AS SEEN ON ERNEST DOBBIN'S BUMPER >>>

"Studly seeks righteous babe 566-4137."

If this personal ad is a little low on details, that's because it's written - in black marker - on the bumper of Ernest Dobbins's old white Thunderbird.

Dobbins, of Olympia, resorted to the bumper method because newspaper personal ads are getting too pricey.

What about Craigslist? "I don't have a computer. I don't know how to run one," he says. "I'm old-fashioned and outdated and I'll die that way."

The woman he's looking for, he says, isn't "some fly-by-night woman."

"I don't mean religious," he says. "I mean righteous. If it's the right thing to do, you do it."

The ad has been on his bumper for a couple of months - rain won't wash it off, he says - and he's gotten a few calls, but no dates.

His hope, though, rolls on: Halfway through the interview, he asks: "So what about you? What's your shape and size?"

Once he understands I'm not looking for a date, Dobbins, 60, invites me to publish his phone number.

Asked what a righteous date might want to know about him, he says: "I don't go out drinking or anything like that. I do go to buffets."