Today I saw two planes flying above Madison, pulling advertising banners, and I had to wonder if that is at all a worthwhile use of advertising money.

It made me remember when I was very young and living in Milwaukee. Before the 4th of July fireworks (and perhaps on other nights, though that is what I remember best), after the sky had begun to darken, planes would cross the sky with ad text scrolling across their wings on LED signboards which was all you could see of the planes. At the time, I didn't understand the signboards, and since the message would scroll and repeat I thought that the planes were round. I visualized them as large, flying spinning tops, with light text on the edges. They seemed to roll across the night sky and so that is what I believed they did. I couldn't figure out how they managed such a feat, since I hadn't seen planes such as that at any other time, but I thought they were marvelous.