Kickin' Rocks

with Don Pennington

Hooligan Hot Rodders... Decals and T-Shirts

It was a nice quiet Friday evening and I was settling down to watch the latest edition of The Coddington Wars when  this great huge guy marches up to my front door with a certain amount of purpose to his step, something like "I wanna kill something". He banged on the door, then before I had a chance to find my .357 Magnum Python Urban Defender (there's an image for ya, what a great name), he did it again. Opening the door a smidge, wide enough to stick a gun barrel out but not let a fist in, he greeted me with the chutzpah of a barking drill sergeant... "are you the guy that has that pile of junk cars in your back yard that I have to look at all day while my wife's working?". Well...it's not junk it's all perfectly good stuff, project fodder that will keep me busy and doing things other than practicing my Peeping Tom routine through those new 500 power Russian Army Surplus binnocks that I got on sale from my survival-world overthrowing club newsletter. I have never seen this guy before but apparently he lives within eyesight and there he was, standing at my door all red faced with ear steam and bulging at the seams ready to do his M-80 imitation. Without seeing my keepers, you and I both know that it's not junk, but he thinks it is because it looks like junk to him. Eye of the beholder and all that. Well not to get the guy any more PO'ed or cause an explosive potentially fatal cranial event... I slammed the door in his face. I may have muttered some comment about his heritage, what his wife does for work and his propensity for a good tight pair of guy jeans, but they escape me just now.

The next day during the Saturday morning after cartoon gathering I related this story to the boys while in the rock circle. One of the pebble pushers (that's pebble... not pedal...although there is this guy down on the corner that wears pedal pushers and talks kinds dainty, I think he has a SAAB too), anyway one of the boys  said that I should put a sticker on my forehead, because I now have a label, a purpose in life, I now have a badge as the blite of the neighborhood. My god, I have a label... I have badges! How cool! I have heard of this before, the labeling thing not the sticker thing or the badge thing, although I have seen a few sticker people from time to time pushing their grocery carts around. To keep the boys from going home too early and thereby being exposed to the infamous Honey-do List, I wondered out loud what other badges we might be wearing and don't know it. The boys took it a step further wondering about the difference between the badge givers and the badge getters, who is who, and who said they could do that? We wanna do that, sounds like fun!

Early on... hot rodders had badges, in fact I think it may be a cornerstone of what we do, if we couldn't label people and issue badges, why go to rod runs, why gather at the malt shop?  "Oh look, there goes Bob, what a goof ball". Labels have been around since the naked people were in the garden, that poor snake got his badge as Fruit Salesman of the Month and the first member of the Retail Clerks Union (soon to be taken over by the Teamsters), he got badge Number 1. Hot rodders got their first one from the almighty paid press deploring the state of affairs with all those hooligan hot rodders running around the streets pillaging and terrorizing the public. The hot rod badge was proudly worn by every car guy in sight. Hot rodders liked the badge deal so much that soon they were kickin' out their own, identifying two groups of rodders, the bangers and the V-8 guys. Right after that came the hot rod and custom car badges, separating the greasers from the social freaks. While the rodders were busy pillaging, the average people were being kept in their place by the fifth column, oops the fifth estate, and the money mongers giving out those "stay in your own part of town you poor decrepit bastard" labels, but hot rodders were much more creative, makin' labels for everything in sight. Soon the racers found themselves wearing all kinds of Badge-A-Minit products, a guy could have a V-8 flathead button, as well as ones for what brand of intake, heads, cam, and ignition he ran, thereby belonging to all kinds of groups at the same time and starting to look like one of those Saturday morning kiddy show hosts, buttons head to toe. This badge deal kept spreading out until a guy could hardly climb behind the wheel from all the stinkin' badges hangin' off him.

I've got to say this...when bangin' out insight about this social wonder, a phrase we have all heard keeps drifting around in my brain and it's getting in the way, I just have to get it out, pardon the lapse into the ordinary world... but here it is... well you know what it is, something about badges that smell funny. Sorry, had to do it. Actually badges would be helpful, if we all had them plastered all over ourselves it would force us to commit, pick a side, stand our ground. You couldn't be a Ford guy and waffle over to the Chevy side depending on who you're talking to, you'd have to own up, admit your deficiencies! The really cool part about all this is that we can now form a committee to set some rules, enforce them and issue fines. With the money from the fines we could start a giant club and have badges for that. This might inspire a whole new industry, badges would evolve into decals and coats and... get this one... we could make t-shirts! We could go even farther and get our spouses and kids to wear this stuff, this sounds like big money.

Labeling seems screwy but some people are determined to pigeon hole everybody but themselves, can't we all just get along? I heard that from a guy in LA once, he had a decal that said Support Your Local Police on his car, I hear it worked wonders for him. With this label thing brought out into the open we can be sure of who we are talking to, and of course who we don't want to talk to. Badges would clean this world up really quick, we could all stay with our own kind but better yet keep the riffraff where they belong. Hell if we would have started this sooner all the red ‘32 hi boy guys would be in one spot, all the ‘40 coupes in another, and the woodie guys... well they are all by themselves now, so no reason to talk about them (sorry Bob, but you know it's true). If everybody stuck to their groups it would cut the walking time way down at rod runs, only having to look at what we want. Better yet, just let one car of each type in the joint, that would cut the 3000 car event down to... oh say...30. Much better don't you think? $30 to get in, 30 cars to look at, all done early and home in time for a mid-morning nap. You will even save a $100 or so since you will be home before lunch and won't need to buy lunch at the fairgrounds. This new deal would put you time and money ahead! What more could you ask for?

I guess dumping the idea of labeling people and ending a 10,000 year old Holy War have about the same difficulty factor. It's gonna be here so we might as well play the game. So I'm gonna get one of those badge making machines, get some new software that let's my cumpooter make badge art and punch up "Freaky Neighbor Who Doesn't Know the Difference Between a Full Mouth of 32 Teeth and a ‘32 Ford" with a nice picture of an overweight ferret with steam coming out of his ears. I think I'll just mail it to my neighbor, hope he doesn't figure out who sent it,  I prefer to stay anonymous at times like this, then I'm gonna make another badge for the guy that came up with the Python Urban Fighter moniker, it'll say something like, "My New Best Friend".

Keep Kickin'

DP