Drawing attention

In my long-ago high school days, the joint was so packed with us baby boomers that the administration had to stagger dismissal times. One fleet of us left on school buses and then, when another yellow flotilla of wheeled chariots arrived, more kids got to leave.  

But to avoid having everyone and his/her brother mobbing the halls at the time of first dismissal, only students bearing the coveted "first bus" card could leave their 7th period class. All the rest had to sit around in the time-honored desultory fashion of teenagers everywhere, staring at the bulletin boards.

Most of us who rode the early buses pasted the "first bus" card to the front of their notebooks, to be shown on demand to hypervigilant teachers. I had one, although I rarely rode the bus home.

I was in a hurry to get to Smetana's Delly at York Rd & Burke Av so I could have a cold cut sub and chips and spend some time in the company of lazy Towson State students, before moving along to Read's Drugstore for ice cream, before hitchhiking home to dinner. All while weighing 140 lbs.

But our Spanish teacher, the late Jorge Ordóñez, was hypervigilant about being hypervigilant. One day he proudly told us that he had caught some kid who had gotten some paper the same color as the bus passes, and hand-lettered a fakeroo. Remember, this was long before the days of color xerography and technology.

So impressed was Sr. Ordóñez that he said he decided to encourage the young forger's efforts by requiring him to make 25 more of the fakes, which he then tore up.  Lesson learned, 60's style. I have no idea how long it took to make all those bogus bus passes but it was more than a while.

Which brings us to Kentucky 2020, where a hapless motorist found himself short on the price of a license tag for his beater. So he made his own, with Sharpie and a few hours of work!

The unidentified motorist gets extra points from me for making the 290 JCC characters look faded and worn.  But it was something else that drew the attention of eagle-eyed law enforcement down in Old Kaintuck.

He forgot to add a drawn-on registration sticker up in the corner!

All this took place in bucolic Millersburg, about 100 miles east of Lousville. Officers pulled him over for lacking the sticker, and then found out this loser had no insurance and was driving on a suspended license.

Once he's free to cross state lines, he should drive up here and I would take him to Smetana's for a cold cut sub, chips, and a Coke, except they tore Smetana's down to build a damn Starbucks.