Earlier this month, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced that more than 300 personalized license plate requests had been rejected by his office.
That was a mere fraction of the 60,537 requests for so-called vanity plates by his office. The 335 requests were rejected because they were deemed inflammatory or offensive or difficult to read.
Some of the least offensive were MUNCH, JAGWEED, HOHOHOE and WEENIE.
Currently, a total of 811,351 vehicles are registered in Illinois with vanity or personalized license plates. There are 8,015 forbidden combinations.
“Illinoisans consistently display a great deal of creativity when choosing their customized license plates, but the plates that hit the road must meet the standards of good taste and decency,” Giannoulias said. “Our team is well-versed in lecherous language and sneaky swearing, all of which are rejected and placed on our permanent prohibited list.”
This reminded me of the disappointment my father felt in 1980 when the state first allowed personalized license plates.
His name was Richard Bong and he was absolutely giddy when the law was changed. He immediately filed an application for RBong1. His dream was to get RBong2, RBong 3 etc. for all of the men in our family as all of our first names began with the letter R. Besides Richard there was his brother Ralph, my cousin Roger, me, and my two brothers, Rutch and Randy.
His world came crashing down when the secretary of state’s office sent a letter saying that the word BONG was not going to be allowed. Apparently, BONG has something to do with smoking illicit substances. That’s what my brother told me.
Dad appealed the decision saying it was just our name. No dice.
I didn’t give it much thought at the time. I mean, the folks deciding plate combinations had even on their own once sent me plates with my initials and address when I bought a new car.
Well, apparently BONG isn’t a bad word any more. I checked with the secretary of state’s Pick-A-Plate website and voila, RBONG and BBONG are both available.
I thought about getting one to honor my dad, but I can barely stand paying $151 for the plate sticker every year let alone the conversion fee and higher renewal fee for a vanity plate.
On the other hand, I can pop into any of the cannabis dispensaries that have opened across Illinois and pick up some formerly illicit substances and use one of those contraptions that I share a name with. Go figure.
Bob Bong is editor of The Regional and Reporter newspapers and wonders why people sometimes snicker when he tells them his last name.