Hello Darkness

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m so thrilled with the time change and darkness at 5:00. Ha! I saw a meme that inspired this post title that was a play on the Simon & Garfunkel song, “Sound of Silence”. (Though I do kind of like this cover by Disturbed.) The meme went “Hello Darkness my old friend. Soon you’ll start at 5:00 again…” If you read what I post here, you know I’m against the time changes whichever the direction, and I would be fine with it dark at 5:00, if it just gradually happened naturally as it should. Whichever time we’re on, here in northern Indiana, I would be going to work in the dark and returning home in the dark anyway.

But one of the things this has brought to light (pun intended) is Culver’s welcome signs have gone “Dark Skies” on us. The lights on the limestone Culver Sign (above) at the east intersection of 10 & 17 are out. The internal light in the relatively new electronic sign at the end of school street (left) has been turned off. And in a “Made You Look” moment, I checked, so you didn’t have to, and the welcome signs at the west end of Jefferson Street and Mill Street were never lit.

I made an enquiry about the two signs that had lights and was told no one else had notice (or said anything) about the limestone sign lights. The light in the top of the electronic sign was turned off because the neighbor complained. Keeping with the song theme, apparently, “She was Blinded by the Light” per Bruce Springsteen. (Though again, I am partial to this cover that was done by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.)

I’ve discussed the electronic messaging sign here often, and I wondered about the neighbor when it was installed. It doesn’t surprise me that it’s obtrusive. I think the flashing, changing message (often with a white background) is probably actually more of a problem. That could be solved only using messages with a colored background. Most of those are the affirmations, so that should be easy to change. For the upper sign, most of these lights would have the option for dimmers, but if that’s not possible, a screen could be added to the interior of the sign on the east side to reduce the light. There are various screens that reduce opacity that would do the trick.

Not much to say about the limestone sign. I assume it needs new bulbs, but we installed those fixtures decades ago and it would probably make more sense to replace the fixtures with new LEDs that use less energy. If I get a vote, something could be done in a soft off-white light that brings out the stone and not a harsh white. As far as the west entrance signs go, it would be relatively inexpensive to install a solar (Oh my goodness! I said that word!) sign lights that would mount to it and light up the faces like the one here for $15.95 (right). Pretty inexpensive even if it has to be replaced often.

Culver doesn’t have much of a highway presence, so all of these signs are important. I doubt they’re going to inspire anyone to make a sudden turn into town. They would help with someone trying to find us though. They also might inspire a stop at a later time, if someone was just passing by. They are already here, we should make the most of them. Light ’em up!