St. Patricks Day Memories

Of all the Drinking Holidays, I think St. Paddy's Day might be the worst. You aren't celebrating anything you really have a cause to celebrate. It's a chance to drink after a long cold winter and things start turning warmer. I don't really partake of the holiday. I'm not in bars much anyway. But March 17th is amateur hour. When all the people who don't drink much go out and get lit. Then they drive.

One St. Paddy's day when I was still living in Scottsdale, I had been at a bar in Tempe called Casey Moore's. It's a college bar/ Irish pub near ASU. I left after midnight and was driving home. While waiting for the light to turn green, the car next to me was rear-ended. It shocked the hell out of me. There was no brakes immediately before the accident. Just a metallic WHAM! Seconds later the light changed and the car that hit the one next to me backed up and sped away down the street the direction I was driving.

I had been rear-ended in a hit and run years before so out of a sense of cosmic justice, I went racing after the guy. I caught up with him a the next light moments before it turned. I got the first 3 numbers of his license plate. The light changed and he accelerated like a guy running away from an accident. I sped after him and caught him at the next light again. I got the last 3 digits of his license plate. I wrote down the number on a slip of paper with the make and model of the car, and noted where he was headed. Into Phoenix.

I got home, looked up the Tempe Police phone number, and called.
"Was there a hit and run reported at Curry and Mill about 20 minutes ago?" I asked.
"let me see," the woman on the phone said. After about a minute or two she came back and said, "yes, there was."
"It was a silver or gold Ford Taurus, license plate number..." I said reading from the paper. "It was headed west into Phoenix on Van Buren. I followed him to get the license. "
She was quiet for a second. "That's car that was reported leaving the hit and run."
"Yes it is. Please go put that fucker in jail." I said. "Have a good night."
"good night."

She didn't ask for my name. The car would be evidence enough, I imagine. I don't know what happened, but I hope they got him. I hope he was thinking he got away and the police came knocking on his door moments after getting home. Hit and run, driving while fucked up and stupid, fleeing the scene of an accident. Go directly to jail.

This memory is one of the reasons I am very wary of the Drinking Holidays.