Tag: Bumper Stickers

Posted on

Bumper Stickers, by Betsy

So, why do people put stickers on their bumpers? The reasons probably vary from person to person. In my opinion most do it for identity reasons. They want the rest of the world to know who they are. Rather than putting a sticker on their chest or bum they put it on their bumper. After all, signs are specifically made for car bumpers and are readily available for purchase or for making a donation or showing support.

Another reason I think some people sport bumper stickers is that they think it will help to bring about that which they are promoting For example, the election of a particular candidate, or a more peaceful society (War is Not the Answer, Life is Short, Pray Hard, Close Guantanamo, better gun control, etc. ) You name it, there is a bumper sticker for just about any cause. But again, I think a cause soon becomes a part of one’s identity. And if you have a bumper sticker promoting your cause, you better stick with it because it ain’t comin’ off any time soon

Traveling in the northwest many years ago I saw this one: an image of an erupting volcano inside a circle with a line through it. I wondered who put this out. Could there be a movement starting dedicated to stopping volcanoes from erupting? Another one I saw in our travels also on the west coast somewhere. This one is even better than the one that addresses the volcano problem: STOP PLATE TECTONICS. That one was hysterical. I assume the people driving those vehicles want to be funny. I don’t suppose they actually think they can stop……..hmmm, I wonder. No, surely they don’t think they can…………….?? Now wouldn’t that be the ultimate in arrogance. I think they just have a good sense of humor.

Personally, I don’t like bumper stickers because they are impossible to take off the bumper once you put it on. There are solvents that will take off the residual adhesive. The down side is they also remove the paint. So I think twice before sticking the thing on there. One day you feel strongly about a cause. The next day you change your mind about whatever you are promoting. Or let’s say you want to change your image. It’s very hard to get rid of the old labels be they in people’s minds and perceptions or on your bumper. I would like some of the adhesive that is used to stick on bumper stickers; that is, I would like to have a supply of it at home. It’s stronger and longer lasting than super glue.

I guess the lesson of the bumper sticker is: be sure who you want to be or at least who you want to appear to be before you take on a label.

© 5 Jan 2015

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

Posted on

Bumper Stickers, by Betsy

So, why do people put stickers on their bumpers? The reasons probably vary from person to person. In my opinion most do it for identity reasons. They want the rest of the world to know who they are. Rather than putting a sticker on their chest or bum they put it on their bumper. After all, signs are specifically made for car bumpers and are readily available for purchase or for making a donation or showing support.

Another reason I think some people sport bumper stickers is that they think it will help to bring about that which they are promoting For example, the election of a particular candidate, or a more peaceful society (War is Not the Answer, Life is Short, Pray Hard, Close Guantanamo, better gun control, etc. ) You name it, there is a bumper sticker for just about any cause. But again, I think a cause soon becomes a part of one’s identity. And if you have a bumper sticker promoting your cause, you better stick with it because it ain’t comin’ off any time soon

Traveling in the northwest many years ago I saw this one: an image of an erupting volcano inside a circle with a line through it. I wondered who put this out. Could there be a movement starting dedicated to stopping volcanoes from erupting? Another one I saw in our travels also on the west coast somewhere. This one is even better than the one that addresses the volcano problem: STOP PLATE TECTONICS. That one was hysterical. I assume the people driving those vehicles want to be funny. I don’t suppose they actually think they can stop……..hmmm, I wonder. No, surely they don’t think they can…………….?? Now wouldn’t that be the ultimate in arrogance. I think they just have a good sense of humor.

Personally, I don’t like bumper stickers because they are impossible to take off the bumper once you put it on. There are solvents that will take off the residual adhesive. The down side is they also remove the paint. So I think twice before sticking the thing on there. One day you feel strongly about a cause. The next day you change your mind about whatever you are promoting. Or let’s say you want to change your image. It’s very hard to get rid of the old labels be they in people’s minds and perceptions or on your bumper. I would like some of the adhesive that is used to stick on bumper stickers; that is, I would like to have a supply of it at home. It’s stronger and longer lasting than super glue.

I guess the lesson of the bumper sticker is: be sure who you want to be or at least who you want to appear to be before you take on a label.

