It wasn’t long, possibly two blocks down the road when I noticed the closest part of the cloud to me was pulsating red. About half-a-mile down the road the cloud dissipated and from out of the smoke came a police car.
I pulled over and turned the ignition off; he pulled in behind me and got out of his squad car. As he walked toward me I could see that his silver sunglasses were covered with an iridescent film of oil. The officer approached my car taking a hankie from his pocket, then began to wipe the film from his glasses. The look on his face was a combination of disgust, disbelief and anger. He stood there a minute trying to collect his thoughts, all the time rubbing his glasses. Finally he said, “I hope you learned your lesson. If you wouldn’t have left the light in such a hurry, you wouldn’t have blown your engine.” I slowly reached over to the lever on the dash and diverted the exhaust back through my mufflers.
All total that year I got 13 traffic tickets with that ’59 Chevy. Some I deserved, some I didn’t. I think there may have been a picture of that car posted on the wall at the police station. That ticket cost me $450 and back then the police would remove a corner of your license and when all corners were gone your license was confiscated. By now my license was looking more like a hexagon than a rectangle.