“You’ll be lucky to get out of
South Dakota alive,” the professor said, looking at one of my
bumper stickers. He smiled, adding, “I may be kidding.”
This was not my first warning that this bumper sticker might be
dangerous. Leaving that small college campus, I was thoughtful.
My cars have carried the same message for years, with
replacements from an organization that provides every possible
political view in bumper stickers, pins and posters. I have given
extra stickers to bank tellers, gas station attendants, fast food
servers — anybody who asked for one.
On long road
trips, I read bumper stickers as entertainment, a way of sharing a
joke with a stranger. One of my all-time favorites is “Pass with
Care: Tobacco Chewer,” spotted on a pickup in Wyoming. For that, I
was paid $50 by Playboy magazine, one of my
first writing sales.
Surely, I thought, no one takes
bumper stickers seriously enough to kill over. In South Dakota,
neighbors have known me for 50 years, know I pay my bills and
contribute to charity. A bumper sticker doesn’t tell
anybody’s whole story. But lately, in city traffic, drivers
behind have honked, shaken fists; one even bumped my car. I mumbled
nervously, “Go ahead; hit me and I’ll sue you.”
One
driver screamed that God would punish me, and waved his hand, with
a particular digit upraised. Another howled that God loved me even
though I obviously was worthless. By mail, I’ve received
photographs of my car; no message, no return address. Last year, a
thousand miles from home, another driver hailed me in a parking lot
and said, “I recognized you by your bumper stickers.”
Then a woman from Tennessee called to tell me her friend’s
teenage son was killed on his bicycle in a drive-by shooting.
Police investigated every aspect of his life and finally concluded
that maybe he was killed because of the slogan on the T-shirt he
was wearing: The same words are on my bumper. Could that happen in
the West? I wondered.
My bumper sticker reads “Born Again
Pagan.” As a writer, I know the word “pagan” is Latin for “country
dweller,” a term originally applied to folks who lived too far out
of town to attend church regularly. It referred to their location,
not to their religious orientation. Writers have to be picky about
word usage, and I consider the sticker to be a signal that I am not
giving in to the sloppy thinkers who define
‘‘pagan’’ as one who opposes religion.
Worse yet, some folks associate the term with Satanism. The
word’s meaning has nothing to do with my church attendance,
which is no one else’s business.
The slogan is also
particularly appropriate because I am a rancher, a person who
prefers to live in the country. In our household, there was always
tension between my churchgoing mother and my father, who frequently
mentioned that he had a ranch to run, even on Sunday.
He
believed God would be pleased that he was taking care of His
creation even on Sundays. My mother and I usually went to church
alone. As a writer, my work centers on these ranching roots, and my
deep concern for the landscape on which my family makes our living.
Like my father, whether I go to church or not, I have always
assumed that I might please God by my concern for the only world we
have.
Once I moved to a Wyoming city, the message took on
ironic meanings. I had been reborn to a new city life, but could
hardly wait to be born again by going back to the ranch. So the
bumper sticker seemed to fit the unique circumstances of my life.
If necessary, I am perfectly willing to die defending
some of my beliefs and the things I love. But I’m not ready
to be shoveled under because some moron judges me by my car bumper.
So “Born Again Pagan” is gone.
I still have my T-shirt.
And my car still announces “My Other Car is a Broom.” Do you think
we have enough sense of humor left for that one?
Linda M. Hasselstrom is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News in Paonia, Colorado
(hcn.org). She divides her time between a South Dakota ranch and
Cheyenne, Wyoming.
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