© 5 January 2015

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

Posted on

Bumper Stickers, by Ricky

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”*

Hiking along the chosen road, I am thinking about how can I incorporate into my life a bumper sticker admonition, “Practice random acts of kindness and commit senseless acts of beauty.” Traveling on, I soon perceive why this road is less traveled.

Not far from the fork in the road, (which I pick up and place in my knapsack) ancient and majestic oaks grow o’er the way, eventually shutting out the noon-day sun and providing only a dim twilight to illuminate the way forward. Thick and thorny underbrush steadily crowd in from both sides, forcing travelers towards the center and ever onward. Retreat finally becomes nearly impossible as thorns grab and tear if one attempts to go back.

The road, now a trail turned path, twists, writhes, and bends to and fro so often all sense of location and direction become scrambled. The very air grows thick and ever more oppressive with the deepening gloom and each forward step. One can almost feel malice emanating from the surrounding forest, feeding rising fear and urging speed to hurry forward to path’s end, leaving this cursed wood behind.

A state of depressed desperation occupies my mind as the trail seems to end at the mouth of a small abandoned mine. Tracks in the dirt ahead clearly indicate the path continues into what ultimately becomes a large cave. Passing through the entrance, I travel not far, when blocking my progress forward and any egress to the rear, are four large and starving trolls.

While I fight the urge to panic, which can result only in mental paralysis, the trolls force me deeper into the cave. Once near their cooking pots, just like in all the stories I’ve heard, they begin to argue on how to cook me for their dinner. Before their discussion can lead to some rash action towards me, I decide to turn on all my charm and personality in a ploy for them to release me unharmed. I do not use my good looks because I believe trolls are not influenced by human beauty.

I manage to convince them that I can supply unlimited food almost immediately, if I can but leave intact. At first they are against my plan, then skeptical, and finally in agreement. I leave the cave and fight my way back through the thorns to the divergent point of the two roads. I search all around until I find some appropriate old wooden planks and make a sign along the road less traveled but near to the divergent point.

My plan works perfectly. The next year, I replace the sign with a beautiful but fake U.S. Forest Service information sign, thus fulfilling the bumper sticker’s admonition. The sign is the senseless act of beauty and feeding the starving trolls is the random act of kindness.

The sign reads: “WARNING! Troll Cave Ahead. Enter at your own risk!”

The sign tells the truth, but the foolish don’t believe the warning and eagerly travel to the cave anyway. Thus, I provide our society with an act of kindness by slowly and steadily removing fools from the gene pool and proving once and for all that old cliché, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Yes. I took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference to the trolls, me, and many fools.

© 5 January 2015



*From The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, 1916

About the Author  

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I was sent to live with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.

Posted on

Believe, by Ray S

Dear Friends,

I come to this meeting in hopes to gain some insight into what you have to write about this subject. For me “seeing is believing” is irrefutable.

But, then when we are so often confronted with America’s bumper sticker mentality “BELIEVE,” dare we ask in what? There are the declarations of the drivers’ school, fraternity, fish sign or amphibious fish, sexual persuasion, political beliefs, etc., etc.

Now this is where BELIEVE becomes nebulous, it’s every man or woman to his/her best. Watch out as this can sometimes be disastrous, and sometimes mind enlightening—depends on which side of the bed you got up on and sometimes with whom.

I expect to hear some inspiring and personally emotional beliefs. Thinking about how much of a private belief one owns can often be so much so that it is never shared or open for inspection.

The beliefs worn on the sleeves are far too often imposed on us by the “true believers.” They are the ones who are enlightened and always available for an opinion or argument—that is one of the negatives that arise more times than you would wish for. On the positive e side as is evidenced here we or most of us do have some self-evident beliefs that we share when the appropriate time shows up. These are the spiritual beliefs, not the ones you see, except in the responses by your friend or neighbor to your actions. This action has many names, but can be consolidated with the word LOVE. 

Denver, © 2016
Posted on

Bumper Stickers, by Gail Klock

“Nobody knows I’m a Lesbian.”

