Roving Sign is term lifted from American Folk song mythology. The juxtaposition of words suggests a paradox.

The term came to my attention in the final stanza of Grateful Dead song, “Althea.” I think I had seen it in a Dylan song and and a song in one of the Lomax books. But, Hunter’s verse was more interesting.

In the middle 1990s I was a fan of York, PA rock band “Hexbelt.” This was around the time I was experimenting with Rock and Roll promotion and was into pre-social media online networking via forum software.

I had this idea that the popularity of Hexbelt could drive the fortunes of a whole scenes worth of local bands, in several cities. And I would need a Hexbelt-themed forum to corral all the hub-bub.

Hexbelt had adopted the Pennsylvania Amish Hex Signs as part of their promotional imagery. So the term “Roving Sign” suddenly seemed a good fit for this project.

We went through a few iterations of the Roving Sign Forum using SMF Software

Roving Sign Forum circa 2005

The Roving Sign forum was a blast and worked as intended. By 2008 Roving Sign was sporting over 1100 members. We even had a huge party in West Virgina called “Roving Sign Family Reunion.”

But by 2009 the creep of Social Media and general bickering led me to decommission the forum version of Roving Sign. Future versions of the site were more bloggy, but never really regained the loft of the original project.

Now I use Roving Sign as a clearing house for all of my interests and pursuits.

What’s it mean? Hell if I know! Jerry tells Althea “I’m a Roving Sign, and I was born to be a bachelor,” to which Althea says “Ok, that’s fine.” But in the next stanza Jerry says “now I’m out trying to catch her.”

It always reminded me of what Spock says to Stonn at the end of “Amok Time.” “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting.”