Say It With License Plates

Long before my family moved to the mountains of North Carolina, we used to visit Boone and Blowing Rock on a regular basis to see my grandparents—whom my brother and I called “Grandmama” and “Council”—as well as various cousins, aunts and an uncle.

My first impressions of Appalachia were formed during these visits and the differences between my flatland home and the mountains seemed extreme to my young and impressionable mind. One of the first things I noticed was the large number of runaway truck ramps off the sides of highways 321 and 421. My father told me that sometimes the brakes of big rigs overheat coming down the steep mountain roads and the truck drivers have to plow their 18-wheelers headlong up a short turnoff into a pile of dirt, logs and sand.

Yoo-Hoo, one of North Carolina’s favorite beverages, used to come in orange, cream soda, and pineapple flavors in addition to the standard chocolate. Will Yoo-Hoo drinkers soon have their own license plate? Stranger things have happened.

“Most of the time it’s pure suicide,” my dad said somberly. “It’s a kamikaze mission just to save everybody else on the road from a runaway truck.”

We got into the habit of removing our hats every time we passed one of these ramps and I couldn’t help but wonder about the various runaway truck ramp widows with their passels of barefoot and overall-wearing young’uns. Perhaps the mother just told the kids that daddy was on a long haul—to California, maybe—and would be back soon with toys and oranges.

To this day I still get kind of choked up when I pass those ramps.

Another thing I remember about those early trips to the mountains of North Carolina was how the soda pop machines at the gas stations were different than the ones at home. Most of the mountain machines had long vertical doors and when you opened them you saw a line of bottle caps sticking out of the refrigeration unit. For a quarter you picked the bottle cap you wanted, gave it a tug, and voila, instant refreshment.

Not only were the soda pop machines slightly different, but so were the drinks inside them! In Michigan we had Mountain Dew, but in the mountains the same drink was called Squirt or Sundrop. Coke was still the same, but Pepsi seemed to be replaced at most stores with R.C. Cola. And Cheerwine was something else altogether. Back home I almost replicated it one time by letting a Dr. Pepper go flat and adding maraschino cherry juice…but imitation Cheerwine at sea level just wasn’t the same as the real McCoy in the mountains.

Best of all, Appalachian soda machines had not one but two different chocolate milk drinks: Yoo-Hoos and Brownies. Now, I can’t say for sure what the difference was between these two drinks or why some soda machines had both of them. You’d have to ask some discriminating drinker out there who prefers Brownie over Yoo-Hoo or vice versa. I’m sure there are a few of them still in the area. Maybe the difference lies in how much you have to shake them to get all of the chocolate off of the bottom of the bottle. Regardless, I remember feeling envious of North Carolinians and their seemingly endless choice of sodas whenever our visits would end and we headed back home to the land of Red Cream Soda.

It seems as if North Carolinians are still awash in choices that people in other states can only dream of. This week it was announced that there are new state license plates available in 2007 that will help you show other drivers your support for war widows, fox hunters, paramedics and our flight museum in Kitty Hawk.

Lawmakers approved the new license tag options in 2006, presumably because they didn’t have any more pressing issues to deal with last year. The new options now give drivers in our state more than 150 special plates to choose from if the old standard “First in Flight” just doesn’t cut it. The cost of each special plate ranges from $10 to $30 more than regular plates and money raised from the special tags goes to support a number of state projects including the Visitors Information Center in Watauga County and the statewide highway beautification program.

The new plates also help convicted felons fight off assembly line boredom during the production process in Raleigh.

The Department of Motor Vehicles figures that with over 150 plates to choose from, motorists have no excuse for using the old red, white and blue plate with the picture of Orville and Wilbur’s 1903 invention flying over our coastal dunes. Instead, they are hoping that you will broadcast your love of shag dancing, the Blue Ridge Parkway, lighthouses and North Carolina sports teams with a shiny new specialty tag. Heck, the NCDMV even offers five different specialty plates featuring sports teams located outside the state.

North Carolina also offers 32 different NASCAR specialty license plates, featuring the logo, car number and team colors of 32 different drivers. That’s a pretty impressive number considering the DMV does not offer specialty tags for Jeff Gordon, the late Dale Earnhardt or his son Dale Jr. because of the prohibitive licensing fees those drivers’ companies demand.

But fox hunting? That one just seems a little strange to me because I’ve lived in the state for the better part of three decades and I have yet to see a fox hunt, read about one in a newspaper, or so much as heard someone say something even slightly related to fox hunting such as “Tally ho, old chap” or “Release the hounds!” I have heard the song “Fox on the Run” quite a few times, but I believe that one is covered by the “I Love Bluegrass Music” license plate.

If you really want to send a mixed message, get the Animal Lovers NC plate for the front of your car and the Fox Hunting tag for the back.

I’ve often wondered if this incredible variety of taggage makes it more difficult for our state troopers to identify where cars are from. “We’re in pursuit of a white Ford Bronco with plates from…well, now I’m not sure. If that’s a picture of a manatee then they’re from Florida. If it’s supposed to be a beehive then I would guess Utah. No wait, it’s a picture of a little fox running for its life with dogs and horses chasing it, so it must be one of ours.”