“Don’t judge me based on your ignorance.”
“Focus on your own damn family.”
I’ve never placed a bumper sticker on my car, probably because I’ve been afraid to. I am not a person that engages well in confrontation and the type of bumper stickers I would place on my car would be confrontational. I guess it’s about paranoia, but when I get involved in an accident while driving, I want to know it’s an accident. If I had a bumper sticker on my car I would have thought the idiot that rear ended me, pushing my car 100 feet across traffic, and then fled the scene might have done it intentionally due to my bumper sticker. I’m not sure I would have turned my car around and followed the guy until he pulled over if I had placed my “confrontational” bumper sticker on my car. I probably would have continued on my way and paid for the damage myself to avoid the possible road rage or hate crime that might take place.

I like bumper stickers that make me think, even if they enrage me at the time. For example when I read bumper stickers like, “Women for Mitt Romney,” I have engaging conversations with myself trying to figure out how this can even be possible.

Maybe members from SAGE should partner up with the youth in Rainbow Alley; we could use bumper stickers as philosophical guides. I would like to share with GLBT youth the wisdom I have gained from years of experience, more or less the advice I would like to have received when I was a budding Lesbian and felt so alone and out of sync with the world. The first guide I would share would be, “If you hold onto your dreams too tight you’ll crush their tiny little ribs.” In keeping with aspirations I would add, “If your dreams don’t scare you a little they’re not big enough.”

I think of these dreams in terms of personal relationships, not career goals. I would have loved receiving input on what a gay relationship could look like- what were the possible dreams. The ultimate relationship dream, in my opinion, is marriage, or the ideals that marriage implies; commitment, caring, loving, etc. Now that marriage is a legal possibility will it lend structure to gay relationships? I would suggest to young lesbians that the 2nd date rent a U-Haul strategy does not fit within the big dream concept. Perhaps the big dreams should lead to more dating and possibly engagements? Maybe it will lead to fewer mismatched relationships that are based more on fear and/or passion.

“Be yourself, imitation is suicide.” This speaks to me of coming out of the closet. It speaks of Gay Pride Parades and activities when GLBT individuals can begin to feel a sense of pride in who they are, yes to face our heterosexual friends and enemies and proudly think to ourselves, “I’m sorry you don’t get to be me, because it is a real privilege.” To imitate someone else, either through sexuality or other unique parts of your own being is suicide, it is a killing off of that which makes each person unique and special.

I recently saw the movie, “The Imitation Game.” I can’t begin to put into words how much this movie affected me, how much I related to it. It was so true to what I’ve witnessed in the world, the belittling of people who are different, tearing them down and making them feel worthless. I saw it in my teaching daily and in my home life with my oldest brother who was very intelligent, and not so socially savvy. I have contemplated several times since seeing this movie what Alan Turing endured as a youth, and what he contributed to the world. At the conclusion of the movie it speaks of how many lives he probably saved, which moved me to tears. Perhaps he did more than save the lives of millions; perhaps he changed the course of the world. What if Germany had won and Nazism had prevailed? I’m thankful Turing remained true to himself in spite of the torture he experienced and I’m sad beyond belief that it cost him his life.

“Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.” I’ve always believed in this piece of wisdom, and often my voice shook as I spoke. I also carried it out in my teaching. I emphasized that all voices were of value, that the class would be more meaningful if we heard the ideas of all. I had a very shy young woman in a class I taught at Springfield College. She didn’t raise her hand to contribute until midway through the course. Upon conclusion of her shaky comment the entire class spontaneously applauded her efforts. It was one of the moments of my teaching career which made me happiest.

“Don’t die wondering.” As a coach I often preached against the “could haves”, “should haves”, and would haves”. The idea was to leave nothing on the court, to prepare and play each moment at your best. If this was accomplished you had succeeded. The score of the game didn’t matter as much as overcoming the fear of failure and playing your heart out. I don’t want to die wondering if I could have accomplished all I wanted to in life. I had a reoccurring dream many years ago which has stayed with me. These dreams always involved strategies of reuniting with my brother in heaven. I was in line at the pearly gates talking with strangers, begging, cajoling, and carrying out a number of acts unnatural and uncomfortable to me in order to get ahead in line, because I wanted to be with Karl again as soon as possible. A few years back I had another dream. I was in a rugged terrain with my brother and I had the opportunity to stay with him. But to accomplish this feat I had to jump over a deep and wide ravine. Karl took off with ease and bounded over the ravine. I was too afraid to try. The trauma of the dream woke me from a dead sleep. I knew when thinking about it, it represented my desire to let go of my past, to have faith in the future in order to accomplish what I want today in life. It is extremely hard to let go of the past with traumatic events, to move on from the strategies that provided stability to you as a child but no longer work as an adult, to those which are untried- to leap across the ravine. I’d rather die leaping than wondering!

