It's no secret that I avoid interstate highways, preferring the charm and unique sights of the "blue highways" over the monotony and billboard jungles of the I-system. I'm not sure how this sprawl of in-your-face billboard advertising along the I-system got approved, but I'm sure one former First Lady also sought out alternate routes to avoid this ad glut.

The passing of "Lady Bird" Johnson, wife of the late President Lyndon B. Johnson, on July 11 at age 94, recalls her passion for a more beautiful America, namely regulation on billboards and salvage yards that could be seen from the heavily traveled roadways of America. While LBJ signed The Highway Beautification Act (Public Law 89-285) into law on October 22, 1965, many political insiders claim it was "Lady Bird" who should get the credit for this piece of legislation.

At a time when LBJ had a more intense agenda in the form of the Viet Nam crisis needing his attention, you can almost guess it was from conversation with "Lady Bird" about the clutter along America's byways that LBJ uttered these words in 1965: "As I rode the George Washington Memorial Parkway back to the White House only yesterday afternoon, I saw nature at its purest.... And not one single foot of it was marred by a single, unsightly, man-made construction or obstruction - no advertising signs, no old dilapidated trucks, no junkyards."

It's "Lady Bird" who is often credited with salvage yards having "beauty fences" erected around their perimeters, not to keep trespassers out, but to keep passersby from having to view what LBJ termed "unsightly, man-made construction...."

Her vision of a less-cluttered America was ahead of its time, and sorely needed today.

RIP "Lady Bird", there are no billboards in Heaven!