ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601120008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: TED ANTHONY ASSOCIATED PRESS
America beware: Carol Gardner is looking for sticky situations, and she's not afraid to pull over people on highways or accost them in parking lots to find what she wants.
Gardner hankers for bumper stickers - those succinct rectangular incarnations of the First Amendment that express affection or disdain for everything from honor students and Rush Limbaugh to whales and big government.
She spent two years trolling the country for stickers and the drivers who ferry them around. Her travels produced ``Bumper Sticker Wisdom: America's Pulpit Above the Tailpipe,'' arguably a more accurate sample of Middle America's opinions than most Gallup Polls.
``I was curious: Who were the messengers behind these messages?'' says Gardner, 50, who spends most of her time on an Oregon ranch with her husband and teen-age son.
``These are the real people who surround us every day,'' she says. ``They have such interesting stories and such wonderful dimensions in their lives. When you stand behind them at Wal-Mart, you never see that. But many times it's on the back of their cars.''
Accordingly, her book deals with not just the slogans but their owners, who usually are quite full of pith and vinegar.
Take Steve Gardner, a 33-year-old editor and Brigham Young University graduate whose car bears the slogan ``Single Mormon Seeks Several Spouses.'' He conceded it's not an ideal way to attract women.
``I don't really want more than one wife,'' he says. ``It's probably time to remove it if I ever want to date again.''
Homemaker Grace Amador's is more acid. ``I May Be Fat, But You're Ugly and I Can Diet.''
Some are predictable rehashes of slogans - ``I'm the Mommy, That's why,'' says one. ``Save the Whales,'' says another. Many start with ``Honk if ... '' or end with `` ... Happens.''
Some are just bad puns - ``Hoink If You Love Pigs,'' says college student Megan Gaspars' bumper - while some are quite serious. ``A Drunk Driver Killed My Daughter,'' reads the back of nursery worker Karen Jorgensen's car. Her daughter, Stephanie, was killed by one.
``It matters that others see it,'' Jorgensen says. ``It's like I want to go out there and scream, `Please don't do this.'''
Some stickers require a reader's conclusion, and it's not always decent: ``First Hillary, Then Gennifer, Now Us!'' says a sticker on the back of horse-trailer salesman Morris Keudell's truck.
Causes are popular, whether it be the environment, flag burning or Clarence Thomas. ``Anita Told the Truth,'' 50-year-old artist Judith S. Winters' bumper says.
``As I was pressing the bumper sticker on my car, I realized that this was risk-taking. There were going to be consequences to this bumper sticker,'' she says. Even today, ``men pull up and give me the finger.''
Such miniopinions abound.
Religion: ``God's Last Name Is Not Dammit,'' from retired bus driver Margarete Scrivner, 67.
Abortion: ``U.S. Out of My Uterus'' appears next to ``Be a Hero Save a Whale/Save a Baby Go to Jail,'' and ``If You Can't Trust Me With a Choice, How Can You Trust Me With a Child?''
There are the inevitable crop of pro- and anti-gun stickers: ``Fight Crime - Shoot Back'' and ``If Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Shoot Their Kids Accidentally.'' And 44-year-old accountant Harold Ashford's biting bumper banter: ``Ted Kennedy's Car Has Killed More People Than My Gun.''
``Guns don't cause crime any more than flies cause garbage,'' Ashford explains in the book. ``Also, I don't particularly like Ted Kennedy.''
Gardner took most photos herself. If she made contact with owners by phone, she'd send them disposable cameras and notes asking them to take photos and return the film.
She thinks she knows the major reason Americans favor bumper stickers.
``You have the safety and the comfort of all that metal around you, so you feel you can stretch your freedom-of-speech muscles a little more behind all that steel,'' Gardner says.
Two years of pulling over people on the highway or scouring discount-store parking lots for the stickers haven't soured Gardner. She's working on Volume Two.
``What I found out there constantly reminded me of America's diversity,'' she says. ``That diversity, combined with our ability to laugh at ourselves, makes this one great country.''
``Bumper Sticker Wisdom: America's Pulpit Above the Tailpipe.'' Beyond Words Publishing. $29.95.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Carol Gardner, author of "Bumper Sticker Wisdom:by CNBAmerica's Pulpit Above the Tailpipe," poses with some of the bumper
stickers she has collected. color.