Hot Diggity's Carolina Story telling thread.

That Woman

The North Carolina DMV made me surrender my old license plate so they could recycle it.

That reminded me of my collection of old plates that I hauled around in the trunk of my '72 Pontiac Gran Prix. The car was named Seldom Seen, since I spent so much time overseas.

I was home on leave and had a temporary tag on the back window. Since the fuel filler was under the license plate it was unsightly with no plate mounted in the holder. I put an expired 1979 Michigan plate on the car since it was black and matched the paint.

We drove all over the place and nobody noticed the tag at all... until we were coming back through U.S. customs from Ontario. This is usually a quick process, and with the light traffic I was surprised it was taking so long. I had been playing the border crossing game for years. I always gave honest answers. Some were simple yes or no, like,

Q. Do you have any Irish (pronounced "Arsh") potatoes?

Others were more fun.

Q. Do you have any bottles?

A. (Holding up a 2 liter Mountain Dew bottle) Just this one.

The trunk may have been full of Dorans beer and Northern Ale, but they were cans.

They were clearly more interested in imported liquor than in my trips to the Provincial Beer Store. They'd even ask occasionally if we had any liquor. No was honest enough. Just a few sleeves of beer. I didn't even get any beer this trip.

Finally the guard comes up and asks me to step out of the car. It's snowing, and I'm dressed for a North Carolina winter day, so it's chilling. He walks me to the back of the car and asks if that is my license plate on the car. "Sure is..." was an honest answer. To which he informed me that it doesn't match the registration for this car.

That wasn't the question. He'd asked if it was my plate, and it certainly was. I then explained that I had selected it from my pile of plates because it was the same color as the car.

I'm just trying to get across the border, so when he asks if he can see my other plates I open them he trunk and hand them to him. Michigan and North Carolina plates from all my cars going back to the mid 1970's.

He has to run every one of them. All belong to me, so he eventually comes back and starts explaining how I just can't pick out a plate based on color. I let him finish, and step up to the back window and brush the snow off so he can see the Michigan temporary tag, complete with instructions on it stating exactly where on the inside of the rear glass it was to be stuck with its' two adhesive strips.

He was frustrated, but again he hadn't asked about the current tag or asked for the registration.

We were almost ready to go when he asked "So where did you meet that woman with you?"

"Oh, That Woman? I just picked her up this morning."

He didn't like that answer either and made her get out in the cold too. He separated us, but I could see her glaring at me. She satisfied the officer that all was well, and he gave me back my pile of license plates and let us be on our way.

When I got back in the car she demanded to know what I had told him about her. Apparently my calling her "That Woman" had given him the impression that she was a stranger that I had just picked up that morning and was transporting across the border. I got an ear full about that as we drove away. I had in fact picked her up at her parents house that morning before we went for a drive.

That Woman probably still thinks of that day. Could be why she thinks of me and smiles when she sees a chipper shredder grinding up trees. She waited patiently for me to get my Global wandering finished before we got married a very long time ago. To me she'll always be That Woman.

 

I saw a CJ3A the other day and it made me think of a time Dad and I had gone fishing. On the trip out no matter where we were going he always produced a pack of Chuckles candies for us to share. He usually only wanted the licorice one. On the way to the lake he almost always got me with some Dad joke or something. One morning he said "Strange." Knowing my father, I'd never get an answer unless I asked, so I said "What's strange?"
"The name on the mailbox back there."
"What was strange about it?"
"Nothing. That was the name on the mailbox... Strange."

We were coming home from fishing with the boat trailer on the back of the CJ5. Dad pulled over just a little too far to let a car pass on a narrow dirt road. (which describes most of the roads around us in South Eastern Michigan) He put the Jeep and trailer over the verge, as the Norwegian's called it. The combination of the trailer, the grade and the mud had us in a fix. We were just about ready to take the shoe leather express home when a CJ2A with a mechanical winch came over the hill. He puled his old Jeep up against a giant oak tree, ran his winch cable out and had us back up on the gravel in no time at all. I was impressed with the mechanical winch and always remembered how he had anchored his vehicle and made sure that none of us was in line with the winch cable as he was pulling. We thanked our fellow Jeep driver and made it home in time to wash the CJ5 and the boat trailer off before supper.