"do no harm"

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My younger son was keen to have my battered car. It's a stick shift and has some pep and I think he thought it might feel more like 'his' after driving the old van his brother drove before him. It has an element of 'kool' even if its once-vaunted "rice rocket" potential is hardly slick any longer.

Anyway, we switched cars yesterday. In one sense, I didn't mind at all and was pleased to think the swap might please him. On the other hand, I didn't like the fact that I had to change gears, so to speak -- find new spaces in which to thrown the loose change and other bits and pieces that claimed nooks and crannies in the car I had used. I was crabby -- don't mess with my habits, please.

I scraped off the American flag posted in one of the van windows (I dislike trumpeting what I cannot help but be) and then I realized that there was a sticker on my car that I really would have liked to transfer but could not. I really don't like bumper stickers or shirts announcing the maker on the left breast, but I liked this bumper sticker and wanted it on my new mode of transportation: "Do No Harm." As announcements go, it's pushy, but not that pushy.

A silly found while searching for "do no harm"

So I wrote to Clyde, the fellow who had given me the original sticker, and said I would be happy to pay for another. Clyde lives in California, and, as far as I can figure out, has made something of a cottage industry out of do-no-harm stuff. As cottage industries go, I think he could do worse. Anyway, he wrote to say he would send me one and I am happy to think there will now be two cars in town, both with a "do no harm" sticker.

Who knows, maybe the idea will catch on ... perhaps even lead to action, though I don't want to get my hopes up. With a sticker, I can check in when times get tough, and remember who the hell I was supposed to be.
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