© 12 November 2015

About the Author

I grew up in Pueblo, CO with my two brothers and parents. Upon completion of high school I attended Colorado State University majoring in Physical Education. My first teaching job was at a high school in Madison, Wisconsin. After three years of teaching I moved to North Carolina to attend graduate school at UNC-Greensboro. After obtaining my MSPE I coached basketball, volleyball, and softball at the college level starting with Wake Forest University and moving on to Springfield College, Brown University, and Colorado School of Mines.

While coaching at Mines my long term partner and I had two daughters through artificial insemination. Due to the time away from home required by coaching I resigned from this position and got my elementary education certification. I taught in the gifted/talented program in Jefferson County Schools for ten years. As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.
As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.

Posted on

Bumper Stickers, by Gillian

Bumper stickers,
to me, are a kind of precursor of Facebook. I don’t partake in Facebook because
my miserably puny ego cannot begin to imagine there is one person out there in
cyberspace, let alone millions, remotely interested in what I did yesterday or what
I think of today, or what I think of anything. Similarly, I assume that the
people in the car behind me have little interest in who I voted, or plan to
vote, for. Neither do they care that I want to free Tibet or Texas, am ALREADY
AGAINST THE NEXT WAR or that my daughter is an honor student at Dingledum High.
It strikes me as a
very strange, and I think almost uniquely American, need; this urge we seem to
have to tell everyone around us such facts about ourselves. It’s only, what,
three generations ago at the most, that no-one would dream of telling anyone
how they voted – even if someone asked, which of course no one would. Now we
apparently feel compelled to scream it to all those complete strangers who
chance to glance at our car. I’m no psychologist but surely it must be all
about ego? My candidate is better than yours. My causes are greater than yours.
I am right and so, if you think differently, you are wrong. I’m a better parent
than you, see, with my honor student daughter and my son who plays football for
the Dingledum Dummies. And I proudly display a Dingledum University sticker,
managing to imply even higher levels of success. I even have a better dog than
you, as I proclaim BULLDOGS ARE THE BEST BREED.
Sadly, these
things have now gone beyond simple proclamations. They are frequently
derogatory, angry, and confrontational. That poor Honor Student particularly
seems to attract attention, as in MY KID CAN BEAT UP YOUR HONOR STUDENT, or MY
SON IS FIGHTING FOR THE FREEDOM OF YOUR HONOR STUDENT. No longer content with
advertising how we vote, or don’t, we now have to add a comment. VOTE DEMOCRAT.
IT’S EASIER THAN WORKING or VOTE REPUBLICAN FOR GOD, GUNS AND GUTS.
In our gun-crazy,
polarized, society, I am constantly surprised that those kind of bumper
stickers don’t engender more violence, and also those commanding that you HONK
YOUR HORN IF YOU’VE FOUND JESUS, HONK IF YOU HATE OBAMA or HONK YOUR HORN IF
YOU SUPPORT GUN CONTROL, the latter a clear invitation to be shot, if you ask
me. Al Capone supposedly said that an armed society is a polite society but
that doesn’t seem to hold for bumper stickers!
Some stickers, I
have to say, are creative and funny. There’s little that cheers me up faster
when I’m stuck in a traffic jam, than a good laugh at the bumper sticker in
front of me. A WOMAN NEEDS A MAN LIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE is one of my
favorites, along with TV IS GOODER THAN BOOKS and INVEST IN YOUR COUNTRY – BUY
A CONGRESSMAN, and one most of us can relate to, INSIDE EVERY OLD PERSON
IS A YOUNG PERSON WONDERING WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED.
I confess I have
not always been totally immune to bumper sticker appeal. My car sported a U.S.
NAVY sticker when my oldest stepson signed up, to be joined by U.S. MARINES
SEMPER FI when my youngest went that direction. But that was simply to show my
support to my stepsons, not to anyone else. Which of course is probably, in
large part, the justification for all those honor student stickers. I only once
succumbed to the political cause sticker, and that was in 1992 when I felt
strongly enough about it to post VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 2 on my bumper.
As I waited at a
stop sign in Denver one day, another car pulled up close behind and a man with
a tire iron in his fist jumped out. He ran at my car, yelling queer abuse, and
brought the iron bar down just as the traffic cleared and I was able to gun the
car forward. The blow broke the rear side window and I sped into the nearby
King Soopers parking lot where I knew there would at least be a security guard.
But the crazy guy didn’t follow, and that was the end of the incident.
And, call me
coward if you like, it was also the end of my brief involvement with bumper
stickers.
© 5 Jan 2015 
About
the Author 
I was born and raised in England. After
graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered
Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965,
working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got
divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have
now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 28 years.
Posted on

