What's in a name

What's in a name? I have a name, a sur name, everyone I know has a name for the obvious reasons.

What's in a name of a car? How many cars get the wrong name? I know of several, some I've named myself before truly knowing the personality I'm dealing with. But how do we come to choose these names for an inatimate object. 

We choose the names of our children based off of family heritage, names from television shows, cool names we've looked up in a book in a panic as the due dates inch closer. We name the dog Indiana, cause it's just cool.

But what about the car? The steel and plastic,  rubber money sink that sits in the garage or next to the house. How do you come up with the names of Gunther and the Turky, Nadine?

I know the Black Pearl is fitting of the sixty year old car that  sits in my garage. And the why it's fitting, it's not just the color.

I have this strange belief, maybe more of attitude towards the world around me. I fly the skull and cross bones on my car. It's not that I think I'm above the law or that the rules don't apply to me. To the contrary.

I consider myself a pirate of the open roads so to speak. Mine is not to brake laws and pillage villages, but to embrace the freedom of living by a code of the concrete and steel network that criss-crosses this great land.

I feel that the curves and crests where set forth for our enjoyment. The straight two lane black top that stretches farther then the eye can see through the high desert of northern Nevada. The short river roads of central Washington's backroads that twist back and forth until you have to pull over and catch your breath.

And that sign on the right that states the recommended operating speed, is not for me. It's not for the others like me.

The bears have there stickers so they know not to pull each other over. I have that black flag and the ominous image it conveys, so I call my vessel after the feared pirate ship.

Watch your mirrors, cause through the fog comes the Black Pearl.