Guest Post - The Stop Sign, Part 1

Guest Post

I am happy to present another guest post by my friend, Dan Schobert. I thought I would do this one like the old-fashioned serials. Enjoy! Dan said he would like to hear from anyone who wants to email him.

The Stop Sign, Part 1

“And that, my dear students, is the end of my talk on evolution.” Professor James Wilson began putting his notes away. It was the conclusion of Evolution 101, a 13 week class in which college students were given an introduction to the background of evolutionary science. As was his usual procedure, and without lifting his eyes, he asked: “any questions?” It was the question he always asked when concluding a day’s lecture but he seldom received any responses from the close to 300 students crowded into the state university lecture hall. Wilson sometimes wondered if the students were alive, let alone awake. But he didn’t care because, in a few weeks, he would be going into retirement.

Little did he know that things were about to change. Believing things were normal, Wilson lifted his head and scanned the audience to see, if by some slim chance, someone actually had a question. Moving from left to right across the hall, he was surprised to see an uplifted hand in the fourth row, fifth seat.

“Oh, what a surprise. We have a question. Stand up young man and lets hear what you have on your mind.” Slowly the student rose. It was 20-year-old William (Billy) Lynch. A quiet student, Billy seldom made much fuss in class, keeping to himself most of the time. His six feet, two inch frame was attired in the typical fashion of the day; army fatigues, Nike shoes, torn shirt. At least the clothes were clean. He rose slowly from his seat, ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair and cleared his throat.

“Thank you Professor Wilson,” he began. “I’ve been sitting here for these several weeks as you have lectured on evolution and I have found your comments very interesting. I have been trying to put all these things together, to make sense to me.. and I’ve come up with a question.” “Well spit it out boy; we’ve got things to do,” said the Professor, with a bit of anxiety in his voice, hoping he could be finished with this student in quick order. “With all due respect Professor Wilson, I realize you have been teaching the course for years and you will probably think my question to be unreasonable but I was just wondering this: Why do we have stop signs?”

The class broke into an uproar with laughs, whistles, hoots and hollers. Professor Wilson had to restrain himself to not join in the ruckus, knowing that no question is unreasonable though this one seemed a bit out of context. Clearing his throat and hoping the question would easily be answered, Professor Wilson said: “My boy, that seems like a good question and my answer is this: We have stop signs to inform people that they need to stop at a particular intersection.”

Dan Schobert, W9MFG@charter.net