It’s proving a bit difficult to write about a sign. Seven concrete letters spaced across a small embankment in the first curve of the “S” that leads visitors into downtown Edwards — or at least what is left of downtown. The letters can’t talk, just silent vigils at the entrance to a town founded before the Civil War.

The “S” curve at one time served to slow down drivers along the east-to-west wonder that is U.S. 80, which stretched from Tybee Island, Ga., to San Diego.

EDWARDS has been on the embankment somewhere between 70 and 80 years. There was a small math discrepancy between town “historians” Roma and Knox “Knocky” Askew.

Miss Roma, a Utica girl, married Knocky in 1948 and the two have shared a home on Jackson Street ever since. They’ve lived in their current home for 14 years, before that living in a larger house closer to town.

Knocky, a lifelong resident and former mayor, is going on 84. He earned that name the first time he had to speak publicly. He said his knees were knocking so loudly, everyone referred to him as Knocky. He’s been Knocky, or Mr. Knocky, for as long as he can remember. He was born at the Street Sanitorium in Vicksburg. He graduated as the top male student in his Edwards School class in 1943. The other three graduates were girls.

Mr. Knocky spent some time in the military, then returned to Edwards where he has been ever since. Sixty-one years after marrying Miss Roma, they reel off town history — the famous wooden bridge across the railroad track and the train depot in the center of town among their favorite topics.

Both of those landmarks are gone now. The wooden bridge over the tracks has been replaced by a concrete and steel one that reminds riders of a Six Flags thrill ride — straight up, straight down. The Depot is long gone as is much of downtown — some buildings burned (including a grocery and seed store the two owned), some were abandoned.

The school is no more either, long since abandoned. But that EDWARDS sign has stood for somewhere near 80 years. Miss Roma said it was part of the Works Progress Administration, a post-depression economic stimulus program passed in 1935 during the Franklin D. Roosevelt adminstration. It was part of the New Deal and provided millions of jobs for Americans nationwide between 1935 and 1943. In addition to the sign, a swimming pool was built where the post office stands today, Miss Roma recalled. The National Youth Administration built the gymnasium attached to the school in 1941.

Today, the sign is sinking into the earth. Some of the letters are fighting off the effects of time, but others are not so lucky. The “S” at the end is furthest along and the D is not much better.

Miss Roma admits if she could go back she would have led an effort to save the wooden bridge, which will live on in Hollywood lore as the closing shot of the George Clooney movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and she would have made a bigger push to save the depot as well.

She and Mr. Knocky are members of the “Friends of the Edwards Cemetery,” a group of people who clean up the town burial ground cemetery twice a year. It’s now time for the creation of “Friends of the Sign,” a community effort to keep that sign greeting people for 70 more years. Or 80.

John Coccaro, Warren County director for the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said there are two likely culprits for the sign appearing to sink. The weight of the concrete letters has caused them to retreat and there is a chance some soil has washed away from above the letters and accumulated below.

Coccaro said because the bottoms of the letters are obscured, soil movement and erosion is playing a bigger part than just the letters sinking.

The easiest way to fix that old sign, Coccaro said, would be to dig out the soil from around the letters. A few tools and some grit from those wanting to keep the most recognizable landmark left in downtown Edwards is all that would be needed.

For a town that has seen its heyday, been knocked down and is struggling to rise again, that sign is a reminder of the town itself — still standing, a bit rough around the edges and in need of a makeover.

If Miss Roma and Mr. Knocky have anything to do with it, that sign will shine again — as the town they love once did.