Some friends and I from school went down to Atlanta to go to Six Flags Over Georgia. We had a great time. Riding the rides. Eating the food. Just enjoying life. There were six of us having a respite from all that studying (I didn't do much of that) and taking tests. Just to say here that I didn't study but just a handful of times. Usually, I would familiarize myself for a test, but I just didn't study. Maybe because I had a genius IQ, or maybe because I was lazy, or maybe because I liked fun more than school. Whatever the reason, I didn't study. And when I did, I always had music or the TV on. Distractions were important to me in school.
Anyway, we were going back to school that night after a long day at Six Flags. I have to be clear here that I wasn't driving. The guy that was had his mother's station wagon. I was asleep in the back seat, when I woke up to a lot of cussing and scared guys. There was a police car behind us with its lights and siren on. We were on I-85 in Georgia. Our driver pulled over to the side of the highway. The officer walked up to our car. His belly was hanging over his belt. He said, "You boys been to Six Flags?". We said yes. He then said, "Well, this ain't no roller coaster on this road!". Then, he asked our driver did he know how fast he was going? Before he could answer, the officer said "113".
First of all, it didn't seem like we were going 113. In his mother's station wagon? Secondly, if he was, the car felt like it was going very smoothly, like we were floating down the road. We thought for sure that he was just going to give our guy a ticket, but no. He told us that he was going to take us to jail. Okay, we were being arrested for speeding down I-85, even though one guy was driving. We were all going to be arrested. He told us to follow him into town to go to jail.
Those of us not driving asked for leniency. How were we going to explain being arrested to our parents? We would probably be kicked out of school. We would have an arrest on our record. This would kill any hope of getting a good job upon graduation or furthering our education. The deputy then asked us how much money we had? We pooled what we had, which came to about $130. He took our money and told us to slow down. So, we weren't arrested after all, but we did learn the concept of "highway robbery". There was no way, though, that we were going to protest to him about taking all of our money. We would have been in a heap of trouble. Sometimes, silence is the best thing to do in a situation like that. I hope he enjoyed taking his wife out to a nice restaurant or buying that new fishing lure.
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