Billboard messages on road to Jersey Shore

SEA ISLE, N.J. » The first surprise on this annual trip to the Jersey shore was the tough political language on the billboards along the Pennsylvania Turnpike between Breezewood and Harrisburg, an area generally viewed as part of the red T of Republican dominance in the state, a region that’s part of America’s wide open spaces of barns, guns, dairy cows and churches that’s regularly referred to as flyover country among conservative pundits, a description of huge areas of the nation seen from above as the bicoastal elites jet by and glance down.

It’s an environment in central Pennsylvania where straight doses of country music and conservative talk fill the airways.

A car radio set on scan at Breezewood and passing by Carlisle, Hershey, Lancaster and Downingtown picks up every minute of the Rush Limbaugh show from the small stations in town after town without skipping a beat for several hundred miles.

The first political billboard we noticed, standing out boldly in solid red against the green fields had a hammer and sickle inside the O of GOP and this message: “Impeachment Now, Make America Great Again, 2018.”’

The hammer and sickle image is a communist symbol adopted during the Russian Revolution.

The hammer represented industrial laborers and the sickle stood for the peasantry. They are united in the symbol, illustrating a workerpeasant alliance that would struggle to enact socialism and fight against capitalism, democracy and decentralized private economies.

Another billboard delivered a political message in religious terms: “Real Christians Love Their Enemies. Impeachment, 2018.”

I doubt that that their enemies list to love includes Vladimir Putin.

A third billboard, in gun country, advocated more regulation of firearms: “Vote for Common Sense Gun Legislation. You Work for Us, Not the NRA.”

Several of the billboards listed the sponsoring organization — Maddogpac.com, a self-identified “political action committee that solicits campaign contributions to operate a nationwide campaign to fund billboards censuring Trump, the NRA, and GOP Treason.”

Maddogpac also sells proimpeachment mugs, jackets and yard signs, in addition to “The NRA is a Terrorist Organization” T-shirts.

Arriving in Sea Isle, N.J., the mood is more pleasant with a cool and steady breeze coming off the ocean feeling like a giant air conditioner, producing the hot temperature letup that built these shore towns in the era before widespread air conditioning.

The other good news here is that the beach looks wider than ever, thanks to the addition of federally subsidized sand, and the mocking birds are still singing in the dunes, the prices of houses, in limited supply on this barrier island, are rising at a robust rate.

The flounder are biting heavily in the bay and anglers are having little trouble landing their Jersey state limit of three fluke per day at an 18inch minimum each.

The lady working at Mrs, Brizzle’s Buns is still piling five pounds of ham and salami on an Italian hoagie, more quantity than quality but enough surplus meat for a week of Italian omelettes.

Also oversized are the bluefish in the bay at 20 to 23 pounds.

The local news says it’s “an invasion by bluefish gangs,” producing deaths and terror among the smaller bait fish.

That sounds like South Philly at midnight, but here it just means it’s time to buy a few more lures.

The first political billboard we noticed, standing out boldly in solid red against the green fields had a hammer and sickle inside the O of GOP and this message: “Impeachment Now, Make America Great Again, 2018.”’

Ralph R. Reiland is Associate Professor Emeritus of Economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. His email: rrreialnd@aol.com