Unsettling

Just back from Cape Cod, I thought I might share what I found to be an interesting sign in the little hamlet of Sandwich. In fact, these signs are scattered throughout Massachusetts wherever the speed limits are reduced to 30 and even 25 miles per hour.

Interesting because, if I were writing the sign, I would use DENSELY POPULATED AREA or something similar. THICKLY SETTLED sounds like residue in the bottom of a bucket. Or it sounds like maybe the whole town suffers from a low IQ. Or perhaps a high Body Mass Index number. It makes me want to exercise.

Fact is, history and geography books often describe a locale as “thickly settled,” rather than highly populated or densely populated, but on a sign in a small town, it just seems strange, as if the people there are stepping all over each other, or lying head to toe like elephant seals on the beach, sweating but just too lazy to get up and find a breeze. A sort of peanut butter of humanity spread on a cracker of earth.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The density of Sandwich is really very low–houses and shops built in the 1600s and 1700s tucked back in the trees or on hilltops. It is quaint and archaic, just like the phrase on the sign.  Sandwich was incorporated in 1639.  That’s about as settled as a place can get on this side of the Atlantic, thick or not.