I've always regarded vanity license plates as just foolishness. However, it might have been a good idea for someone who had one that read, either,

WAR SUX

or

WORE SUX

It would have to be somebody who drives a car more than I do. I have a big, heavy 1989 Chevy Caprice wagon, whose massiveness I like for safety, but I save gas by doing very little driving. (There's no particular reason to go anywhere other than where I happen to be.)

In 1995, when I last visited Texas, I visited the house where President Lyndon Johnson lived, as a boy. His mother had a picture, titled, "All is vanity," on the wall, above her dresser. That is a quotation from the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes.

One time back in 1973, the year Johnson died, I'd driven to Madison, Wisconsin and had stayed overnight in the old "railroad hotel," whose name I've forgotten. The next morning, after eating breakfast in the hotel's cafe, I picked up a copy of the "State Journal," when I noticed the headline, a quote attributed to Johnson, in reference to the Viet Nam war.

It read, "Johnson: 'The kids were right. I blew it.'"