Post from the Past

[Note: St. Patrick's Day will soon be here, so this week I’m recycling an entry that was originally posted in March 2006.]

Every year around St. Patrick’s Day, I think about a fellow I met when I was a junior in high school. He had an Irish last name, an Elvis haircut, and a whole lot of freckles. We dated for approximately four months when he was on the outs with the girl he had gone steady with since he was about thirteen.

“Jeremy” liked cars. He liked to see how fast they could go. He also liked to see how fast he they could stop. (Hey, former neighbors, now you know how all those skid marks got on the road in front of your houses.)

During one of the several times that he was stopped for speeding, he told the policeman that he was “just burning out the carbon.” That excuse failed to impress the policeman, and Jeremy ended up in court the next day.

The judge he appeared before had a reputation for being unsympathetic to teenage boys with a hot foot on the gas pedal. When Jeremy’s case was called, the judge told him, “Son, there are three rates of speed in this town, slow, medium, and good morning, Judge.”