This Might Be A Good Sign

Delicious & Refreshing! Relieves Fatigue! Now showing. Live here. Eat here...or in the case of Superman Peanut Butter "Its strength is in its great taste" I suppose it had a strong peanutty taste. Not all slogans are great examples of marketing genius.


Advertising. You can't escape it. Everywhere you turn there's some product or service trying to lure you in. I'm betting you're even reading this because someone, who shall remain...well no, not anonymous because you know who he is, made a shameless plea on Facebook to get you here so you could read this and of course shower him with endless accolades for his artistic style and rather clever prose.

Of course it could also be you felt sympathy for me. I'm not afraid to play the guilt card. Alright, I'm being facetious. My point is that we all advertise in some form or fashion if we have something we want to sell. Be it a product or idea. A service, hobby...whatever. In my particular case, finding any old advertising is pure gold. Obviously I prefer it intact but you take what you can get.


Demopolis, Alabama (from Greek- City of the People) sits at the intersection of the Tombigbee and Black Warrior rivers in southwest Alabama. It was once a thriving center of commerce with a railroad hub and those two rivers converging here. There are still many older structures such as warehouses and industries still standing. And there's an added bonus. Large buildings have large exposed walls which make for an excellent canvas for advertising. I was surprised how many buildings here still have large advertisements preserved on the sides of those buildings. If you're ever in Demopolis drive around downtown. There's a lot of wall art to see.

Found this old Greyhound bus in Talladega County. I know almost nothing about buses but I do know old when I see it. Now as to how long its been sitting here who knows. The Tennessee tag on the back is from 1956 so it and I share that in common. Just as a side note but back years ago Tennessee used to make their tags in the shape of the state which made it very distinctive.

It didn't hurt that Tennessee is more or less rectangular shaped.

The Rexall drug store in Ragland is still there. In fact there are still items on the shelves. I remember this day for two reasons. It was cold and I lost a lens cap here.

The Carry Out sign hangs from the awning of a restaurant along Hwy 11 west of Gadsden. It didn't start its life as a place to eat. In fact it's a bit remote for a business of this nature. Which, I suppose, explains why it isn't in business anymore. No, this place started it's life as Eva's Truck Stop many years ago before Interstate 59 existed. Here's what it looked like back in the day.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/biff53/7994603792/

It was actually a pretty cool looking art-deco building which seems oddly out of place for rural Alabama. Now it, like much of what I shoot, is relegated to obscurity.

The Dari-Delite still exists in Clanton. The new place is just down the road south of the old place. But the new place doesn't have this cool old sign. I'm betting this thing looked great in its day all lit up and flashing. Things like this are worth saving and I hope they do.

Just north of Clanton is the old drive-in. No I have no clue what it was named. Fortunately the screen and frame of the sign still exist. It spent its last days selling mobile homes. I suppose that makes sense since drive-ins offer a lot of space to park. All I know is it's one of those cool old places that still stands. An eyesore to some but a cool part of Alabama's past to me.

I chose to show this picture in color. I think the reason should be obvious. For those of you who are old enough I'm sure you remember seeing many a roadside motel that advertised two critical features. One was air-conditioning and the other was "COLOR TV"! And sometimes they would have more than 3 channels!

Funny but I miss those days. Yes it was hot in the backseat and yeah every trip seemed like we were going to the Moon because it would never end. But it was fun being a kid when I was growing up.

I'm really not trying to relive my childhood. That would require a spyder bike and a dollar so I could get a chili dog and a Tahitian Treat at the U-Totem in my old neighborhood. I would heat it up in one of those new-fangled microwave machines that had a warning label if you wore a pacemaker.

I wish I had a picture of that U-Totem sign now but it's long gone...