50. Procrastination and Delayed Gratification

Do you ever think about your car (or truck's) license plate number? For the record, mine is 0699. It is a special issue plate, carrying, in addition to that number, a decal with my college alma mater's symbol on it. With special issue plates it is possible to get the plate number you want, or the plate type (as I have) you want. As I've written before, numbers are a curious things for me, whether they be precinct numbers, vote counts, birthdays, or - in this case - license plate numbers.

Today's license plate numbering system (in Kentucky) isn't fair to nosey geographers like me who want to be able to tell from the plate number in which county the car is licensed. Short of reading the small decal with the county's name, there is no way to do this, with the singular exception of those cars registered in Adair County (Columbia). Being Kentucky's first county alphabetically, they will always have the letters "AAA" as part of their plates. If you see a plate with three numbers followed by AAA, or probably AAB and AAC as well, they are from Adair. Beyond that, the plates are sent to the counties as needed. Since the counties' names are attached with a decal and not stamped into the plate as before, there is no need for an absolute system of successive letters and numbers specifically assigned to a given county.

This wasn't always the case. In the 1950s and 1960s, Kentucky licenses began with the number 0-000 (issued in Adair County) and ran through the counties to Woodford numerically. I do not know if there was ever a plate numbered 999-999. Beginning in 1960 (and maybe before), the larger counties' plates, as well as all truck plates, began with a letter. Here in Jefferson County, the letters J and K were originally assigned. Before that system was abandoned, L, M, and N were added. Fayette County had B plates, maybe A as well; Kenton had C; Campbell had G; and McCracken had P. All truck plates began with the letter T. At the time, Kentucky's automobile license plates were only good for one year. Every year, every car got a new plate. One year they were blue numbers on a white plate, then the next year the pattern was reversed. Back then, all the license plates expired on December 31st of each year, but drivers had until the last day of February to get them renewed. Ideally, people would come in at various times, thus avoiding long lines on the last day. Again, that was ideally. In practice that wasn't the case.

At that time, the license plate office was located in what is now the Stock Yards Bank building at 214 S. Fifth Street. (This building was originally built as a bank and housed the National Bank of Kentucky, later the First National Bank of Louisville, prior to its relocation to what is now the National City Tower at 101 S. 5th Street). The license office itself was the first floor and basement of an L-shaped building, actually two buildings, wrapping around from 5th Street to the yellow brick building located on Market Street. The Market Street entrance is now closed. License plates were kept in an old vault located on the first floor. That vault had some writings on the wall, graffiti left by teenagers who were held there when that office served as a holding cell for the old Juvenile Courts, also formerly housed in the building. I remember being in the vault in 1979, but can not locate it now when nosing around the Stock Yards office, although I am confident it is still there.

About this time each year, the Courier-Journal felt obliged to publish a picture taken of the lines that formed on the 26th, 27th and 28th of February (and the 29th no doubt every fourth year), of folks who did not do the ideal thing and come in during the preceding eight weeks to get a new plate. Like many of us still, they procrastinated. And so the line would come out of the front door onto Fifth and wrap into the Courthouse Alley, properly Court Place, then form on down the alley to 6th, north on 6th to Market, and east on Market back to 5th. The entire half-block would be surrounded in a serpentine chain of humanity, procrastinators all.

In the current process, any one who visits any of the license plate offices on the final day of a given month will find the successors to those who waited in the half-block queues of the past. To be sure, today's system is a great deal better. Branches have been opened throughout the county and hours have been extended at least one day of the week at each of these branches. The current County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw, and her predecessor, Rebecca Jackson, both Republicans, made great advances in the system of renewal. Part of it would have happened anyway when the State changed the expiration date from the last day of the year to the last day of each of the twelve months. But a great deal of it is their work, work that has made the process easier and the lines nearly non-existant. Such lines have become rare given the new system of renewing regsitration, now done in accordance with your month of birth, meaning that there are now twelve groups of procrastinators, as opposed to one.

But lines of folks do occur from time-to-time. Concerts at the Palace Theatre or the Gardens (formerly Louisville Gardens, formerly the Convention Center, and most formerly the Armory) will sometimes find folks waiting, but nothing of the proportions of the old license plate days. I can not recall seeing anything like it the last twenty-five years until last night. Last night, a serpentine line of humanity wound around the block bounded by 2nd, Jefferson, 3rd, and Liberty streets (that block in reality a half-block, as Liberty is only a half-block, not a full block, south of Jefferson. Sometime I will discuss the original southern edge of the city, the alley south of Jefferson, once called Green Street, but that will be in another post). The reason? Barack Obama.

United States Senator Barack Obama made his second visit to Louisville in six months. The first time he came as a phenom of the Democratic Party, ushered into Louisville with the help of Carolyn Tandy, wife of Councilman David Tandy, and the State Democratic Party, to campaign for then-candidate John Yarmuth, who went on to win his race for Congress, defeating the five-term incumbent Anne Northup. It was no secret then that Obama was in reality campaigning for himself. Earlier this month, phenom Obama became candidate Obama with his official entry into the race for President of the United States, an election to be decided in about 21 months, with the victor taking office January 20, 2009 and ending the Junta currently controlling the occupancy of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in the capital city of our Republic. Obama spoke last time at Slugger Field, on one of the most beautiful late summer evenings ever experienced here on the Left Bank of the Ohio River at Milepost 606. That speech was electrifying.

I was warned earlier in the day by a reader about yesterday's speech, specifically not to be swept off my feet by the able, affable, and attractive senator from Illinois. Since that already happened the last time, I was able last night to withstand his energizing presence. Obama's speech last night, in the second floor ballroom of the Downtown Marriott, repeated some of the same themes, and also followed up on the changes undertaken in Washington since the electorate sent its message back in November. The press reported "at least 3000" were in attendance. The senator arrived late and some ticket holders had departed early, but most, if not all, of the 3000 were still there when he delivered his twenty-five minutes of verbal electricity. It was enthusiastic and powerful, especially when he made references to the accident of a war the current administration is administering. He referred a few times to a "first term" indicating there will likely be a second term, all to loud and approving cheers.

I've said before I am supporting Hillary Clinton for president. I am supportive of Senator Obama's effort as I am hopeful that she will be nominated and choose him as her running mate. I can envision sixteen years of uninterrupted Democratic administrations in the District, something which has never happened in my lifetime, and in fact has not happened since FDR's first re-election in 1936, the year my maternal grandparents were married in the pastor's parlor on Conway Street in Frankfort, something mentioned in a previous post.

But, what was most impressive last night wasn't the senator or his speech. It was the crowd, the crowd that had waited in line circling the block around the hotel. They were very young, young, middle-aged, old, and very old. They were business folks, laborers, retirees, and lots and lots of students. They were liberal, moderate, and conservative. There were at the very least four Republicans there, friends of mine, and I am sure more adherants to the Dark Side were also in attendance. It was an incredible sight for someone running for president with so little experience in Washington DC. And, in retrospect, that may be the reason. Lots of people are simply fed up with those who inhabit the environs within the Beltway and Obama, with his youthful appearance and short amount of service so far (just a few weeks over two years) in the United States Senate, may be an elixir for what ails the usually unresponsive and uninterested voters out in the hinterlands. As I said, the stars last night were the people. After waiting for an hour and a half in a line around a city block in weather which went from cold and dry to wet and windy, they got their satisfaction, their delayed gratification. Some say watching laws being made is a lot like watching sausage being made - not pretty. But watching democracy itself (demos, from the Greek for common people) is really quite an encouraging sight.