More than any area I’ve ever been in, people who live in the UP love to show their regional pride, their love of this magical place, and for the past couple of months I’ve been paying attention to one of the very unique ways in which many of us show it…
Stickers on our cars.
Just walk up and down the streets of any UP community, like I’ve been doing recently in Marquette, and you’ll see multiple examples of what I’m talking about. There are a lot of ways in which people use those stickers to express their regional pride, sometimes simple, and sometimes with a message to go along with it.
And it’s not until you leave the UP you realize something– there aren’t a lot of other places in the U.S. that do this.
For instance, in the past few weeks I’ve been in both Chicago and downstate in the “Thumb,” and in neither place did I see anything that would be the local equivalent of “Say Ya to Da UP.” And that’s even though the Thumb area’s missing out on a really great opportunity to show a little regional pride with a ready-made slogan. I mean, this may just be me, but no “Thumbs Up”? The slogan basically writes itself.
What started with a simple little sticker like this has blossomed into a whole tableau of outlines, maps, pithy sayings, puns, Yooper inside jokes, and other statements of regional chest-thumping that puts anywhere else in the U.S. to shame.
Everywhere you look you see examples of that stickered pride, from little to small, up to and including one of the most popular, the one I call, “Choice.” The sticker reads, “American by choice, Yooper by da grace of God.” I mean, technically it’s backwards, as where you’re born determines your citizenship, and you yourself get to choose where to live, but the sentiment the sticker expresses blows right past that.
Such is the power of UP pride. And such is the power of what you choose to put on your cars & trucks.
So, the next time you see something that speaks to you, don’t be afraid. Grab it, stick it on, and show your UP pride.
After all, no matter where you are in Upper Michigan, you have an awful lot to be proud of. And what you stick on your car is one of the more unique ways you can show that.
I’m Jim Koski, and that’s another slice of “Life in the 906.”
