Sunday, October 13, 2019

Time For A Change?

For years now, I've had a tire cover on my Jeep that is easily identifiable. My hippie smiley-face that proclaims "Only In A Jeep" has been my calling card.


It's helped me locate my car in large parking decks, it's made a lot of folks smile, it's enabled people to track my whereabouts. While I really enjoy having the hippie dude on my car's rear, it has made me realize how easily identifiable I am.

My neighbor recently asked "Didn't I just see your car at Harris Teeter?" She could have surmised my whereabouts by the bags of groceries I just had unloaded, but she went to pains to tell me it was because of my tire cover. "There's not another one like it in all of Pinehurst." My dog, Mary, was being groomed last month, and the woman at the desk told me, after seeing my car in the parking lot, that she delivers my newspaper to me twice a week. I can't even get away with a late afternoon visit to the grocery or a morning at the groomer without being unmasked, it seems.

My dear Jeep, loyal as it has been, is about at the end of the road. I'm trading it in, hopefully sometime this week, for a newer used car, which will undoubtedly be another Jeep. But I'll remove the tire cover before I affect the trade, since it's been my trademark and I don't want it or me to be associated with the new owner. Alas, the newer Jeep models no longer have an outside spare tire, so I don't know what I'll do with my hippie, but it's not a good idea to transfer it with the car. What if the person robs a bank? Would the police come to my house, since I'm the smiley-faced hippie dude owner? The possibilities are endless.

I'm going to take some pointers on how I developed that brand, since I'll be coming out with my first new book in a couple of years soon. But this time I'll welcome the recognition. Stay tuned.

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