Yesterday, a plywood sign in front of Shirley Gates's house proclaimed plaintively, "We Miss You, Miss Shirley."

Ms. Bryant, who owns a painting business, erected a multicolored plywood sign on the front of her house that reads: "Hell No I Won't Go."

"Club Closed," read the black letters painted on a plywood sign hanging on the front gate.

Two days after the September 11 attacks in 2001, a 19-year old man named Jared Dailey stood on the street corner facing the church holding up a plywood sign that said "Not today, Fred".

In a scene reminiscent of a barn raising, the group struggled to erect a 10-foot-by-15-foot plywood sign.

There were dozens of big plywood signs with biblical verses and end-of-the-world warnings lettered on them, and a lot of renderings of Bible stories done in flaking house paint.

The expensive plywood signs stopped vanishing.

Hulon Matherne put plywood signs by the road to point the way to his barbershop.

On Wednesday he stood in a black trench coat in a driving rain before the faded plywood sign of a closed textile factory, attacking trade deals he said cost jobs.

To ward off American soldiers, Mr. Khalid put a plywood sign with a message written in chalk in English: "House/No guns.