In Honor Of Bumper Stickers

Hilton Head Island

May 11, 2025

I would never have guessed I’d become a bumper sticker guy. This article from the WSJ summarizes my evolution perfectly.

My Life Story, Told in Bumper Stickers

When I go somewhere I want to remember, I affix a memento to the back of my truck.

By Mike Kerrigan

Wall Street Journal

May 2, 2025 at 3:56 pm ET

It started innocently. I put a dancing bears sticker on the back of my pickup truck to express my love for the Grateful Dead. Then I added a Marian “Call Your Mother” sticker, a dry reminder to pray the rosary, my favorite Catholic meditative prayer. That was it for a while.

Then a strange thing started happening. I found myself collecting more and more stickers. Now, whenever I’m somewhere I want to remember, I ask the proprietor for a sticker. Once home, I add it to my truck’s increasingly crowded tailgate.

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It isn’t life’s big moments that I mark, and no statement is political. There’s only one nonnegotiable requirement for membership in this exclusive adhesive club: The moment it recalls must be meaningful to me.

One sticker says “That Rug Really Tied the Room Together,” a line from the movie “The Big Lebowski.” It celebrates the moment that Joe, my eldest son, said these words to his mother, who’d rearranged our family room, and I knew his droll sense of humor was coming into its own.

Another recalls a seafood spot in Florida where my family and I once ate dinner. I was ravenous and so gorged myself that Hope, my daughter, still giggles as she recalls my saying, “I understand how that Swedish King Adolf ate himself to death.”

“Mama Tried” stickers appear more than once. This is because it’s both a Merle Haggard classic and the unofficial theme song of my red-blooded 14-year-old son, Jack, on whom it’s impossible to throw a saddle.

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Often these stickers are free. Businesses are generally excited when a customer says, “This is the best fried chicken in Boulder, and I want to tell the world about it.” Even when I purchase them, it amounts to pocket change.

My return on sticker investment is unbeatable considering negligible cost, joyful memories unlocked and the frequency of unlocking them. Because I use my truck every day, I get a pleasant mood-reset every time I pass by my tailgate.

The habit also helps keep me out of trouble. If I were to go somewhere I’m not supposed to go, many would know. If I drive too aggressively, I risk having a friend or neighbor saying not “Some jerk cut me off” but “That jerk Kerrigan cut me off.”

The Gray Ghost, as I call my truck, feels like part of the family. I can’t imagine ever parting, and so I won’t. When the time comes, I’ll bury it in my backyard, using a sloping hill to ensure the tailgate remains above ground. I’ll fill up the bed with sand to create a sandbox for future grandchildren.

“Enjoy the little things in life because one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.” These words, attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, are true—and I don’t have to wait to look back on my life. I just have to look at the back of my truck.

Mr. Kerrigan is an attorney in Charlotte, N.C