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Great post, Sawatdeeka! And very entertaining.
Is that a Montana thing, or is it just me that is confused?
I dunno. I have one, after paying annually for a certain number of years.
If droll, whimsical personal interest newspaper and magazine columns were this well written, I’d still be buying print.
Did I read too fast, or was “baling wire” nowhere in this? Well, “zip ties” may serve quite well!
At the Montana meet-up, I remember driving past an empty lot (less than 1/2 acre within a sub-division!) at night with 20+ deer settling in for the night. It was spooky!
Ah, you spotted my T-Bird, did you?
I have a permanent Reg also, it depends on the age of your car. Also, in MT the license plate belongs to you. If you buy another car, the plate will go with you, and you put it on your recent purchase. In CA the license plate belongs to the car. If the car gets sold, the plate will go with it.
Thank you, Gary!
To defend Rocky Mountain cars and drivers a little bit, there is no need to plow or salt roads in southern California, so cars don’t age as quickly.
Interesting.
That’s how ours works too. Unless your current one is too damaged.
I figured you would chime in and know a lot more about the state law details than I do.
Well, I have this grandson, that learned to do wheelies with my 1995 T-Bird, had to take it away from him.
So are you saying he had fun, fun, fun till his grandma took the T-Bird away?
Not to mention duct tape.
Yep, and that last one cost him mega bucks. He left rubber on the road, and the Sheriff caught him doing it. You’d think these kids would at least look around them to see if a cop is watching.
Now now… I am the last one to chime in on that, as I once hit a Mountie with a six pack of beer at a traffic stop.
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Great post, I am currently driving my first ever new car. I purchased it 2 years ago. A Honda Civic Hatchback. My plan is to drive it forever, likely it will be the only new car I ever buy in my life. I think a lot of new car purchases are culturally driven, in that they feel pressure to keep appearances. Maybe in states like Montana, your status is not as dependent on the car you drive.
I see some new squares in the Wal*Mart Parking Lot Bingo:
Wal*Mart Parking Lot Bingo
No License Plate
Spin Rims
Door Different Color Than Car
Bullet Hole
No Hood
Trash Bag Covering Window
Emergency Spare on Wheel
Cracked Windshield
Pit Bull in Truck Bed
Obscene Bumper Sticker
Homemade Wheelchair Rack
Primer Gray Fender
“Obama-Biden 2008“ Bumper Sticker
Red Cellophane on Taillight
Old Guy Smoking in Car
Missing Front Bumper
Expired Temporary Plate
Bullet Hole Decal
Abandoned Vehicle Sticker
Graffiti
“Calvin Pissing” Decal
No Rear Window
Flat Tire
Missing Headlight
Expired Out-Of-State License Plate
I think I’ve told this story before, but it’s a good one, so I’m going to tell it again.
When I was at Davidson one of the professors was the cousin of a roommate of mine. The professor was a sort of mousy little guy who was independently wealthy and taught for $1/year. His name was Dr. Thomas Clark, though he was known around campus as “T-Bird Tommy” because he bought a new T-Bird every year.
Because of his relationship to my roommate, we got into the practice of taking each other out to dinner. We’d take him to Shakey’s Pizza, or something like, and he’d take us to The City Club. Anyway, at one point he wrecked his car, and rented a Mercury Cougar for a while. As it happened, his turn to take us to dinner fell while he had the Cougar. On the way back from dinner we asked him if he was going to buy a new T-Bird, and he said “Yes, unless you think the name ‘Cougar Clark’ will stick.'”
Edit: Dr. Clark is also the Tom Clark behind the Tom Clark gnomes.
We have deer in the yard sometimes.
They carry the ticks that give Lyme disease and probably killed my schipperke “Louie”.
The fewer deers, the better.
Because he didn’t offer you one?
Kill ’em all and let the butcher sort them out.
I’d like to recognize our 1984 Nissan Sentra that, by the time we finally retired it in 2001, had been totaled twice, and brought back to life both times by “Kenny.”
