Bumper Sticker...Or Art?

One of the advantages of cleaning up around the house is you find things. Sometimes you find things you wish stayed hidden, but other times, you come across something that you love finding because  what you find is more than the object itself.

Case in point...

A sticker.

I lived in Europe for a couple of years. I left in spring, thirty-four years ago (I can't believe it's been that long...). We heard a lot about culture shock before we went over. Some things in Denmark were very similar to things back home--the biggest being the way people looked. I'm from Utah. A large majority of Utahns--myself included--are direct descendants of Scandinavians. The Danes look a lot like Utahns.

Many things were different of course. The buildings, the roads, the food (some of it, anyway...), the language, the customs. Even the cars could trigger a bit of culture shock. One of the biggest differences was all the taxis were Mercedes Benz. I rarely saw American cars--sure, they had Fords and a version of GM cars, but they were different, mostly they were smaller. 

And almost every car had a little sticker on the back, and on those stickers were simple letters, country codes, because in a day, a person can literally drive through a half a dozen countries, or more. I mostly saw Scandinavian and northern European country codes, N = Norway, S = Sweden, SF = Finland, D = Germany. Those were the biggies. Every day in Denmark I saw the letters DK on almost every car. I came to love those letters.

I still do, three and a half decades later.

I found a DK sticker while cleaning up my stuff. I didn't buy it in the country, but in Solvang, California--as close as you can some to Denmark in America. Even though, it's not ægte (authentically purchased in the country...), I still loved it and thought it was about time to adhere it to our minivan.

I slapped it on, snapped a picture and told my wife what I had done. I probably should have asked her first--we call the van "her car." She considered it a bumper sticker. For the life of me, I did not. Technically, it is a bumper sticker, but in my mind, a bumper sticker has some corny saying or slogan, or it has the name of a political figure letting everyone following you which way you intend to vote (or voted in elections long past...). I didn't think my DK sicker could be considered one of the bumper variety.

Personally, I love having it on the van. I've got a Danish flag on my car. It's faded to the point where I should replace it with a newer, redder, and whiter flag. I know many think bumper stickers are gaudy, but to me, the DK sticker is a thing of beauty...a work of art.