true story

 Once again I have written a memoir for my class tomorrow, and am lazily sharing it for this evening's blog.  Enjoy.

SOMEWHERE IN ILLINOIS

It was my turn to drive.  I was cruising along on the interstate, driving my friend’s bright red mustang, keeping up with the traffic flow, when she said to me “I hope you’re not speeding.  We just passed a police car at the side of the road, and I think it might be a speed trap.” She was right. As we came over the crest of the only hill for miles around in flat Illinois, we spied another police car at the side of the road and two energetic officers waving every car that came over that crest off the road.  Since we were from out of state, we, and many other drivers, were led in a procession to the nearest courthouse where we were processed through the system.  Eventually it was my turn before the judge.  I admitted my guilt (they had evidently clocked me at 80 miles a hour) and received a fine of $84.  In 1966, when my annual salary was $5,200, that was a lot of money.  We scraped together all the cash we had and had just enough to pay the fine and buy gas for the rest of the trip home.  My girlfriend/house mate and I had just finished our first year of teaching and celebrated with a driving vacation out west in her new car.  When I was stopped for speeding, we were close to the Indiana border on our way home from what had been a truly wonderful adventure, including a week at a dude ranch.  This wasn’t the joyous finale to our trip that we had anticipated but there was one humorous note. As I stood in line, waiting for my turn before the judge, I heard the man in front of me trying to convince the judge that he had not been speeding at all.  If anything, he had simply picked up speed on the down hill slope.  The judge wasn’t buying it, since our speeds were clocked at the bottom of the other side before we started up the hill.  I was laughing to myself because I recognized him as a driver who had zipped past me as we drove up that hill.  Eventually he gave up and paid his fine.

I wish I could say I learned my lesson and never received another speeding ticket but that’s another red car story for another time.