifted." I sort of like that. I've never been called "gifted" before, although I have a grandson in Rexburg and another in OKC who are called just that.

Need a little pick-me-up? You can buy a giant Serotonin molecule to hang on your wall!

Let me finish by quoting a shirt I wish I'd had many years ago, because I used to say something very like it: "If I'm talking, you should be taking notes."

The Signals catalogue can be had from 5581 Hudson Industrial Parkway, PO Box 2599, Hudson, OH, 44236-0099. Their phone number is 1-800-669-9696.