Pat Mason: Burma Shave

BURMA SHAVE

by Pat Mason

My brother, Price Crane (and his wife Ann) and my husband, Lee, worked together on a big gift for my 40th birthday. First thing that happened was I walked out of my door to begin my daily hour and a half run on Audubon Boulevard. First, I walked to Willow Street and Audubon Boulevard. On the house on the corner of Willow and Broadway was a big sign that said, “ONE OF THE GREATEST IS OVER THE HILL.” This was the first clue, but not the last surprise. When 1 crossed over Willow, I found several signs like those of Burma Shave, which was legendary for its rhyming ads along the sides of highways. All five of the signs I passed were nailed to different trees. The first read “JOGGERS RUN” and the second had “JOGGERS TROT.” The third sign was “BUT WHEN THEY ARE 40, KIDS THEY ARE NOT” and the fourth was “BURMA SHAVE.” And last but least was this: “COACH RAPPOLD WAS KNOWN TO SAY – ‘GIVE ME 5 LIKE CRANE AND I’LL WIN ALL DAY’ – BURMA SHAVE.”

Price and Ann had asked us over for dinner that night. We went and were surprised again. They had lots of our friends there and they all had on black mourning ribbons around their arms. There was a baby picture of me and a cake with a coffin on it. Everything was absolutely great. My birthday gift was a bumper sticker that read “Pat Mason is over 40.”

One person who saw the Burma Shave signs was Angus Lind, who wrote a popular Times-Picayune column every other day about something different. After seeing the Burma Shave signs, he wrote about them and my birthday. His story was a full page about all the ways my family tried to embarrass me. He first called Lee to see if I would mind an article in the Times-Picayune. Lee said, “I don't think so. We are really private people.” Then Angus called me and I said, “WHAT!!! I would love to have my name in the paper.” So he interviewed me and I told him about the party decorations and the bumper stickers. Many people enjoyed the signs. He told me later it was the only full-page column he ever published. It was certainly the one and only full-page story ever written about me.

And Burma Shave lived on to be advertised again. Its signs first appeared on small, slow roads in 1925 and continued until the Eisenhower Interstate System with its 70 mph speed limits and lack of picturesque little towns in the early '60’s. We could live without the jingles, but it was nice to be visited one more time with this little product.

FROM THE TIMES-PICAYUNE NEWSPAPER DATED AUGUST 3, 1977 "JOGGERS RUN, JOGGERS TROT" By: Angus Lind

Pat Mason walked out of her home on Pine Street the morning of Saturday, July 23. Nothing much was out of the ordinary. Heat and humidity slapped her in the face, but that was normal.

She was on the way to her appointed round with her jogging course which turns at Willow Street, goes across Broadway to Audubon Boulevard, then to S. Claiborne Avenue and back home again.

It was 7:30 a.m. On the occasion of her 40th birthday, Pat was looking forward to a good workout, the kind of thing you like to do when you reach a milestone age. It's a nice little ego reinforcement to know that, yes, ten years have gone by and – yes, by God, I'm still good enough to do it.

I'm still in one piece, arthritis hasn't set in yet. Not too many aches and pains, just a few creaks, and maybe – just maybe, with a little help from Dr. Ben-Gay, I'd be able to bang another ten years, and do the same thing.

It would be a jog Pat Mason would not forget.

She closed the door to her house, and her eyes immediately darted across the street. On a large tree was a sign which read: “Life begins at 0 – Too bad everything else wears out.”

She laughed, figured it was her husband's joke for the day, and got her legs in motion. Just across Broadway, another sign jumped out at her. It was on the home of some friends, David and Pat Malone. It read: “One of the greatest is over the hill.”

“l wish she could have seen her own face,” said Malone. “My wife was looking out the window when she came by. She saw that sign in absolutely-stunned astonishment. You could see her thinking, “How could they do such a dastardly thing, much less know when my 40th birthday was?”

At Audubon Boulevard, more surprises lurked in the palm trees.

The first sign read simply enough “Joggers run.” But down the road, spaced about a hundred yards or so apart, came a Burma Shave sequence:

“Joggers run Joggers trot But after 40 Kids they're not Burma Shave.”

“l WAS SHOCKED. I was laughing so hard, I didn't think I could keep running,” said Mrs. Mason. “But I did – I ran the whole thing because I was afraid there would be more signs.”

Her fears were well-founded. Around the bend was:

“Coach Rapp was always Known to say ‘Give me five like Crane And I'll win all day.’ Burma Shave.”

“I'd have to say she was in hysterics,” said plotting husband Lee Mason. Pat went to grammar school at Holy Name and played basketball for Coach Rappold. Crane is her maiden name.

That night, the honoree, thinking things might quiet down, was treated to a gala surprise party, complete with out-of-town guests. By the time they finished working her over, if anybody in the Uptown area didn't know Pat Mason was 40, they do now.

“They even made bumper stickers that read: ‘Pat Mason is 40’,” said the birthday girl. “My sister-in-law had to go to the store and a lady in the supermarket parking lot spotted it and told her: “l don’t know Pat Mason, but she must hate you.”

On the cake, of course, was a tombstone. Guests wore black arm bands. There was a new sign in front of the house which read: “She's not getting better, only older.” And baby pictures were liberally displayed.

“It could have been worse,” Mrs. Mason laughed. “I'm glad they didn't think of a billboard or a sound truck. I went to church the next day and was scared to look at the altar. There weren't many places they didn't get to, and well, you never know.”

The bad thing about doing somebody in on a milestone birthday, is that eventually, the worm will turn, the shoe will be on the other foot, it will be Reckoning Day. “Unfortunately,” she said, “Lee is past 40 and it's a few years until he's 50. It'll take me some time to top this, anyway. And it'll still be tough to do.”

Some of the kids on Audubon Boulevard didn't understand the “Burma Shave” on the signs. “l guess Burma Shave is the dividing line, the generational gap,” said Mrs. Mason. “Those who know about it, well, I guess they're part of the Over-the-Hill Gang.”