Car Thoughts

When we first moved to Illinois, I remember being intrigued by all the personalized license plates. Easily one out of every ten plates was an expression of the driver's personality. I always wondered why so many people there chose to invest in vanity plates. I'm sure that the fact that it was only twenty dollars more than the regular $78 license fee was a factor.

Here in Tennessee, I see very few personalized license plates. Perhaps this is because a twenty dollar premium would nearly double the price of your plates. Instead it seems that many people here use their rear windshields to memorialize dead loved ones. I've seen several memorials to children whose lives were tragically shortened, perhaps by illness or even a drunk driver. Until I moved here I had never seen such a thing. Is this a local phenomenon?