TriState > Blogs - Text Messaging -- August 7, 2008

Location: Blogs 365 Blogs Giving Voice - by Pam Kress-Dunn
Posted by: bryce	8/7/2008 3:33 PM
Two Christmases ago, my daughter gave me a really cool gift. It’s a bumper sticker with a phrase that means a lot to me. I think I might have hinted around that it would be a neat thing to have on my car, or, knowing me, I might have just come right out said, “Would you order me a bumper sticker?” What the bumper sticker says is a line from a song by one of my all-time favorite bands, R.E.M. That’s right, I’m an unreconstructed rock and roll baby, as KUNI’s Bob Dorr would say. I love R.E.M. and could (and do) listen to their songs, any of them, over and over. They’ve gotten me through many a long road trip. I did not, however, put it on my car right away. It was Christmas, after all, and I’ve learned from having a December birthday what a pain it is to put my new car registration sticker on my license plate in the dead of winter, when the sleet and snow keep coating the car. Now that I have a garage, that’s not so bad, but I’m conditioned to do very little with my car’s exterior that time of year. So, I waited. But even when spring and summer came and went, I still didn’t put the sticker on my vehicle. At first, I was trying to decide where it would fit. I drive a small SUV with a big covered tire on the back, and putting it there just seemed a bit too in-your-face. There’s already a modest Amnesty International sticker near the tire cover, and the back window is filling up with stickers announcing to the world all the places where I earned diplomas. In fact I’m still trying to find room for the one that says “University of Nebraska.” The bumper itself, on my car, is pretty hidden away. It’s something I never noticed until I got enmeshed in this bumper sticker dilemma. So, I waited. Another Christmas came and went, and you know how bad last winter was. Any new sticker would have shriveled up and died in all that cold, wet snow. But I felt guilty. When someone gives you a gift, especially one that you’ve hinted around about and practically ordered them to give you, it’s impolite not to use it the way it was intended. When it’s a gift that is so perfectly tailored to the recipient, it’s downright rude. Of all people, Allison knows how much I love R.E.M. in general and this song in particular, because she’s been on a lot of those long car rides with me, and she’s the one I can count on to listen to their “Best of” CD over and over and over. So when I mentioned it to her the other night, I wasn’t surprised when she said, “I was wondering when you were going to put that on your car!” Being the nice daughter that she is, she hadn’t wanted to bring it up herself. So I promised I was going to do it soon. Bumper stickers are funny things. They are, after all, pretty permanent. Even the ones that say “easily removable” tend to adhere more and more firmly the longer they bake in the sun. During this campaign season, you might be considering slapping one on your car, but also worrying about what to do if your candidate doesn’t, um, win. Do you tape it on from the inside, as so many timid people do? Doesn’t that indicate a certain lack of confidence in your guy or gal? Isn’t it a much bolder statement to firmly apply that sticker to your chrome, declaring, “Come hell or high water, I like Ike”? Have you “Got Hope?” Got the nerve to say you’ve got hope for the life of your car? When I was in high school, I was proud to be anti-war. I affixed a sticker to my back window that announced, “Vietnam: Love It or Leave It,” my response to all the warmongers whose sedans bellowed, “America: Love It or Leave It,” meaning, if you won’t serve, go to Canada. I thought it was especially cool that my sticker was at the top of the back window of my big Buick station wagon, which I could operate with the touch of a button on the dashboard. Stuck in traffic, if the window was down, I would raise it up just enough to reveal my message. I imagined I converted, or at least impressed, dozens of drivers waiting behind me. These days, I enjoy the funny ones on other people’s cars, get annoyed with the ones I don’t agree with, and feel relieved that the days of flags flying from cars have calmed down. (I have nothing against loving your country. I just find it alarming to see a car festooned with waving flags coming at me down Asbury.) The thing I really like about the bumper sticker my daughter gave me is that it’s a little bit ambiguous. I mean, if you don’t know R.E.M., if you don’t know this song, I have no idea what you might make of it. It’s kind of weird, like many of their lyrics. I’ve read enough about them to know how they write most of their songs. First the guys who play the instruments write the melody. Then Michael Stipe, the singer, figures out lyrics that go with the music. As a poet, this sounds backwards to me, but I’m told many bands do it this way. So I’m going out this afternoon, while the sun is shining and there’s not a cloud in the sky, and I’m putting that bumper sticker on the back of my car, right where everyone can see it. If you see a RAV4 with the line, “I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my Orange Crush,” you’ll know you’re following me. Hey! I just realized the first line of the song that line comes from is “Follow me, don’t follow me.” I guess it was meant to be.

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