The first time was rather mundane, some ditzy girl having driven into the back of it while Mr. She was pulling onto the Interstate. The second time was much more impressive, and involved a terrific thunderstorm and a large tree. That was around Thanksgiving 1989, and I discovered the poor thing in the driveway looking very much like a pancake, the following morning when I was about to set off for work. Somehow, Kenny pounded out the worst of the damage, and, with the aid of about half a ton of filler and fiberglass, and Lord knows what else, made it road and inspection-worthy again. And I continued to drive it, along with the 1975 Mazda pickup that we bought in 1986 for $500 from the motorcycle guys next door (it was also a “zombie,” but in its case, a testament to the clever stitching-together job that one can do with parts from different vehicles of different colors and types across the years).
In 2001, I bought my first new car in almost two decades. By that time, I’d been working at our little community hospital for eleven years (where my car always looked perfectly at home in the parking lot, unlike the big city hospital where I’d worked previously, where it stuck out like a sore thumb among the Mercedes and BMWs).
When I left the building to go home at the end of the day, I noticed several of my co-workers surrounding a vehicle in the parking lot. Some of them were holding helium balloons, and there was a cake. They were having a party!
For me and my new car.
When you live where I do, and you have a reputation as the “Queen of the Zombie Cars,” it’s pretty special.
I’m sorry. Beautiful Louie.
No. This was in 1982-3ish I was with my under age buddy. He was driving 1 of his dad’s trucks. He didnt want the ticket for having beer in the cab of the truck. I tried to roll down the window – but he had the fancy electric windows, by the time I figured out how to get the window down, I tossed the beer out the window, but the cops where already standing on each side of the truck. I tossed the beer straight into cop’s chest.
I wouldn’t say the fewer deer, the better. However, I would say that fewer deer would be better, and not just because of Lyme disease.
Several years ago when deer populations were higher where we live than they are now (though they are still too high on our small acreage) I was looking for evidence that reducing deer density would reduce deer tick abundance and Lyme disease. It seemed there was no clear-cut evidence that it made much difference. However, a quick internet search just now shows that more research has been done since then and there is some evidence that it helps. It’s a contested issue.
Mrs R and I have both been bitten by deer ticks. I’ve had at least two that dug in before I removed them. (Ticks require eternal, seasonal vigilance.) I recently had the Mayo Clinic test that checks for antibodies that would indicate I had the infection in the past. No sign of it. The results of such a test are ambiguous in the case of recent infections, but mine would not have been recent. It seems every other person I know from north-central Minnesota has had Lyme disease. It probably isn’t that high a frequency, but their outdoor pets certainly suffer from it.
I’ve sometimes proposed an auto safety feature: turret-mounted machine guns on cars to get the deer in the ditches before they jump out and get you. Make it mandated equipment. If it saves even one life, it would be worth it.
A number of years ago I did an informal survey at work, and found there was a correlation between the length of time a person had lived in southwest Michigan and the number of violent deer-vehicle encounters he had experienced. Two people told me about deer that crashed into their cars when their vehicles were not even moving. First they’d look around to see who was listening, and then say, “You might not believe this, but…”
That sounds more like a Frankenstein car.
That too. It was truly amazing. It’s the genesis of one of my occasional comments, whenever I see a vehicle on the road that is its equal or better, “now, there’s a vehicle I’d be proud to drive!”
I’ll be your third, but not in MI, in MT. Stopped for a red light, bank on left, a hillside on the right. Deer leaped off the bank lawn and landed on the hood of my car, slid off, got up and dashed up the hillside.
I could also add that to my list of clumsy deer anecdotes. Some people say deer are graceful, but they don’t always look so graceful when they pick themselves up after a leap into a fence, onto a car, or into another deer.
I’m beginning to think they have bad eye sight. Why would a deer, who was standing still while I came to a stop for the light, then decide to jump and land on the car?