Bumper stickers, news, blogs, and other short stories

Cliff despises bumper stickers... on his own vehicles, that is; he sometimes gets a chuckle out of those we see on other cars.

Back in the sixties, if you attended a Branson music show, you'd come out when it was over to find a bumper sticker on your car, so you'd be advertising for them wherever you went. Cliff hated that! As soon as we were home, he'd remove every trace of the dreaded thing.

Every once in awhile I get my hands on a bumper sticker I really like; the question is, what do I do with it?

I put it on my guitar case!



I got that one for supporting Johnnycash.com by purchasing a DVD set of highlights from the old Johnny Cash show. If you like Johnny Cash, by the way, and remember his shows, I highly recommend those.

At the bike show last Saturday, I spotted a bumper sticker I really liked, and it was FREE (probably because of the lawyer advertisement, do ya think?).

Very few people will actually see these bumper stickers, since my guitar hasn't been off the property in years. But I like them there, anyhow.

I have to tell you, I know more these days about what really goes on in Kansas City than I ever did just watching the news on TV and reading the paper; now I read blogs.

There's PLOG and Tony's Kansas City and Johnson County SOB and Midtown Miscreant, all of them directing my attention to things I'd have totally missed out on if I depended on local news folks.

I avoided Tony's Kansas City for a long time due to the pictures of semi-nude women he puts on posts that have nothing to do with women or sex. A woman my age can get an inferiority complex looking at such perfect female bodies. However, Tony's directed my attention to so many news items I'd otherwise have missed that I now read him anyway, and I hardly notice the pictures at all.

Except for Plog, all the above use some crude language that I'd just as soon do without; but they're all such good news sources that I figure, "Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?"

An example: Recently Greg Hawley, one of the owners of the Steamboat Arabia Museum (yes Nance, you were there once), was killed in a traffic accident as reported on TV HERE. That simply left me thinking, "What a waste; but he should have worn his seat belt."

I figured, you know, lots of 18-year-old kids drag race where they shouldn't. My husband once raced a guy on Independence Avenue in 1966, right after we were married, and ended up with a cop chasing him (he lost the cop). Kids will be kids, right?

Then I read Midtown Miscreant's take on the accident and found out this was more than just a good kid making a one-time mistake.

That's only one example. I'm beginning to think I can trust bloggers more than I can the news media. If you want your finger on the pulse of your city, hunt up some local blogs and see what you learn.

So yes, this country gal is a lot more enlightened about her nearest big city.

And so far, I haven't gone blind.