People who don’t just assume some form of insanity must be at play here sometimes dare ask… why? It’s not a long story, but it goes back to my childhood. Don’t worry, no tears will be shed here!
My Dad, "Rich", in Unity Maine on our way to see The Waybacks (2008)
I met my Dad for the very first time when I was around six years old. By the time I was nine, I was visiting him in New Jersey regularly and he usually came down to pick me up in Maryland. Since I was really just getting to know my Dad for the first time in my life, the drive back up 95 must have been somewhat of a formative experience for me.
Something I apparently never forgot about those drives was my Dad’s curious habit of pointing out cars with vanity plates. With each one we passed, he tried to decipher the meaning and would bellow in laughter or smirk, depending on what he thought of the message each plate delivered.
Keep in mind, this was around 1976. Vanity plates were not at all common in that era. If you had one, you were probably beyond hip. My Dad, a lifetime New Yorker, worked at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital at the time and was pretty cool in his own right. He later got roué as his own vanity plate (adding the accent with a Sharpie).
My Dad (Rich) is really into photography although I don’t believe he has ever photographed a vanity plate. He tried to get me into it, sending books which I never read (like any good son), but it was only in recent years, during my failed startup experience with Textamerica.com that I started using a camera phone to take a lot of pictures. When management of our startup (dotbomb) threw in the towel, I started a Pro account with Flickr which is now home to thousands of vanity plate pictures I’ve taken since 2006 (many more vanity plate pictures were lost along with everyone else’s images when “TA” pulled the plug).
So, that’s really it! This is the lifelong habit I kept from the earliest interaction with my Dad. Somewhere around 2,000 pictures into my “mild obsession” with vanity plate pictures, I decided to do something meaningful with them and here we are with a vanityplat.es blog—and the beginning of my attempt to categorize all the pictures. I started Plate Show in 2008 after a short interview for a newspaper story on vanity plates crystallized the idea for me, but found that I had too little time to devote to the idea at that time. So, this is where I’m starting over with the idea with no concrete plan for a “show” or anything… but who knows!
Honnick fell in love with personalized plates as a boy, when he and his father deciphered the ones they saw while traveling on the highway. Now Honnick records plates during his own drives, including trips to visit his father in Maine.
For the Love of Vanity
Lewiston SunJournal 2007
I welcome your feedback, ideas and advice. Please post a comment on any of the photos here or on my Flickr pages. I promise to read them and write a comment back if warranted. You can also send email to show@vanityplat.es