I'm not averse to change -- no matter if it's changing a baby's diaper, the volume on a restaurant sound system spouting noise posing as "music" at unbearable decibels or even traipsing along the multilane highway of cyberspace. But Raleigh will rue the day it plows up the Fayetteville Street Mall.

This oasis of beauty in all seasons but winter is the only bright spot in the otherwise dreary landscape that is downtown Raleigh.

School kids from across the state making the trek to their state capital every spring use the flower bedecked mall with its whispering water fountain and general ambience as their point of rendezvous.

Office workers spread their lunch on the tables and soak up the spring sun. Hot dog vendors send up tantalizing aromas as nearby itinerant preachers peddle their offers of salvation to receptive or merely amused listeners.

Old-timers, their laughter attracting the notice of passersby, sit on the mall's benches, swapping tall tales or caustic comments on the passing scene. A sometime saxophonist, his half-filled cap of coins of appreciation by his side, fills the air with the sweet, soaring notes of "Amazing Grace" or "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Jealous of the competition, a pair of mockingbirds, like Metropolitan divas, swell their breasts with duplicitous arias from their perches in the nearby trees. Even some of the hapless unfortunates, caught up in the confusing and fearful web of courtroom jurisprudence high above the mall, occasionally stumble onto the mall for a breath of head-clearing fresh air.

And yet, Mayor Charles Meeker and his City Council compatriots persist in picking taxpayers' pockets for $9 million to plow up all this.

And for what? A mess of pottage including a few parallel parking spaces in a city where near about half the citizenry never learned or have forgotten how to parallel park? To provide an outlet for motorists obsessed with "dragging Main" as if Raleigh were challenging Benson for its Mule Day celebration? So that folks who've never been downtown can, out of idle curiosity, drive through at least once, waving at the empty bank buildings, faceless storefronts and the cold, gaunt towers of commerce.

Nevertheless, it will be done, in the interest of the business community's bottom line and in the false hope that this one thing will make downtown Raleigh the Cinderella of progress in North Carolina. In this case, the glass slipper doesn't fit.

The sign on the back of the taxi ahead of me in traffic read, "In God we trust."

I silently wondered if the public declaration of faith was, in part, a ploy to attract passengers who preferred to ride with God as the co-pilot rather than take their chances with some "unsaved" mortal.

Bumper stickers make good reading while you're sitting at stoplights, especially if they're cleverly conceived. As for me and my house, we've been rather reluctant to slap sticker statements on the back of our Buicks.

My wife's car once wore one reading "Celebrate the 1st 200 Years of Free Speech," which was appropriate enough for a newsman's family car. The last sticker we displayed was "Frank Freeman for Supreme Court."

Not only is Frank a scholar and a gentlemen. He also hails from Surry County, which alone says something positive about the man. Sorry to say, but Frank lost, which says something less positive about the electorate.

Not long ago, one of my Cape Carteret readers sent along a relevant bumper sticker story about an impatient driver who went almost berserk when the guy in front of her didn't move fast enough to suit her as the light changed.

She honked her horn insistently, pounded on the steering wheel in exasperation, rolled the window down and yelled obscenities at the poor guy who, flustered by all the uproar behind him, flooded the car's motor and had to endure even more verbal abuse.

Finally, the woman became so ballistic that a cop a few cars behind her, got out, walked over and arrested her on a charge of not only disorderly conduct but also of driving a stolen car, and hauled her off to jail.

Some hours later, when the woman's husband came and confirmed her ownership of the car, the arresting officer was profuse in his apologies.

"You see, ma'am," he explained, "I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do?' bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker, and the chrome plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. I naturally assumed you stole the car."

There is a lesson here for all of us. It's not always easy to live up to our bumper stickers. So choose them carefully.

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