It occurred to me today that yard signs are somewhat dangerous, if you think about it.

My wife and I have a maintenance contract with an HVAC contractor. Once in the early spring, and then again in the early fall, this contractor comes out to our home and services the HVAC system that we bought from them about a decade ago. They do great work, and they are friendly and courteous, and we’ve enjoyed our business relationship with them, by and large.

When they come out, they ask if they can put a yard sign in our front yard, letting people know about our relationship with the company and the fact that they do our regular maintenance, twice a year. We normally say yes, and leave the yard sign in the front yard for a couple weeks, and then we take it down and throw it out.

It doesn’t ever really do me any harm to do this; having people drive by the house and see that we use this particular company. Because the company has a good reputation, I don’t mind advertising that I have a relationship with that company. I am quite comfortable letting people know that I do business with this company, and, if anyone really cares what I have to say, this company is worthy of my business.

I guess, it’s what you would call an allegiance.

* * *

I’m not sure that it is a secret, but just in case it is, let me allow the cat to leave the bag: I don’t like the President. And, before you jump to the obvious conclusion, let me say that I’ve been a lifelong Republican. I don’t like the kind of person that he is, I don’t like that he’s divisive, rather than unifying, I don’t like that he’s arrogant and rude. And again, I’m a Republican, so this isn’t a party thing.

And, I have certain opinions about people who continue to support him, as well, but that’s more “guilt-by-association” than anything else. I do wonder about people who think that he’s worthy of a second term. He was impeached, after all, and I think it’s wrong that an impeached President is running for a second term as the candidate of a party that he absconded with four years ago.

Anyway…

I drive by a home on my way to work –and then again on my way back home– with three Trump 2020 signs on their property. One of them is a fabric flag that they’ve attached to the utility pole near the road (which I’ll bet is actually illegal, but who I am?). And, while I could describe to you the property on which these signs and flags are sitting, I’ll spare you the details. It’s not actually a part of what I’m about to discuss.

On this property, with their presidential election signage, there is also a sign for a local candidate who is running for a local office. County treasurer or township committee chairman, or something like that. And, admittedly, I don’t know anything about the candidate who is running for the local office, but my initial reaction is to vote for anybody but this person.

And, I’ve been thinking about why it is that I feel this way. These people, who are obviously pro-Trump, are also pro-this-other-person, and I guess I have to wonder not only about them, but about this local candidate. Would I vote for someone if other people, who I disagree with, are going to vote for that person? The answer is no, isn’t it?!?!

I’m not sure.

I can tell you that, if I were a candidate for a political office, I wouldn’t want one of my yard signs on the same property as a yard sign promoting a candidate that so many people despise. I will also say that I will be watching this local candidate in August and November, to see how they end up doing. I’d be interested in knowing whether or not yard sign associations rub off on each other.

* * *

A few years ago, an elderly man in my church paid to have a bunch of yard signs printed up with the Ten Commandments on them. He distributed these signs to different people in our church, and those people posted them in their yards for a certain period of time; I think this man still has his in his front yard, or he did, as of just recently.

The funny thing about posting the Ten Commandments in your front yard is this: it doesn’t go well if you aren’t a person who follows the Ten Commandments. And, arguably so, my neighbors –the people who are going to end up staring at the yard sign of the Ten Commandments more than anyone else will ever see it– are the very people who know me, oftentimes, in a way that my fellow church-goers do not. The people I go to church with, many of them only see me for an hour or two every Sunday.

My neighbors will see me much more than that.

And, they would be the ones to tell you whether or not I believe in the Ten Commandments, not by what I say, but by what I do in my life. My actions will always speak louder than my words, and those people who watched me post the Ten Commandments in my yard, they’ve also watched me scream the Lord’s name in my backyard, and they’ve watched me skip church to sleep in my backyard hammock, and they’ve watched me ogling the female joggers in my neighborhood instead of paying attention to my wife when she’s talking to me.

My neighbors know all they need to know about me, whether or not I’m posting the Ten Commandments in my front yard. Sometimes, I wonder whether those Ten Commandments signs, that the elderly man in my church had printed, ended up doing more harm than good.

* * *

Bumper stickers, sports team clothing, tattoos; they all accomplish the same ends as our yard signs. They are visual representations of our beliefs, our affiliations, our allegiances. The danger and difficulty in these things, for starters, is that most humans tend to be pretty fickle. The seventy-five dollar baseball jersey that I bought becomes a car-washing rag when that team fails to make the play-offs for a few years. Your next girlfriend might not be so tickled about your decision to get your last girlfriend’s name tattooed on your forearm because, hey, it was going to last forever.

Of course, the other issue comes when we are judged by the company that we keep –or that we say that we keep– by those around us, stuck staring at our yard signs.

I’ll have to end this here; I’ve got some yard work to do…