Rick Just
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Puny Plates

4/24/2020

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This rates more as nostalgia than history, but I thought I’d share it. Back in the 1950s and 60s the Disabled American Veterans used to send out key tags as a fundraiser. They hoped that you would be so pleased with the tags that looked just like your license plate that you’d send them a little money. I think you could drop them in a mailbox, and they would eventually find their way back to you.
 
But I was a kid. I didn’t have a car until 1968, so it was the license tag itself that fascinated me. They were just the right size to put on the front and back of a Tonka toy truck, if you could talk your parents out of them. And if you could figure out a way to mount them.
 
This particular set was among my grandfather’s possessions that we sifted through years ago. This was apparently his license number in 1953. He was a notoriously bad driver, so it’s a bit of miracle that he had a car he could put tags on.
 
By the way, it would be much more difficult to pull this off today. The Idaho Transportation Department isn’t keen on providing lists of names associated with license plates. It’s a privacy issue.

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    Author, Speaker

    Rick Just has been writing about Idaho history since 1989 when he wrote and recorded scripts for the Idaho Centennial Commission’s daily radio program, Idaho Snapshots. His latest book on Idaho history is Images of America, Idaho State Parks. Rick also writes a regular column for the Idaho Press.

    Rick does public presentations on Idaho's state park history and the history of the Morrisite war for the Idaho Humanities Council's Speakers Bureau.
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