Bumper Stickers, by Will Stanton

Bumper stickers.  We all have seen hundreds of them, many on
car bumpers, some stuck on car or truck windows.  A search on Google images brings up lots of
them, but I have to say that I’m not impressed with many of them.   The
vast majority of those stickers I would prefer never to have stuck onto my own
bumpers.  Many of them appear to have
been concocted by mindless idiots who think that they have been so clever.  The stickers neither convey any message worth
reading nor spark constructive thinking. 
Too many of them are simply profane, substituting profanity for
wit. 
And, far too many of them
express hate, something that I have grown very tired of.  I actually saw a battered old pickup truck
with a sticker on the cab’s rear window that read, “Save America.  Shoot all Muslims and Democrats.”  What added to the irony was that the
stereotypical looking cretin behind the wheel also had placed a “I love Jesus”
sticker next to the other one.  It
reminded me of a satirical bumper sticker that I once saw that asked, “What gun
would Jesus buy?”  Or, there was one I
saw that said, “Nuc a gay whale for Christ.”
I have become weary of
seeing religious messages on bumper stickers. 
Of course, those people who place them there have the right to do so;
however, I think that there are so many that they become tiresome.  Or worse, the statements shout intolerance,
proudly inferring that their religion is the only true religion, and all others
are false, sure to send the adherents to hell. 
The acerbic-tongued, British actress Maggie Smith sums it up quite
nicely: “My dear, religion is like a penis. 
It’s a perfectly fine thing for one to have and to take pride in; but
when one takes it out and waves it in my face, we have a problem.”
I can think of a lot of
messages that I could share with others, but I feel that most people would
think them too tame, too “goody-two-shoes.”  
Here are a few.  “Have you treated
everyone kindly today?”  “Have you been
honest in all of your business dealings today?” 
“Are all your political statements honest and constructive?”  “Do you strive each day to make society a
better place?”  I feel that such messages
should be seen by everyone; however, most likely, many people, viewing such
positive messages, might choose to become irritated or even angry.  The messages convey modes of behavior too
foreign to their own experience and desires.
Of course, most people
select bumper stickers that concern them personally, often omitting messages of
general interest.  I, too, can think of
various messages based upon my personal preferences, such as good music and its
remarkable influence upon emotional health and even physical well-being.  How about a bumper sticker that says “Build
fresh brain cells.– Listen to classical music.”  Or, “Go for Baroque.” 
Or, people might prefer
something a little more catchy.  At one
time a few years ago, I met a young waiter whose father was an
opera-tenor.  The father and his favorite
historical figure was the superlative singer Carlo Broschi, known on stage as
“Farinelli.”  The waiter asked me to find
a good portrait of Farinelli and to assist in preparing the digital data to
make a series of good-quality T-shirts, some for his dad and himself, and
others for friends.  An acquaintance of
mine who was supposed to print them never bothered to do so, but the slogan
still could work on a bumper sticker. 
Print a picture of Farinelli along with the statement, “It takes balls to
be a castrato.”  That bumper sticker
might raise an eyebrow or two.

© 19 November 2014 
About the Author  

 I have had a life-long fascination with people
and their life stories.  I also realize
that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too
have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have
derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.