313, My Favorite License Plate (on 3/13)

If I had a choice, my license plate would have been HX-91, held in Connecticut by my parents since cars began being built after WW2. After many years, it became a really low-number plate and I have one of her “Lighthouse” tags (my brother has the other) which somehow didn’t get returned to the DMV back home. Pity.

When the Commonwealth of PA changed its style of license plates, I decided it was time to shell out and get a personalized tag. They offered me three choices, so I asked for “HX-91” in honor of Mom, then “RHV88-5” for my radio show (Radio Home Visitor on 88.5fm) and something else I forget.

Somebody else already had “Mom’s plate” in this state, so when the large envelope from PennDOT arrived, I found myself with the Radio Home Visitor license.

But 313? I think that might have been part of the third choice, if the first two were not available. I’ve always been a great fan of Donald Duck and that is his plate. Once, and I think once only, some unthinking cartoonist at Disney drew a panel with “1313” as the plate. I was going to object, but had other things to do.

I would need more than “313” on the plate, as someone might have that low number. “TOM 313”? “DON 313”? We only get seven characters here, including a space or a dash (but not both). “DUCK313”? It would be funny to find someone named Robert H. Vaughn who lives at 885 some street and wanted my plate.