Sign takes a beating but folks keep on reading
Three people in a one-month span encountered a sign from God. Literally.
Three motorists between mid-May and mid-June hit the reader board sign of North Hill Christian Church, 4620 N. Post St. The sign now reads on one side, “You meet the nicest people by accident.”
“Oh, someone really did a number there,” said Joan Degerstrom, after she snapped some photographs of the sign last week.
The sign stood in front of the church at Wellesley Avenue and Post Street for two years without incident.
“It was after the second accident we started to say, ‘What’s going on here?’ ” the Rev. Sandy Messick said. “I don’t know what’s happening at that intersection.”
The sign itself escaped unscathed, but the two metal supports now are bent at 60 degree angles. The red orange supports have their silver insides exposed and paint chipped off. Broken glass and plastic remnants of headlights litter the ground, while sand covers the landscaping around the sign.
The other side of the sign reads, “Tough week? Tell me about it. Sundays 10 a.m.”
Ann Carter, a Snohomish, Wash., resident, hit the sign on Mother’s Day, May 9, while on the way to her mother’s house in south Spokane. She was the second person to hit the sign and suffered a concussion in the accident.
She said numbers and letters fell to the ground when she hit the sign, but she was able to make out one phrase when she got out of her van.
“It said, ‘Thanks, God,’ ” Carter said. “And everything else you couldn’t read, but that’s what was on the bottom line.”
Messick said the message originally read, “The trees are green, the flowers are blooming. Thanks, God, you did it again.”
The week after Carter hit the sign, it simply read, “Ouch. That hurt.” Another message since the spree of crashes read, “Feel broken? Me too. You’re welcome here.”
“A number of people have called and said they really appreciate what’s been on the sign,” Messick said.
Fixing it will cost around $3,500, though insurance will cover all the damages, she said.
Messick said that she doesn’t think God had a hand in the recent happenings and called it instead “a coincidence.”
And that friendly woman snapping the photographs of the sign last week?
She turned out to be Carter’s mother.
You do meet the nicest people by accident – or coincidence.