My New Favorite Sticker

This is opposed to my previous favorite sticker, the one that says, "I VOTED." It took a long time to get that one. First, when I was 18, we weren't allowed to vote yet. That's one thing all the protests were about, being "eligible" to go die in Vietnam if you were a guy getting drafted, but not able legally to drink or vote (for somebody who promised to end the war). By the time the laws changed, my first election was when I was 24.

They didn't offer stickers then.

In 1991 I moved into Shafer, a very small town with 3 liquor licenses and no churches. That last was because an abundance of the early residents were Jehovah Witnesses. (The first was for the rest of us, I guess?) They went to each other's homes to worship and didn't need a special building. They also didn't believe in voting, though the city offered it. I was one of about 70 or so who showed up to vote back then. By the time I left, the population was over a thousand, and around 200 were regular voters.

Shafer gave stickers. They weren't very sticky, likely because they'd been saved for decades since the roll hadn't gotten used up. I'd proudly go in first thing in the morning, usually #1 or #2 in line, and put my sticker on my work  uniform shirt. Before 10:00 my seatbelt would have knocked it off, no matter where I'd placed it. After I moved away I heard they got a new roll of stickers that actually stuck.

With permanent early voting by mail in Arizona, there aren't stickers. No biggie, there's nobody to show them off to anyway. It was more about prompting others who saw the sticker to go vote themselves, anyway, and while we seniors do mostly vote, the snowbirds did before they left to come south and the rest of us vote over a couple weeks. It's not like I'd see a bunch of people to show it off to anyway. It just wouldn't mean as much.

I got my new favorite sticker this morning, as did Steve. I like it so much that I'm planning to tape it across an old campaign button pin, clear packing tape holding it in place and protecting it, the pin enabling me to wear it over and over on any shirt I choose. This one is round, blue on the top half with white letters, white on the bottom with red letters. The top says "I WAS VACCINATED". The bottom reads "SO I CAN DO LIFE." The "O" in "DO" is a smiley face. 

It kinda matches ours as we drove off.