Tom Miller lives in Clover, surrounded by signs of years gone by.

Cousin Tom was a four-term member of Clover’s City Council before he built a house in the country and moved out beyond city limits. But if you look carefully in his garage, you'll see a green sign with white letters reading “Clover.”

It came off the long-abandoned railroad station, where it used to proclaim to travelers that they had entered Clover, S.C., nee Clover Patch Station. It’s a haven of serenity just south of the North Carolina border except on fall Fridays when the Clover High School Blue Eagles take on one of the teams from nearby Gastonia. On those nights, mayhem may occur, with the Tar Heel teams usually getting the worst of it, to hear Tom tell it.

That sign off the old depot is one of about 1,800 signs in Tom’s collection. There aren’t many he has missed. I didn’t see a Burma Shave sign. I suspect they were all demolished by near-sighted motorists who tried to move in close enough to read them on the fly. I didn’t see a “See Rock City” sign. I think Tom would have brought one home, except that his garage is too small to accommodate a barn roof, and his wife, Mary, gentle though she be, wouldn’t sit still for an expansion.

Tom wanted a sign advertising Tube Rose Snuff (“If your snuff is strong it’s wrong, use Tube Rose,” to quote the renowned Arthur Smith). But he didn’t get it. And he’s hankering for a McLean Trucking Sign. If you know where he could pick one up cheap (or, preferably, free) let him know. He does have a sign advertising Floyd’s Barber Shop in Mayberry. Not sure whether it came from Mayberry (wherever that is) or Mount Airy, the model for Andy Griffith’s hometown. But Tom treasures it.

There’s a vintage sign advertising Indian Motorcycles, recently reincarnated in nearby Kings Mount, N. C. There’s also a sign advertising the “Busted Knuckle Garage,” bearing the image of a motorcycle. Tom’s a motorcycle enthusiast, though he hasn’t owned one in a while, out of deference for Mary’s anxiety. He’s 57, and bones don’t mend themselves as easily as they did at age 20 or 30.

Tom is a customer-service rep for the Clover-headquartered Huffman Corp., which provides multi-axis, computer numerical control, high-precision machine tool systems. I copied that off a website and have no idea what it means, being a simple Carolina linthead. But Tom knows, and I’m impressed.

I was also impressed at Tom’s political success, given the fact that previous bearers of the Miller name have not fared so well. People with long memories may recall that William Miller was Barry Goldwater’s running mate in 1964 and the ticket lost Miller’s home state of New York by 35 percentage points.

The Brothers Four in that year recorded a song with a line that went “Here’s a riddle, it’s a killer, who the hell is William Miller? That line may have inspired the American Express credit card commercials that featured the candidate using his Gold Card to identify himself.  The veep candidate’s son lost two congressional races in New York. But Tom redeemed the family name as the four-time winner in Clover City Council elections.

Why would a successful politician who can speak the language of multi-axis computer numerical control go to the trouble and expense of collecting 1,800 signs with messages as simple as “Pay Toilet, 10 cents, Drop Coin, Turn Handle”?

(I’ve tried following those instructions in the long-ago when there actually were pay toilets, and I can tell you that they’re not that easy to follow when you’re in a big hurry and can’t find a dime in your pocket.)

I think it has something to do with Tom’s inventive nature. When a teen-aged son accidentally drove his car into the side of the garage while learning to drive, Tom decided it would be cheaper to patch the wall with a sign than to rebuild it the regular way. That was the last dent put in the garage wall, but the signs spread like kudzu and now cover every square inch of the wall, the garage door, and the passageway leading from Mary’s kitchen to the garage.

Tom said his favorite sign is always the last one he acquired. But I have an idea that his Miller High Life signs rank well toward the top, even though he doesn’t touch the stuff.

Tom has them sprinkled all over the place. One of the more fetching specimens is a circular sign featuring a star-studded lass in a skirt with red, white and blue stripes, sitting in the arms of a crescent moon and holding aloft a piece of stemware half-full of something amber. The legend reads, “Miller High Life, Champagne of Bottle Beer.” Haven’t heard that slogan in years, but you used to hear it in radio commercials sung to the tune of Johann Strauss’s “Southern Roses Waltz.”  I grew up thinking champagne was a high-class beer with Miller High Life as the ultimate expression.

Today, the slogan is “It’s Miller Time,” and it’s the way Tom signs off his Facebook account every night.

I asked Tom what he thought the sign collection was worth. After asking Mary to leave the room, he confided, “probably $11,000.”

Many of the signs were gifts from friends. Others he bought off e-Bay.

“If I spend $20 for a sign, I’ve gotta want it bad,” he said.

If you happen across a garage-size Rock City sign, get in touch with Tom. If you’re up to writing rhymes, forge a series of Burma Shave signs. But come Miller Time, I suspect Tom would just as soon have that McLean Trucking sign.        

Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson, S.C. 29621, or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@aol.com.