SUNDAY MEMORIES
Judy Wills
Re-blog from July 2019
I have some quirky habits – well, I suppose most people do. But for some reason, when we are stopped at a traffic light, I look at the cars around us – specifically their license tags – and try to make up words for them.
I think I started doing that with our own license tags, just so I could remember them if or when I would need to give that information to someone, such as the DMV or at a hotel where we stayed.
For instance, one of our tags in Virginia was QRI-727. What would you make of that? Well, my thought was: query (or question)? Is that a 727 airplane?
We had one tag here in Florida that was UNH-935. Since we attended (and Fred graduated from) the University of New Mexico, thus UNM, that was fairly easy: University of New Hampshire-935. Get the picture? I just wish Fred had asked the clerk to pull one that had UNM on it!
Okay, let’s do a test-run. See what you can make out of the following (that I made up):
Y25-JVP
and Y75-KPD
For the first one, I would have said: Year25-John Victor Patrick
And the second one: Year75-Kissimmee Police Department
(That one was easy, since I have two friends who work at the KPD)
Then there are the vanity plates. I have a lot of fun with them. There was a married couple we knew in Texas who had Mopsy on her car, and Popsy on his.
And then I saw one vanity plate with just one word on it: ytteb I had a difficult time figuring that one out – until I spelled it backwards. I’m assuming the driver’s name is: Betty.
We had one Air Force license tag that said AGPOP.
Really easy to remember. Unfortunately, Florida law says that military plates have to be changed out every 10 years. I can’t imagine who made up that law. All it does is create more paperwork for some government agency, that is totally unnecessary. But that’s the government for you.
Below are some sample license plates from Florida’s License plate designs
I guess the one that really inspired me to do this word search, was while we were living in Virginia. I was stopped behind a car whose license plate had the words: I SOIF. That one had me baffled. Soif? Soif? What in the world is soif? Then, as I began looking at the back window decals – and the bumper stickers – of the car, I realized that I was looking at all kinds of surfboards! Okay…now I get it – I SOIF means I SURF. The guy in the car was a surfer.
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
So….has this inspired you to take a new look at license plates and try to figure out words? It’s a fun thing to do, and Fred gets quite tickled at some of the ones I come up with. Give it a try. You just might like it – and it helps pass the time when traveling.
[Added April 23, 2023: in seeing license tags from other states, I realize that a lot of states have more than the 3-n-3 numbers/letters that Florida has. But it still might be fun to try to make something of the tags you see.]
Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .
Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.
After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.
Old Things R New 
It all sounds like a good idea.
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