Speeding with a Septagenarian

After my mother's death my father and I used to take road trips.

Utah, Wyoming-Montana, France, Ireland, Quebec.

As an outlaw I believed in obeying the speed limit. The only break one law at a time theory. My father was a good citizen and felt free to boil over the permitted pace for the road. Not by the customary 10mph. He was lead-footed at best. I'd warn him about his incursion into hyperspace and he'd grumble, "Cops don't give old men speeding tickets."

His luck held out until we were driving along the southern bank of the St. Lawrence river. A seaway with whales frolicking off the rocky shoreline. My father was in a hurry. No stops.

"You can see the whales just as good from the car."

I didn't want to argue with a 79 yo who thought he was right, mostly because he had been right most of his life, so I picked up my binoculars to study the two-lane road for police. The provincial flics were reputed to be tough of speeders. I spotted one cruising our way and warned my father.

"I'm not speeding." He was driving 100mph.

"You're 30 over the limit."

"and?"

"And you should slow down."

"Don't tell me how to drive."

"Okay."

My father roared past the cruiser. It alertly 180ed in our direction. Sirens and lights a-flashing. My father pulled over to the shoulder.

"Don't worry. Nothing will happen." He rolled down the window and the officer asked, "Do you speak French?"

"My son does." I had spent 6 years in Paris.

"Your father was 30 miles per hour over the limit." The officer spoke through the window. A pen was in his right hand. The ticket book was in his left. "That is an arrestable charge."

"Really?" The officer's patois dated back to the 16th Century. The time of the first French in America. My family came over in the Mayflower. At least on my father's side. "You have to arrest him and what does that entail?"

"We take him to the local jail and process him. Normally takes 3-4 hours."

"And this jail? It's in the same direction as I'm going?"

"Yes, why?" The officer was puzzled by my lack of resistance.

"Because I've been telling my father that he has been speeding this entire trip. he needs to learn a lesson and I think a few hours in jail would do the trick." The local jail could be as bad as those in the USA. This was Quebec. My father was almost 80. The police would treat him right, while I took my time seeing the whales.

"You want me to arrest your father?"

"Yes." I smiled at my father. He had taken french at Bowdoin College a half-century ago. He smiled back in incomprehension. "It would give me a break. I've been in this car with him for over a week. You understand?"

"Understand? This is your father. We are not a babysitting operation. It is up to you to take care of your father." The officer put away his pen.

"But."

Pas des 'buts'. Allez." The officer walked back to the cruiser and drove off in the opposite direction.

"See, I told you everything would be all right." My father started the car and we drove off to Gaspe at a few miles over the speed limit. He had learned his lesson. Tomorrow we would be crossing the pine expanse of New Brunswick. 100 mph was too slow there. His lesson would only last a day which wasn't bad for a man of 79, as long as he drove his age and not that of Methuselah.

900 miles per hour with the radio on.