Driving to work last week on one of our uncharacteristically sunny fall days, I stopped at a traffic light and saw a bright flash.

I looked around and saw that the flash had come from the car next to me where a girl had hung a small disco ball from her rear view mirror.

I chuckled to myself, imagining Donna Summer and BeeGees songs straining out of her stereo, but then I wondered how she drives around, particularly on sunny days, without going blind.

As I continued on my way, I glanced around and began to notice the ornaments hanging from the mirrors of other motorists. Fuzzy dice, handcuffs, a Hawaiian lei, a Rosary and Cross, and a few cars sported those ever popular pine tree air fresheners.

Going around the corner onto Highway 99, I saw a Honda car with a CD dangling from the mirror. I had heard that the reflective surface on the music disks can foil police radar guns, but after I researched it I learned that this is not true. So the shiny disks are mostly just annoyance.

While it’s natural to want to adorn our vehicles with some personal item, I have learned that it is illegal in at least one state (Michigan) to hang anything from your car mirror, as it constitutes a ‘visual distraction/obstruction’ and if pulled over by a cop, it can result in a fine.
I don’t know if it’s illegal in this state, perhaps someone will write to let me know.

Does what you hang on your car mirror really say anything about you?

A big man in a small Chevy had baby shoes on his mirror. From the ‘I (heart) Britney Spears’ window decal, I concluded that he was driving his daughter’s car. I stopped at the lumber yard and in the stall next to me was a big truck with a pair of miniature boxing gloves. Is this guy a prize fighter or just a fan?

The thing that started it all, fuzzy dice, are still popular at fifties car rallies and that’s about the time they caught on, becoming ever more popular into the seventies and eighties as the first real car decoration meant to hang from your mirror. The theory goes that back during WWII, pilots used to bring dice with them into the cockpit for good luck, and that they just brought that tradition home with them after the war. They are a bit harder to find now, but I’m sure they’re available on Ebay.

On the way home tonight, one car I passed had what looked like a tea bag hanging from the mirror. I suppose this could either be symbolic of protest against unfair taxation, or just cheap potpourri. Baby shoes, graduation tassels, a shell necklace, garter belts, I saw all of these things over the past few days and I no longer think it really says anything about the vehicle’s operator, other than that the item is just a trinket of a moment in that person’s life, and the mirror happens to be a handy place to hang it.

My father-in-law, the Famous Russian has no rear view mirror at all…because his dog, Dotty the Dalmatian goes berserk in the front seat when he leaves her there for more than five minutes and she chews it right off of the windshield.

What do I have hanging from my mirror? In my work van, it’s a pair of ear plugs for blocking out my Skilsaw, but in our SUV, it’s a plain old indian dreamcatcher that Mrs. Anthony and I picked up on our trip to the Grand Canyon a few years ago. Haven’t caught any dreams yet.

My uncle Paddy, from Ireland writes to tell me the following story:

‘Scotty, I was driving meself home after a pint of Guinness at Donnegan’s Pub, jus’ mindin’ me own business and I turns a corner near the old sawmill, and much to my horror I sees a tree in the middle of the lane. I swerves to avoid it and almost too late realize that there is yet another tree directly in me path.

Well I swerves again and discover that me drive home has turned into a
slalom course, I had to veer the old van from side to side to avoid all the trees!

It was then that the sound of the police siren comes up behind me, so’s I pulled over, I did.

It was just Officer O’Hearn, you remember the O’Hearns, jus’ a stone’s toss from the blacksmith’s and well, now, O’Hearn, he approaches me car and asks me, ‘Paddy, what on earth are ye doing there, weavin’ all over t’ road and all?’ I tells Officer O’Hearn of the trees in the road when he stops me mid-sentence and says, "Fer goodness sakes, Paddy, that's yer air freshener!"