Thursday, July 8, 2010

The Newfoundland Sticker

It's been a while since I've seen one of these, but I saw doozie today and it inspired this blog.
What I don't get is the Newfoundland sticker that is seen on primarily trucks, but also on cars. These can range from a small outline of the rocky Canadian east coast to a decal that effectively replaces the rear windshield.
I honestly don't get it. Why is it that people from Newfoundland feel the need to advertise this in such an overt way. I mean it's not as if the Newfie people, with all due respect, have a particularly good stereotype. Most are considered dim-witted even if it's not true. I know they're damn hard-working. But still, it's not like you see people from B.C. displaying a cutout of their province and sure as hell no one that's come from Saskatchewan would ever brag about it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I have ever seen someone from any other province decorate their automobile with a sticker of the province they once lived in. I was never inspired to put up an Ontario sticker on my car while living in Alberta - partially because I'd probably be run out of town by a gang of angry cowboy-canola famers.
This isn't the same thing as those idiotic World Cup flags, where everyone is suddenly proud to be Italian or Uruguayan - until their team loses at least. This Newfie pride permeates throughout the year.
When I lived in Alberta, these stickers were so prevalent because so many people came from Newfoundland to work in the Oil Sands. I only ever really talked to two Newfies; one was my boss, who seemed pretty with it and didn't have the accent; the other was another woman who I worked with. Let me tell you, nice lady, but I wouldn't want her doing any NASA computations any time soon. To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, "You might be a Newfie if..."
My boss now if from Newfoundland and, at least thus far, doesn't have one of those stickers on his car. But he sure as hell is proud of the fact he's from there. In fact, during the completion of my duties one day I ran into another Newfie who I had to refer to my boss. I overheard my boss tell another co-worker that as soon as they talked they were best of friends because they were both from Newfoundland.
Is there some kind of brotherhood or provincial pride that comes from having been born in/lived in/visited/married someone from Newfoundland? I have never had the privilege of going. I know it's supposed to be gorgeous in terms of scenery and, Newfoundland had Vikings, which in this bloggers opinion get's them +20 cool points.
Someone please enlighten me as to why there is such a pride of being from Newfoundland.
Meanwhile, I'll continue to drive behind these cars and wonder if they can see out their back window.

After saying all this I'm going to have to remove the Wales decal in my back window. I've been there, my grandfather is from there, and it inspired a mechanic to give me a detailed account of his family history, but in the end it's no different than a Newfoundland decal...but smaller.

1 comment:

  1. I don't get it. When I was little (I'm dating myself now) you'd see lots of cars, mostly station wagons with faux wood side panels, with decals ALL OVER the car sometimes. I think people collected them from places they visited. Maybe people from Newfoundland have something that the rest of Canada sometimes appears to lack, pride in where they are from and/or live?

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