Vanity on the Go

Spend more than a few minutes on the roads of New Hampshire, and you’ll see them. They’re impossible to miss. Roll up to GOCARGO at the Bedford tolls, cruise onto Concord’s Main Street behind OOLALA or find a parking spot near the Weirs between SYCO, GOLIATH and GUIDO. Granite state drivers love their vanity license plates – in fact, we boast the second-highest vanity plate rate in the entire US, behind only Virginia (they have us beat, 16% to 14%). Over 170,000 fellow residents wear their hearts, minds, ids and egos on their cars, plunking down $40 a year for the privilege to let their freak flags fly.

It doesn’t stop with license plates. From hardcore conservatives (“Annoy a liberal – work hard and be happy”) to high-strung Democrats (“The road to hell is paved by Republicans”), from ardent believers (“Are you following Jesus this close?”) to impish atheists (“What would Scooby Do?”), and from supportive Red Sox fans (“Yooouk”) to dismissive Red Sox fans (“Yankees Suck!”), we also have our fair share of bumper sticker philosophers, including the clever and/or disturbing non-cat crowd (“I love cats – they taste just like chicken”).

I was never a fan of the bumper sticker, seeing one too many Trekkie slogans in my youth (“Beam me up Scottie. No sign of intelligent life here”), but moving to Concord changed all that. About five years ago, I put a sticker on my rear bumper. It’s the picture of a cowbell, because everyone knows we all could use a little more cowbell in our lives.

While a camp counselor of the shores of Winnipesaukee in the 1980’s, I watched my friend Lee, a Philadelphia native, take this idea to extremes. In the summer of 1985, Lee decorated his late-model white Datsun hatchback with enormous Flyers logos on the doors and hood, taking pains to paint the black wings and orange puck in perfect symmetry. Whenever Lee was feeling blue, he’d drive into South Philly nice and slow, taking in the cheers and hollers of support from his fellow Flyer fans, letting their near-Neanderthal praise wash over him like a warm, welcoming caveman hug. Even though he didn’t live here year-round, Lee embraced New Hampshire’s love of auto expression.

It can’t be easy to capture your life’s philosophy in fewer than eight characters. Seven letters to define your motto, your creed, your raison d’être? It’s a little intimidating. I’ve puzzled over the meaning of the plates I’ve seen. Is INKMAN a toner salesman, squingilli fan or tattoo artist? DOORS? Is that the Morrison, Huxley or Andersen type? GOAWAY? Travel agent or misanthrope? The possibilities are endless.

How about BELEIVE (in the power of spell check)? Or BRATBUS (harried mom, displaced Wisconsin sausage lover – or both!). Or SHREDIT – is she a corporate information security officer or a minivan-driving skate rat? Let’s not forget FREELP – either that guy never skips a record store vinyl giveaway event or he’s a huge supporter of Native American rights.

Many drivers choose the family angle, like 4RKIDS, CUZNJO, and the rather presumptuous BSTNANA while others go the straight fan route. CATZRUL, JC4EVER, O2BNAJP (Wrangler driver), JETS-FN, COWBOYS, USARULZ, SEWN2IT and COBAIN are a mere sampling of the thousands of citizens who want us to know what they love. We also have the downright creative, like N8DAGR8 (he gets my vote), 4CHIN8 and 59&HLDN competing with lovers of simplicity, like SVEN, GOLD, MAD, MILK, POKEMON and JIMMY (he’s the only one, apparently).

So as my birthday month rolled around, I contemplated choosing my own plate. One friend warned me I was nuts to get less-than-anonymous tags. “What if you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be?” I’d be taking a risk, but I don’t spend my free time frequenting rooster fighting dens, graffiti supply stores and lawn dart emporiums, so I decided to do it.

As I struggled with ideas, I asked my 11-year old daughter. She had a few super suggestions, like FUNGUY, FOXYPOP, NO1DAD and TOPDAD but soon veered off into questionable territory with such gems as DORKDAD, SHORTY, TUBBY, FARTZ and CRYBABY. Give that girl seven characters and she reduce anyone to tears. Undeterred I spent time on the state’s motor vehicle website, entering combination after combination, trying to land on the right seven characters that might sum me up.

This wasn’t easy. I carry a burden from my childhood that’s been hard to shake. I grew up with a Civil War fanatic as a dad who put a vanity plate on our maroon Chevy Malibu station wagon when no one else we knew ever did such a thing. My father skipped the obvious choices like, RELEE, STNEWAL or BULLRUN, choosing the name of a less known Confederate general, AP Hill, famous for starting the Battle of Gettysburg before both sides had finished their morning hardtack and coffee. If I’d earned a nickel for every time one of my friends asked, “What’s AP HILL?” I wouldn’t have inherited that Malibu, that’s for sure.

I needed to find a plate that would show what I care about, how I see the world. After much soul-searching, I landed on a choice - GAME686 - simple, direct, and cryptic enough to avoid harassment. GAME686 refers to a seminal event in the life of every New York Mets and Boston Red Sox fan, a moment when time stood still and the future mental well-being of millions hung in the balance. As a native New Yorker, I ended up on the winning side of that contest, but my love of the Red Sox couldn’t be cast aside. A common hatred of the Yankees makes for strange bedfellows.

GAME686 is a little bit like a Texan with Mexican uncles driving a pickup with ALAMO36 on the plate. For me, this plate sums up a life worth living, one of hope and despair, of pleasure and pain, a life of loss and gain. My life captured on a metal rectangle screwed to the back of a Japanese car with 200,000 miles on it. Poetry at twenty three miles per gallon if I’ve ever seen it.

After confirming its availability on the web, my next stop was the Green Street offices of the City Clerk. The very nice woman at the desk took my application and money, adding, “You’re a Mets fan.” So much for cryptic creativity. She then told me, “The state has to approve this. And they have lists of things you can’t use, like ‘H’ and ‘8’ together. If they are OK, your plates will show up in about ten days.”

After two weeks, my plates hadn’t arrived. Did the application end up in the hands of Bill Buckner’s cousin? Maybe she dropped it and it rolled between her legs under the copier. Does Oil Can Boyd work in that office? If Bob Stanley’s in the typing pool, my plate request had about as much chance as getting okayed as he did of beating Mookie Wilson to first base that night long ago in ‘86.

But just as I’d given up hope, resigned to another year with seven random numbers, signifying anonymous failure, my plates arrived. And on my car they went. It’s a big step, this license plate. So honk once for the Mets and twice for the Red Sox. Even a little vanity needs validation.