Never Forget PopPop

I’ll never forget the last time I saw PopPop. That little halo of salt-and-pepper hair wrapped around the back of his big, bald head. The bushy mustache… and the eyes that gleamed as he rode down the interstate in his silver pickup truck, with the old-fashioned University of Tennessee sticker in the back window. (It was the older style “T” in black, on an orange background.) And I’ll certainly never forget the last two things I saw.

1. PopPop flipping the bird, and cursing at my wife.
2. His license plate: POPPOP1.

I had no idea who PopPop was before Sunday. Apparently, I was committing the unpardonable sin of being in PopPop’s way on the interstate. I was driving 65 in a 55-mile-an-hour construction zone – and only that fast because of the flow of traffic. I really wanted to get over into the right-hand lane, but an endless parade of weasels insisted upon not letting me over. PopPop was the last in a long line of cars blowing past me, each riding my bumper and not letting me get over.

I realize the odds of anyone running into PopPop’s silver pickup truck with the personalized license tag is very, very low. Not very many people read this blog, and they are scattered around the world. And something tells me that PopPop’s predilection for driving his pickup like it was a part of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series might lower the chances that he or his immediate family might run into one of you online one day.

But if you do happen to run into PopPop, send him a message from Occam’s RazR. Tell him that in an age of online combat where your identity is indeed your brand – that you’d better behave.

None of us is as anonymous as we’d like to think we are. Right, PopPop?

[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR[/tags]