Memorial stickers

Last week I was in the Deep South. It always amuses me to tell people I'm going on vacation to Alabama, because the South is so misunderstood. Sure, there are a lot of hicks. Sure, there's bulletproof glass in a lot of gas stations. Yes, you'll see a Confederate flag or two. But really, it's not that bad. You're not going to be rousted out of your cheap hotel by a KKK convention or anything, and nobody's going to threaten to shoot your lily-white Yankee butt or refer to the War of Northern Aggression (unless they're being facetious or really drunk).

There was a funny new trend, though, aside from Nascar-themed license plates: a lot of people had what seemed to be memorial stickers on their back windshields. You know, Gracie Ann Jones, Beloved Sister, year - year, Angels Watch You. Things like that. I wasn't aware that this was a trend, but I saw quite a few vehicles with these stickers in the approximately 28 hours of driving it took to get there and back. Some of them have fancy embellishments and some of them are just plain text, clear cling-style stickers with white borders, but they were all over. It was kind of sweet, I suppose: better than the Confederate flag bumper sticker on my block that says "My History, Your Ignorance" (which, to some degree granted, but I have hefty opposition to that philosophy, despite being one of the Girls Raised In The South, or G.R.I.T.S.). To some extent, the memorial stickers are sweet and tasteful, but I'm a big fan of private displays of grief, and, you know, emotion in general (unless Michael Phelps is in the swimming pool or the new X-Files movie is coming out).

My question is: is this going to be the next big trend? We've had (unlicensed) replicas of Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes fame peeing on everything under the sun, we've had the OBX stickers and their subsequent knockoffs, we've had stylized stags. Are memorial stickers going to be the new thing? Will you be able to trace the family tree by peering at someone's back windshield?

I foresee mournful stickers about pets, actors, and Nascar drivers as possible spinoffs. As for me, I want historical personages and scientific theories. Abiogenesis, beginning of time - 1861, Would Have Been Awesome. Things like that, you know. Queen Elizabeth 1, 1533 - 1608, A Fashionista For Our Times. I would totally sport a ruff.