RoadsideOnline

Let us now praise, or at least consider, bumperstickers. They give everyone something to read and ponder in traffic, they help you find your car quickly in a crowded parking lot, and they give your vehicle a bit of personality. I’ve been pasting them on my various cars for years, and I have a few thoughts and observations to share about mine ... and yours.

Bumperstickers serve different purposes, I’ve noticed. My favorites are the amusing or clever ones, the ones that take a moment to ‘get’. For instance: “VISIT WISCONSIN: COME SMELL OUR DAIRY AIR” “ISIS, ISIS...RA, RA, RA!” “GREAT BASS, LESH PHILLING” (oh, and let’s not forget the related one, now a collector’s item just like the VW vans it always adorned, I am sure: “WHO ARE THE GRATEFUL DEAD AND WHY ARE THEY FOLLOWING ME AROUND FROM TOWN TO TOWN?”). Everyone can use an “aha” giggle now and then, as we go on our way.

Worthy causes are ever-popular. “KEEP TAHOE BLUE,” I assume, means, please stop polluting or draining away the water of this beautiful mountain lake. “STUMPS DON’T LIE” was on the bumpers of a lot of anti-logging proponents’ cars out in Oregon where I used to live. I have “WE SUPPORT CPA, A GOOD DEAL FOR GLOUCESTER,” which was in support of a ballot initiative to approve the Community Preservation Act for the funding it would supply (for needed civic and other restoration projects around here). During the campaign, this sticker appeared on a lot of local cars, calling attention to and buoying the campaign. After it passed, I left the sticker on, proud of my town.

Which brings me to more controversial bumperstickers.

For those of you who don’t live in Massachusetts, that means “Massachusetts driver.” Maybe it’s because I’ve been behind the wheel in a few other states this past year—California, Maine, Upstate NY—but it truly is different here. And it is freaking annoying!

Drivers in this state are so bad, so rude, and so aggressive, and I have been living here so long, that it’s almost wiser not to get upset. To just lower the bar, just grin and bear it, just take the high road.

But a column the other day in my very fine local newspaper, the Gloucester Daily Times, inspires me to put my fuming into words. The column was by local wag (“wag”!—you have to love this word! so much more fun than “smart ass”) Gordon Baird, and it was entitled “A little frontier justice in the Fishtown Driving Derby.” His rant was about a local practice of hogging not only your side of the road but aggressively forging ahead using the middle or even a goodly part of the oncoming lane when driving on narrow streets. Our streets here in Gloucester aren’t excessively narrow—though my bicycling sons lament the lack of adequate bike lanes—but they are often made so by parked cars. Navigating a road like that, with a few curves, takes skill. And if you are one of the drivers that annoyed Gordon, it takes an aggressive attitude. “They never think about the car who has to drive into the gutter to avoid them...they demand the five feet of extra room on their side.”

Oh, Gordon, honey, this is not the half of it.