Scenes from the New South

On the road in Tennessee and western North Carolina. First an old sign in Nashville:


You can judge the scale of these beautiful letters by comparing them to the shirts hanging in the window below.

Everywhere, we saw these beautiful blooming shrubs. They kind of had the gestalt of a lilac from a distance, but in the wrong colors:


Soon I remembered: It's a crepe myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica. Up close, the blossoms don't look much like lilacs.

Now a few humorous signs. The Bs on this one have lost their belts:


While the black logo on the brown shield of this one could pass for Elvis's hair:


Oh, right, it's a bear. Maybe it's supposed to be one of those figure/ground illusions.

We had lunch at a Waffle House. As a northerner, I have only a vague awareness that there has been controversy about race-based discrimination in the past. This sign lists the company's policies banning discrimination and harassment:


Aside from the usual "we do not discriminate" language, it also specifically says

• We DO NOT ask Customers to prepay for dine-in meals.
  We DO NOT allow abusive, obscene or offensive clothing, comments, jokes or behavior.
  We DO NOT automatically add a gratuity to dine-in checks. 

The Smoky Mountain area is rife with colorful road and street names, but this was probably the best one:


Finally, in Asheville's downtown, the choice between recycling and disposal is very clear: