We went to an Irish restaurant on the Cape, Keltic Kitchen (with Keltic Kottage gift shop adjoining), which was fun. It was one of those places that had patches from fire and ploice departments decorating the walls, mostly local but with some from farther afield. There were a few military and ambulance as well. These are typically acquired from customers who bring them in for display. It is a statement of who their clientele is, and who they respect in this world.
These are occupations which were and still are highly unionised, especially in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. There would be lots of emotional conflict when other unions would go on strike, especially if they were civilly disobedient, as in blocking traffic. This is waning as the violence has increased. Police and fire don't like to get stuck with what happens when people tip over cars and torch them. Still, it remains strong, and is part of why Massachusetts remains heavily Democratic. It's not just Cambridge and Amherst. The Irish still have resentment in some places for past ills - not at Belfast levels, certainly, but still a secondary or perhaps tertiary motivator. They resent rich WASPs, and in tourist areas this split has its own love/hate dynamic.
The Cape and Islands were also places where African-Americans could be treated nearly as well as whites, even a hundred years ago. Martha's Vineyard in particular attracted rich A-A's from away as well, and these both integrated somewhat into both the working and rich tourist societies there, but also formed their own elite culture. We went to a souvenir store that not only had sweatshirts and other clothing (Including the baby T-shirts that said "I'm a Delta baby!") for a sorority I did not recognise at first, but the oval bumper stickers that show a location you have been that not only said MV, but others that said INK. I was only figuring it out as I exited the story that the sorority was Delta Sigma Theta, the prestige black sorority for decades, and Inkwell was for Inkwell Beach. Oh right, now that I think of it a lot of the little fisherman statues and beach-reclining watercolors that one finds in souvenir shops were black. Duh.
So these groups are overdetermined to be Democrats, which usually means it is a long time before they abandon altogether.
On those oval stickers, there was a report on NPR's Marketplace some 10 years ago, where they recorded the history as follows:
ReplyDeleteA fellow in the business of selling stickers was in Martha's Vinyard and noticed a car with the "MV" distinguishing sign of the country of registration for the Maldives (as required by the Geneva Convention on Road Traffic if you are driving a car outside its country of registration). He then started making and selling such ovals with two or three letters as affinity marks, first with VT for the state of Vermont, and then for any affinity that would sell.
When I first started seeing "D" ovals on US registered BMW cars I thought it was somewhat silly, but I suppose that they may have been vestigial stickers from when the purchaser chose the then-popular "European Delivery" program, where the car would have been picked up by the purchaser from the factory in Germany with a temporary German registration for a driving vacation on the continent before being dropped back off for shipping home to the USA. I also started noticing them in use presumably to denote ethnic heritage.
As I've traveled on car trips in North America with European friends, several have expressed confusion about the oval stickers, as the mark never matches the place of registration shown on the license plate. I suppose this is what gets my goat: It's an official symbol, the design and use of which is determined by international treaty. Alternate uses dilute what should be a clear and unambiguous meaning, much like slow-moving vehicle signs used as driveway markers do.
When I first started seeing "VT" stickers on cars with Vermont license plates I thought it was funny, as if Vermont drivers considered themselves to be traveling internationally when outside of VT. Otherwise I'm not much of a fan. When we see one for the Berkshires (BRK) I say to my wife, "Look! there's another berk²!"
¹ https://www.marketplace.org/2014/07/09/how-resorts-ended-those-oval-car-decals/
² OED: "A mild insult, approximating to 'fool', derived from the cockney rhyming slang 'Berkeley Hunt' . . ."
Yeah, ACK is prominent, especially on Jeeps and similar, and has expanded to sweatshirts and caps. It's because of Nantucket Memorial Airport, carrying the extra signifier of "we fly in." I don't know if you have them where you are, but bumper stickers that say "Exit 32" or some other number also show where one vacations.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first came back to NH I had a William and Mary decal, and would leave notes if I saw a car with one. I had a nice conversation with one couple who had graduated about five years earlier. I wear a W&M cap up here for the same reason, and had a conversation with a man the first day I wore it two years ago, and again just last week at Plimoth. I wouldn't wear it if I lived in Virginia.