An excerpt from chapter 23:

The tomcat

…The final 10 miles of my morning commute involved a gentle dog leg in the road to accommodate a creek. Though not a Formula One course, the curve always invited a bit of pushing the limit around the bend. Farther down the road was a correction line that added two more gentle curves waiting for attack. Finally, about 3 miles from my destination, the road crested a sharp hill and then dropped quickly into a flat valley where the road stretched out straight for over a mile and then curved twice to avoid a flood dike. If I could see no oncoming traffic or anyone ahead of me, this was an invitation to “drop the hammer.” One time while performing this exercise, I didn’t realize that someone had been following me. As I began teaching my first hour class, one of my students raised his hand to ask a question. “Mr. Janzen, do you know how fast you were going this morning coming to school? I couldn’t even keep up with you.” Okay, though he was driving an old farm pickup, this was still more embarrassing than getting a ticket would have been. I had been caught behaving like a kid. But, as the bumper sticker on my dad’s pickup so eloquently stated, “You’re never too old to enjoy your childhood.” I suppose it could also be said, “some boys just never quite grow up.”