dumb question my boy asked

This thread is taking a turn into stories of being pulled over…and I guess I’ll hop onto the bandwagon a bit here.

When I was a kid my father used to take me out of school for an entire week for the Walleye Fishing Opener (note Capital letters), as fishing is next to religion as far as he is concerned. Anyway, we (our party of fishermen) always went to same lake (which shall remain unnamed), and over the years we got pretty good at knowing where the fish were at any given time of day, water temp, wind conditions (etc.). Now, I don’t recall if there were Limits on walleye back then, but we used to absolutely slay them, and we brought home a LOT of fish back then.

Fast forward to 1982 (-ish), and for some reason or other I had to drive up to the lake separately. My vehicle of choice for this trip was an old, rotted-out 1971 Maverick my aunt had just given me, complete with 200-6 with a missing air cleaner, “ventilated” floor, and flapping front quarter panels.

Fishing was the same as years past, but by this time I knew there were Limits on fish.

But everyone in our party ignored it, as they knew I was leaving early, and could bring home the fish we had just caught in a large cooler in the trunk of my Maverick.

Except I was young, and stupid, and curious as to just how fast that old clapped-out POS could go, so….

During my drive home, on a long, straight, downhill stretch, I put the gas to the floor and watched the speedo rise, albeit slowly….

But there was a small rise at the end of a dip in the road, and cresting over the hill I spotted the Highway Patrol car….with the radar gun hanging out the window…

So I did what any normal teenager would do: I hit the brakes as hard as I could and locked-up all 4 tires!

When I finally got it stopped and pulled-over, the Patrolman had pulled up behind me, and while he was walking up to my car I was thinking, “You’re dead! You’re going to jail forever!”, due to all of the fish I had in the cooler in the trunk.

The Patrolman’s first question to me was, “Just how fast were you going?”

Now, I wasn’t about to answer that question and admit anything, so I just said, “To be honest, sir, I really don’t know. I was just curious to see what it felt like.”

Well, he didn’t buy that, so he said, “I got you on my radar going over 80 MPH with all 4 tires screeching, but if you tell me how fast you were really going I’ll knock it down to 75, which will reduce the ticket fee”.

I thought about this for a second, and said, “106, sir”.

His response was, “Jesus Christ! In this?” I think he wanted to start laughing, based on the amused look on his face, but he was too professional for that.

Anyway, he never inspected the car, and he did write-up the ticket for 75 MPH, which was a LOT for me to pay back then (probably more than the car was worth).

Needless to say I drove the rest of the way home at or below the posted speed limits.

I’ve never told this whole story before (with the fish cooler in the trunk, that is), and God help me if there’s no Statute of Limitations on this!