Bumper Stickers

"Imagine Whirled Peas." "Not all Who Wander are Lost." "My Other Car is a Tractor."

I'm a big fan of stickers. One of life's blessings is pulling up to a red light when you're in traffic to find that you're behind one of those cars with 50 stickers crammed on its rear end. They make for nice reading. I hate to generalize, but I have noticed that most cars that have this are too small for all the stickers, and they are usually driven by hippies. Whatever... I like it.

I can't say I clutter my car with stickers. Water bottles, maybe. Notebooks, sure. But my car usually remains relatively sticker-free.

My plow truck is a different story. When I first got it, one simple sticker decorated its bumper: "Independents for Tarrant." Rich Tarrant was the former basketball player who ran as a Republican for Vermont's junior senate seat, but got demolished by incumbent Bernie Sanders. I guess there just weren't enough Independents supporting him. Anyway, the sticker was disintegrating from the weather and peeling, and one day the green sticker pictured above appeared over the Tarrant sticker: "Practice Random Acts of Gardening." (I'm not sure who put it there, but I suspect it was either my wife Alison, my dog Oscar, or Scout the cat.) Wherever it came from, I'm okay with it, as I'm a gardener now.

Today, a new sticker joins the Gardening one on the bumper. There was a time in my life when I looked down at country music. "I'll never listen to that... that country!" I said. Then, 5 years ago, Phish broke up. What's a Phishhead to do when his band stops playing? It was an evolution; nothing happened overnight. But in my search to fill the Phishy void, I started listening to WOKO, the local country channel. There's some good stuff on that station! So, when Phish got back together this year, I couldn't get tickets, because every show was selling out in minutes. Fine, I said. I bought 20th row seats to Brad Paisley's show at the Champlain Valley Fair. "Who needs Phish?" I said.

Well, WOKO is holding a contest. Listeners send a picture of their WOKO bumper sticker and their license plate number to the radio station. On August 25 and 26, the station reads off license plate numbers. Listeners then have 9 minutes to call the station to receive front row seats to Brad's concert.

I picked up my sticker and it's on the truck for everyone to see when I make my weekly dump run. I emailed it to the station. So please everyone, tune into WOKO 98.9 on your radios on August 26 and 27. If you hear my license plate read, call me. I only have 9 minutes to respond and collect my tickets. No offense to Phish, but I am looking forward to seeing Brad at the Fair. And I want those front row spots.

And of course, I have 20th row seats for anyone who tips me off that they just read my number. I hear they're great seats.