There it is among the other, street-side signs of a kinda-sorta strip mall: “No First Light Today”. The titling and other aspects of the sign don’t seem to match any of the stores, which seem only to include a jeweler and a cell-phone store (but there might be other(s) which I haven’t seen).
Now, I’ve long known what “first light” means (see: First Light), but there definitely aren’t any telescope stores there (and even if there were, that would be a strange sign).
So what do you figure the sign could be referring to?
It’s in Michigan, if that helps. But if it has anything to do specifically with Michigan or it’s more exact location it would be even more obscure and puzzling than it already is!
It’s in Michigan, if that helps. But if it has anything to do specifically with Michigan or it’s more exact location it would be even more obscure and puzzling than it already is, so let’s hope that’s not the case!
I’m going to take your suggestions seriously and I thank you for them. But there’s no convenience store nearby, and besides, the sign, while reasonably small (about 1.5 foot by 3.5 feet) is too prominent and too big for it to be about a single magazine and it would seem that there would have to be a sign for other and/or far more popular magazines, but there aren’t.
Well, if it said just “No First Light” that would be more plausible, but it says “No First Light Today”. Oddly, the sign doesn’t appear changeable, so I have no idea why it specifies “today”. And I’m familiar with the local politics and so forth, and there’s nothing controversial and there’s nothing called “First Light”.
That at least sounds plausible. But why put the sign up with the other commercial outlet signs of the plaza?
By they way, I inspected the site closer and there’s also an Avis rental storefront and a tax preparer, too. I don’t see how that helps, though.
‘First Light’ is a common name used by prayer groups that meet daily in the morning; My WAG is that this sign indicates that today’s meeting will not take place. If this is true though, the sign would not be permanently fixed in place.
Perhaps you have found the place where the sun doesn’t shine, and you can finally rid yourself of all that stuff that people have told you to put there.
I think this is it. First Light is a pretty widely (if thinly) spread prayer concept. It sounds as though a particular group is not meeting on a particular morning (or several mornings). If the sign has been up for several days, it being summer, the (already small) group may have just had trouble getting enough people to show up with vacation interruptions.
Hmm… You may well be right. Thanks for the info about prayer services by that name; it doubled the associations of that phrase that I’m aware of. But here are some items that don’t seem to fit well with that thesis:
(1) The sign doesn’t appear to be changeable. If it is, it’s through some unusual mechanism that would be a real pain to implement (for example, it’s 20 feet off the ground and there is no sliding partition or anything like that).
(2) The sign hasn’t changed in all the months I’ve actively noticed it (though it had to have been up there for years).
(3) There are no chapels, churches, temples, or other places of worship anywhere in the immediate vicinity. The closest is a Catholic church about a mile away, and I’m pretty sure it has morning services most mornings (certainly on days that the sign remains unchanged). I’ve lived in the area for many years and there has never been a place of worship nearby, so I can’t see how the sign can belong to a former one.
(4) The sign I’m talking about is directly among the other commercial signs that make a single communal sign-board for the strip mall. Here’s what it looks like:
Do you suppose that this might mean that a small group of early morning worshippers occasionally meet (or once met) at Joe’s Jeweler or Ted’s Tax Preparation offices?
Dunno; your further description does make it all sound quite odd. I was thinking more of prayer groups formed by like-minded individuals who happen to get together because they all work in the same place; I can even imagine a devoted individual shinning up a ladder to put up and take down a sign, but I’m tending to think that this all might be a bit of a stretch now.
However, I think there is one point we perhaps could reasonably deduce; that whatever ‘First Light’ was, in this particular context, it used to happen regularly, then there was an incident when it did not occur on particular days, then this (i.e. not happening) became the norm; I expect the sign is actually redundant at this point, having simply been neglected to be removed.
This sign is a fair distance from Lowell, but that has just got to be it. Nothing else fits all the facts, such as explaining why the sign can’t be changed.
What an incredibly strange name for a company/association, though. What a strange name for anything! First chance I get I’m going to inspect the place more closely on foot and try to locate the office or whatever and ask about their name. If I find out more I’ll report back.
Whether intended or not (and surely it was not) the Magnet-out version is a strange corollary to “No First Light Today.” Kinda like “Law of Gravity Repealed.”
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