2019 - Day 95/270 - Friday...Harbinger...

I have seen this particular notification on a couple occasions while traveling down IH-35 in Austin, but I am usually traveling at a pace of about 3 or 4 miles per hour, so the opportunity to document the notice was lacking until this morning. And even then, I almost missed the opportunity to get the picture. This notice is on the inside lane barrier of the Interstate. By the time a pedestrian might (emphasis on the MIGHT) notice the notice, said pedestrian would have already succeeded in crossing four of five lanes of traffic to make it to that small linear bit of calm. After having paid some attention to the notice, would one admit to the error of their ways and return to the area from which they came, or do you think they might jump the short barrier and see if they could make it safely to the other side. Either way, I believe that is someone is set on crossing the Interstate right there in the big middle (or even some other big middle), my opinion is they would not pay much heed to the warning. Or maybe they would just set up camp right there and see what happens.

Whatever...

Harbinger -- Noun. 1. one that pioneers in or initiates a major change: precursor. 2. one that presages or foreshadows what is to come. "Brucie's worsening situation, like many events in Sweat's early scenes, is a harbinger of bad economic times that ultimately afflict all the characters." Michael Feingold, The Village Voice, November 9, 2016

Did You Know? When medieval travelers needed lodging for the night, they went looking for a harbinger. As long ago as the 12th century, harbinger was used to mean one who provides lodging" or "a host," but that meaning is now obsolete. By the late 1300s, harbinger was also being used for a person sent ahead of a main party to seek lodgings, often for royalty or a campaigning army, but that old sense has largely been left in the past, too. Both of those historical senses are true to the Anglo-French of harbinger, the word herberge, meaning "lodgings." The most common sense of the word nowadays, the "forerunner" sense, has been with us since the mid-1500s.