Opaque signage

Now and then either area media, Massachusetts drivers or, especially, visitors will raise objections to what are called directional signs in this Commonwealth. Most of them seem to think the purpose of directional signs is to, well, direct. Our highway authorities seem to think their purpose is to carry on what may be the nation's oldest running practical joke.

Today it was balmy enough for me to venture a couple of errands. En route I found the following proof that this joke may have gone on long enough:


This may be a riff on the old Maine joke that you can't get there from here. Perhaps —considering my town—it is an effort to one-up Concord, MA in the area of "if you don't know, you don't deserve to know."

But no, this was a state highway sign, back in the time when it had legible information on it. That makes it pretty certain that it's part of the hilarious Massachusetts highway tradition of directional signs that direct drivers nowhere, simply taken to its logical extreme.