Random Wanderings and Wonderings
It’s not every day in the 21st century that you see a late-70s Cadillac (Google image search claims 1977 Sedan DeVille) with impeccable spoked wheels and whitewall tires parked in the parking lot at the local Canadian Tire. Spotting one with that licence plate though? Maybe the boss picking up some Armor All?
(Not the first time that someone took notice of this specific car elsewhere in the same lot.)
(Also not the first time that I’ve looked too closely at licence plates.)
I know I said I was done with licence plates, but can you seriously expect me to pass this one up?
After posting the results of my licence plate hunt last autumn, I vowed never to take or post a picture of another licence plate again. And I’ve let some real doozies pass by undocumented in the ensuing months, never succumbing to the impulse to point the camera at the back of a car. But I just couldn’t resist this meta beauty I saw in a parking lot this morning:
There’s a whole class of personalized plates that I’ve never really understood: the ones that reference the car itself. MY BMW, JIMS JAG, and so on. I mean, I can tell by looking at the car that it’s a BMW or whatever and I’m really not sure why someone needs to use a licence plate as an additional nameplate. One they pay extra for, no less. This one takes needless self-reference and turns it up to 11. I love it.
It’s funny, the things you keep around in your photo albums. See the last picture in the gallery below for the story about the photo above.
A couple of years ago, I spent the better part of four months examining every truck, tractor, piece of heavy equipment, and work site I passed, looking for warning labels. The end result was the Travails of Mr. Stickman. It was fun, but boy howdy, was I ever ready to stop looking for warning signs after I was done. Soon after I finished that project, I embarked on another: taking pictures of vanity licence plates. Two years and a few fits and starts later, here’s the result.
Compulsively looking at, taking pictures of, and remembering licence plates has an interesting side effect: it can somewhat de-anonymize people in cars. Other than the familiar ones I see on my street or parked along my regular commuting route, I don’t really think that I encounter any individual car more than once in my life. For the most part, people in cars are anonymous to everyone else, and you don’t really attach any significance to one Honda Civic versus another. Is it the same car and driver that I passed last week? Different? Does it matter?
Several times, I’ve seen the same plate twice in two completely different places. In North Toronto and on the Danforth; Deer Park and the Home Depot on Laird. Somewhat more startling, I’ve occasionally seen the same plate on two different cars, with the sightings separated by weeks or years. I may not know anything about the owner of the car, but I do know that the complete stranger whose licence plate made me laugh on Merton Street in the spring traded in her Land Rover for a convertible that she was driving up Pape Avenue last week. Last week, I completed my first triple sighting of a single plate: first on Summerhill Avenue, then on the 401, and finally in Liberty Village. I wasn’t able to get a picture of the car in any of those encounters. Fourth time lucky, maybe.
And then there was the driver who blasted his horn at me as he passed me way too aggressively on a wide-open street two weeks ago. As he cut inches in front of me on a quiet residential street (and signed bike route, no less), he almost certainly didn’t realize that I not only recognized his peronalized plate, but that I knew exactly which driveway it was parked in three minutes earlier, where I see it virtually every morning. The wronged cyclist’s dilemma: let him know, or let it go. I’m still undecided.
Through all of this, there was only one complaint about a guy on a bike (usually) with a camera stopping to take a picture. The vast majority of drivers that I spoke with were not only amused to be part of my project, but also told me the story behind their personalized plate. The owner of IM URS, for example, told me that he’d inherited it from his mother and it was one of the things he remembered her by. Most of the time though, the cars were empty and no one was around to tell me the personal significance of a plate.
Of course there were almost too many to count that got away, passing too fast for a picture, in weather I refused to subject my camera to, or just at the wrong time of day while I was too busy scurrying along my way. Many them were better than the ones that I did catch. Oh well. For the next post.
Check out the full gallery below the fold. Those of you reading through the RSS feed should visit the original page for the full gallery effect with commentary.
I really don’t understand Leafs fans. For today’s example, I don’t understand why someone would spend more than $300 not only to declare their undying loyalty to a bunch of millionaires who spend eight months of every year chasing a frozen chunk of rubber, but also to express the unending frustration that is the inevitable and eternal result of said loyalty.
You know, I used to be a Leafs fan, just as rabid as any other. I had an official jersey and countless other bits of merchandise, I went to a few games a year, I watched Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday, and I knew the stats of every player. I cheered like you wouldn’t believe that time that they went all the way to the semi-final before being eliminated. Then, when I was just nine years old, they traded Lanny McDonald to Colorado. I decided right then and there that the Leafs would only ever break my heart and weren’t worthy of my loyalty or energy. So I suffered the Leafs for a total of maybe 4 years before getting out.
Looking back with more than thirty years of hindsight, I think that decision was one of the best of my single-digit years and saved me the kind of annual disappointment that could be expressed only on a personalized licence plate. It’s also the very first decision I can actually remember sitting down, thinking about, and then sticking with. So when I see people of my age or older talking about the Leafs’ chances this year, I just shake my head and wonder how they can stand it year after year.
I eventually gave up on the NHL entirely when the 1994 lockout showed me that the entire league wasn’t worthy of my energy. That’s when I rediscovered that playing sports was way more fun than watching them.