By Bob Weaver

Calhoun actually had large advertising billboards, several of them, coming into south Grantsville on Rt. 16, usually advertising autos. They were paper, the kind that required a bucket of paste and a brush to plaster.

But the advertising boards to be remembered never arrived in the county, as far as I know, the memorable Burma Shave signs, but could be encountered traveling out of the county.

They were small signs, the first five with a rhyme, the sixth saying Burma-Shave.

Burma Shave signs had catchy and humorous rhymes and was one of America's greatest advertising gimmicks, becoming part of every family trip.

At one time there were 7,000 Burma Shave signs stretching across the country, white on red signs grouped by fours, fives and sixes.

Most everyone in the car would read the signs aloud, the first one through the punch line, followed by the ad - Burma Shave.

They cheered up folks through the Great Depression and World War II.

Local residents got a taste of their humor on Route 47 during trips to Parkersburg.

There was an endless erection of the signs on curvaceous Route 21 between 1925 and 1961, the well-worn route for Calhouners and West Virginians to Akron and Cleveland until the construction of the Interstate system.

Burma Shave signs and motion sickness, that was old Rt. 21.

With better roads and faster driving, it became difficult to read the series of signs while "speeding" down the highway, thus their demise as an advertising icon.

After the small company began erecting the signs to promote their brushless shaving cream (squirts out of a can), sales began to soar.

The product was an American favorite for years.

Doesn't
Kiss you
Like she useter?
Perhaps she's seen
A smoother rooster!!
Burma-Shave

If you're driving
And you're drunk
Carry your coffin
In Your Trunk
Burma-Shave

She kissed the hairbrush
By mistake
She thought it was
Her husband Jake
Burma-Shave