Bumper Stickers
I love a good bumper sticker. I don’t necessarily put them on my bumpers. Over the years, my vehicles have been discreet. The wildest I got in turning my ride into a personality statement occurred when I was in my twenties. I owned a “82” Subaru hatchback. The car suffered from an identity crisis. It longed to be a real 4X4 and sported off road lights mounted to the roof, a sticker on the windshield that warned that it was an “urban assault vehicle” and a sign on the bumper that declared the rats as winners.
None of the trucks I have owned since that time have stood out as “dyke-mobiles”. My ’99 Dakota only reflected my membership in USA Hockey as a player. My current ’06 Chevy Colorado pick up truck shows only that I am “not afraid to fly” as under a silhouette of a fly fisher, the graceful dance of a fly line in action is pictured. Oh yeah and add in one Trout Unlimited decal.
Still I love a good bumper sticker.
What makes a good bumper sticker? In my humble opinion, it should be short and catchy. Something that makes you chuckle without a second thought. But that lingers in your mind long enough that you are still thinking it a hundred miles later. Entertaining, yet thought provoking. Simple, yet complex.
I thought over my next few post I’d share a few of my favorite bumper stickers and the thoughts they have inspired even miles after the initial reading.
Mess with me and you mess with the whole trailer park
Ah yes “trailer trash” the last group we can make fun of and not be condemned as politically incorrect. All kinds of images are conjured up in one’s mind. From old cars on blocks to the tornado footage; footage that always seems to feature a toothless pot bellied man in boxer shorts wearing a wife beater shirt, proclaiming that he was just cleaning his gun when he heard what sounded like a train coming. Then poof…his roof was gone!
Let me tell you about a trailer park in my neck of the woods. Bainbridge Island with its median home price of 600K has a trailer park. One would think in a wealthy community, its trailer park would be a California style park with newer trailers and nicely groomed large spaces. But it’s not. One would also think the park would be tucked away in the woods. Wrong again.
The trailer park on Bainbridge Island is right smack dab in the middle of downtown Winslow! Most of the trailers crammed into these small spaces are over 30 years old. Some are in such bad shape that they are being demolished.
Bainbridge with all it wealth, is a community that is concerned about diversity. That is why the mobile home park’s neighbor to the south, City Hall, is heavily invested in the trailer park. The City subsidizes spaces in the park that are for low income or fixed income families. Folks that live in the park are viewed as a vital part of the community. And on Bainbridge, to mess with the trailer park is to mess with City Hall!
Redneck…You say it like it’s a bad thing.
Again, a group of folks we can pick on. A lot of rednecks conveniently live in trailer parks. But I have to say, I come from a long line of Rednecks, as the word was originally used. Sun burnt necks from hours spent toiling in the fields. My father was born and raised in Arkansas. At the age of three, he lost his father to the black lung from working in the coal mines of Kentucky. My grandmother, who was pregnant with her third child at the time, became a share cropper. The necks do not get any redder than that.
I spent about two years living in Arkansas myself, in a small town in the Ozark Mountains. Back in those woods there are still a lot of people living off the grid-read without electricity or sewer connections or garbage pickup. They are honest, hard working folks who still grow their own vegetables and hunt and fish for the meat on their table. They live on land that has been handed down through generations. While they do not have impressive portfolios, their lives are still filled with richness.
The family that lived down the road from me was deeply religious. They home schooled their grandchildren. The grandfather was a retired Pentecostal preacher. But they were some of the warmest folks you would ever want to meet. I often think about the Callahan family and fondly remember sharing a Thanksgiving dinner with them. I never felt judged by them-Only embraced as a neighbor.
As the preacher’s health failed, his children and grand children rallied around him. The love was priceless to see in action. One of their daughters worked in town at a $5.15 an hour yet managed to scrape enough money together to rent a PT Curser for a week simply because it was her Dad’s favorite car. His last few trips to the Doctor’s office would be in style.
Through the years, I have known hunters and anglers. Those perceived as “rednecks” in liberal western Washington. In Seattle there is an elitist attitude about the environment. How could any one kill Bambi? You know the type, “tree huggers” that shop at REI and whose idea of rouging it is a B&B on the Olympic peninsula. Their connection to nature is more cerebral than anything else. Their voice is important in political circles, but it has been the hunters and anglers I have known who have been the most avid environmentalists.
The hunters and anglers are out there in the wilderness observing every thing very closely. They are the first ones to notice changes in habitat, changes in the food chain. Changes in the numbers of the game they pursue.
Being an angler myself, I witnessed an up close and personal glimpse of global warming a few years ago. On a camping trip where I had planed to do some fishing I noticed a lot of dead fish in the river. The river level was lower than I had ever seen it. The water was about 56 degrees. Warm enough to wade in just shorts and sneakers. In trout terms, this was very serious. Trout need a lot of oxygen. The colder the water the more oxygen it holds. To hook and play a fish in warm water can cause fatal stress to the fish if you plan to release it. I spent that weekend only fishing for the rises. I actually snipped the hook off of the fly so there was no way to actually hook the fish.
The same year, guides on the Yakama River (Washington’s blue ribbon trout fishery) were telling anglers to not fish after noon when it would be too hot and stressful for the fish. All because we had a warm winter and there was no snow pack. These are the things “rednecks” know.
So let’s review: Working hard when life hasn’t been all that kind. An honest, simple life. Being able to survive off the land and being a good steward if it. Faith, Hope Love…
Maybe it’s time we all “redneck-up”.
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