Shatner Rules

American radio, Elizabeth and I took turns saying bombastic things about the president and giving one another birthday shout-outs!
    If you learn anything from
Shatner Rules
, it’s that my career has been an adventure, full of unexpected stops, starts, twists, and turns, and my undying allegiance to “yes” and the unexpected. This also extends to my time spent traveling and adventuring.
    I love traveling, and I love getting lost. I have a GPS in all my cars, but they are usually switched off. (By the way, isn’t it time that
I
became a GPS voice? You can download Gary Busey, KITT from
Knight Rider
, and Flavor Flav. There has to be a market for William Shatner giving you directions! Let’s talk, GPS manufacturers. And unlike the sexy lady voice on most units, I can actually pronounce “Sepulveda Boulevard” properly.)
RULE: No Voyage Is Complete without a Side Trip to Scenic Self-Promotion Falls, Pop. Shatner
    Getting lost in America, one of my favorite hobbies, is something I first did in college. A buddy of mine from McGill University and I set out to see America in 1948. We were armed with only our backpacks, our youthful exuberance, and two cardboard signs.
    What did the signs say?
    Remember Burma-Shave? If you are younger than me, you probably don’t, and you probably don’t shave as much as you should either. Seriously, kids, when did beards become popular again? Last time I attended a Star Trek convention, I thought I was addressing a pack of Civil War reenactors. (Then again, it might have been a Civil War convention. I do a lot of conventions.)
    Well, Burma-Shave had a unique and wonderful way of advertising its product. They would line the highways of America with a set of sequential signs, each sign having the line of a poem on it. The entire nation was covered with the terrific little stanzas promoting the clean shave of Burma-Shave brushless shaving cream.
    A few examples:
    Does your husband / Misbehave / Grunt and grumble / Rant and rave / Shoot the brute some / Burma-Shave
    Your shaving brush / Has had its day / So why not / Shave the modern way / With / Burma-Shave
    A peach / Looks good / With lots of fuzz / But man’s no peach / And never wuz / Burma-Shave
    Great, funny, memorable advertisements. Had they not folded in 1963, taking their signs with them, I would have loved to have worked with them and endorsed their fine product!
    Anyway, my college buddy and I held two pieces of cardboard, like the Burma-Shave signs, which read:
     
    T WO M C G ILL S TUDENTS / S EEING THE US.
RULE: If You Really Want to Re-create the Burma-Shave Magic, Travel with at Least Four More Friends
    And we would stand a distance from one another along the road, thumbs out, and get picked up by strangers and driven across this strange land.
    Unfortunately, about two weeks into our adventure, my buddy bailed on me, leaving me with the sign TWO MCGILL STUDENTS . People weren’t sure if I was advertising a sale of two McGill students, or if I wanted two McGill students, or if I was traveling to the city of Two McGill Students in search of employment and/or adventure. Either way, the sign no longer had its Burma-Shave appeal, and I started relying solely on my thumb and youthful good looks.
    Now, in this day and age, it is irresponsible for me to suggest that my readers just throw away the map and hop into a car with strangers. Sure, I survived it, but just barely.
    I mean, at one point I was picked up by a farmer in a decrepit pickup truck who had a long ponytail. This was 1948. People didn’t have long ponytails. But this one did. Part of the adventure—see strange places, meet new people!
    He also had fairly progressive views on sexual freedom. Meaning, he felt he had the freedom to explore my sexual bits. His advances were not the kind I was expecting from a resident of America’s Corn Belt, but he went straight for my buckle. Needless to say, unlike my voyages with Elizabeth, I suggested that we turn on the radio, play the license plate game—anything to rebuff his amorous advances.
    After a while, I thanked him for the ride and got out—as soon as he slowed down to about twenty miles per hour.
    (NOTE: If you do a tuck and roll at twenty miles per hour, you will most likely crush your cardboard
TWO MCGILL STUDENTS
sign.)
    Perhaps the most memorable leg of my maiden walk across the nation started in Pennsylvania, when an elderly rabbi and his wife picked me up. It was midday on a Wednesday, and the elderly