stop! in the name of love

If you do a lot of driving... or walking... or going outside, you have probably seen hundreds of stop signs in your lifetime. Maybe even thousands. They are everywhere. They stand silently, doing their job of regulating traffic. Sometimes they are used for non-traffic applications, like keeping you from entering an exit door or making sure you don't proceed to the next page of a test before given the "go ahead" signal by the teacher. But no one really takes an interest in stop signs. They are just there, like trash cans or utility poles or that thing that holds the roll of toilet paper in your bathroom.

Well, stop right there.

My wife belongs to a Facebook group that concerns itself with events and happenings around our small community of Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. I don't belong to the group because anything I need to know about my neighborhood, I can find out by going outside and looking as far as my field of vision will allow. Or by not paying my property taxes. I'm sure I will find out exactly what's going on if I fail to do that just once. If, by chance, I really want to know how my neighbors feel about people who don't pick up after their dog or whether the nearby ice cream store is really gonna close for good this time or if I need a solid recommendation for a reliable electrician, I'll just ask Mrs. Pincus for the latest dope on the Elkins Park Facebook page. (and from what I have seen on a few "over the shoulder" scans of the page, the word "dope" truly applies.) In all honesty, none of those scenarios have come up yet, so I can see no need to actually join. Mrs. P will remain my liaison until I think things have gotten desperate.

At your service!

Between heated discussions concerning dog shit protocol and speculation about a proposed business opening in a neighborhood five-and-a-half miles away, a frequent topic on the Elkins Park Facebook page is the regular damage inflicted upon a single stop sign that stands at an intersection on a street that isn't even a real street. For a couple of years now, posts about this stop sign have been showing up on the Facebook page with some regularity. The stop sign's jurisdiction is a non-municipal thruway that serves as an access to a shopping center, as well as to a bigger highway on the other side of the parking lot of said center. Sure, there are other, less convenient routes to the highway, but this little thoroughfare is a shortcut and has become so well-traveled that it actually shows up in Waze directions when plotting out a route to the Pennsylvania Turnpike from our house. The street — imaginatively named "Shoppers Lane" — is policed at one point near the rear receiving dock of a Target — by this stop sign. By the looks of posted photos and gut-wrenching descriptions, it is a dangerous area for the likes of one little stop sign. It seems that the massive 18-wheeler delivery truck drivers have some difficulty backing their rigs up to the docks in the narrow space as determined by the poor placement of the Target building. After a futile series of forward-reverse-forward-reverse maneuvers, drivers wishing to maintain a schedule throw caution to the wind and, mostly likely accompanied by an inaudible "fuck it!," proceed to plow backwards into the stop sign in an effort to align with the dock and keep to a company-enforced delivery timetable. Poor "Stoppy" has been banged and dented and jolted and bumped more times than a demolition derby jalopy.

Oh yeah.... the members of the Facebook group have taken to call this scrappy little stop sign "Stoppy."

And ol' Stoppy has since garnered a fan base that rivals professional sports teams or the latest K-Pop darlings. Suddenly, information about when the next scheduled trash pick-up (interrupted by a Monday holiday) or where a dependable plumber can be had has taken a backseat to concern for the well-being of a three-foot metal sign. On any given day, there can be up to a dozen photos of Stoppy along with a few lines of sentiment for the now-beloved traffic fixture. Once, someone posted a picture of Stoppy with a necktie knotted nattily around its... its... um, well it isn't exactly a neck. Let's say stanchion, because that's what it is. But to Stoppy's followers and supporters, it's his neck.

Poor, poor pitiful me.

Stoppy has been photographed in various states of injury. He's been bent. He's been scraped. He's had half of his face torn off. His bright red paint has been scratched and pitted and dinged. His post, despite being wrapped in some thick protective padding, has been pulled down to a 45° angle, making poor Stoppy look like he's on his last legs... well, maybe not legs..... oh, you know what I mean.

During the throes of the pandemic, Stoppy was made into a symbol of hope and endurance for a number of members of the Elkins Park Facebook page. Their one-time informational and documentational posts had now taken on a spiritual tone. Stoppy was a symbol of faith, of redemption filled with promise... promise of a life pulled from the ashes of despair and rising up to restore us to a life we once knew.... or some such bullshit. Some folks were serious about this. Really serious. But, not everyone...

Mrs. Pincus is one of the nicest people I know — if not the nicest. However in the nearly 40 years we have known each other, a bit of the cynicism that is "Josh Pincus" has, unfortunately, tarnished her otherwise sunny disposition. She is still very sweet and kind, but this underlying acerbity that I so readily exhibit, has crept in to her personality like a weed — a sarcastic little weed (which, by the way, was my nickname in high school). Mrs. Pincus has posted her own photos of Stoppy, along with snarky captions right out of the Josh Pincus playbook. Although she gets her fair share of "likes" and "thumbs ups," there are those who don't find her comments the least bit humorous. Of course, in the world of comedy, that's when something funny becomes even funnier.

Just this past week, Mrs. Pincus was contacted by a reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer, the once-mighty daily newspaper serving the once-fourth largest city in the country. The reporter explained to my wife hat she was doing a story on Stoppy and, in her research, Mrs. P's name came up. A lot. (Doing a story on Stoppy? Jeez, no wonder no one reads newspapers anymore!) Mrs. Pincus was, of course, flattered when the reporter started asking a barrage of questions, but soon turned leery when the inquiries leaned towards Stoppy's place as a spiritual representative for the Elkins Park community.

Whoa! Whoa! And whoa!

Mrs. Pincus politely interrupted to say that she didn't feel that way at all. The whole "Stoppy" thing was just a fun little distraction. If the reporter was looking for a divine awakening from a metal traffic governor, she should look elsewhere. The reporter continued along with her prepared questions, all answered with a palpable sardonic attitude by my wife. She pressed her angle, but Mrs. Pincus stood firm on her position, refusing to be swayed. The reporter thanked my wife for her participation and told her she'd let her know when the article was to scheduled to appear in both print and online.

When I left for work on Friday, I found a torn page from the newspaper laying on our front porch. I picked it up and immediately recocognzed a color photograph of good old Stoppy. I skimmed the article as I went back into the house to wake my wife and alert her of her pending fame. I noticed that she was only quoted once and her statement is more informational fact than her opinion of the whole "Stoppy" phenomena. It was fun to see her name in print — even for something as silly as a lengthy story about the metaphysical properties of a stop sign. Throughout the day, Mrs. P received plenty of accolades from friends and acquaintances regarding her fifteen minutes of fame. And then the day went on with attention rightfully directed towards more important matters. And that would be pretty much anything.

But, this shows no signs of stopping.

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