... oh, is THAT where that's from?

I was seeing references to that line (usually pronounced in some kind of vaguely southern-fried "Here come da judge!" way) all the way into the mid-to-late 1990s. Simpsons did one. Hell, ReBoot, a show for what would now be called the YA demo about the people who live inside your computer, did one. More sitcoms than I could name. I never had any idea where they came from, in the same way that I never really knew where "De plane, boss! De plane!" came from until many years later.

I mean. I suppose that this shouldn't surprise me; I have to imagine that early-season Simpsons references ("Dental plan!" "Monorail!") are just as vaguely inscrutable to kids born in 2004 today. But man, I never had any idea where "Here come the Judge!" came from, and this is an odd venue to find that out in.

> which would be ruined by the lead (this was the real reason it was phased out, > not because it's toxic),

This is depressing to me, because significant evidence has emerged that just about the entirety of the famous mid-century crime wave (the sudden spike, sustainment for three or so decades, and equally sudden reversion from the 1960s to the 1990s that inspired films like Dirty Harry) can be explained by a generation and a half or so's worth of people having their brains fried by lead fumes from cars as children. If lead was phased out on a technological efficiency fluke instead, well. Damn.

> Not only did he actually go to a judge (in Bangor, I assume, since there was
> only one in Millinocket one day a month in those days) and get a warrant, he
> then chose to serve it right in the middle of class, and he evidently thinks
> I'm so stupid that I would burglarize a house, get caught, have an argument
> with the cops about their right to search my vehicle, and then leave the loot > in the car.

I would submit, my fine friend, that this warrant was not being served because the pig thought you were guilty of burglary and had been dumb enough to leave the goods in your car after nearly being pinched. (Although plenty of crooks have done plenty of far dumber things.)

It was being served because he knew you were guilty of Contempt of Cop. Almost certainly a far more serious crime in his eyes.

Calling your parents is the real cherry on top of that dick sundae. That happened to me once; they literally rang up my mom at two in the bloody morning to tell her that I was out on the streets, something perfectly legal for someone who is eighteen, i.e old enough to be drafted, to do.

I don't have any direct experience with rural small-town cops, but I grew up in a suburban small town that's a bedroom community for the nearby city (and which is gentrifying at a TERRIFYING rate; when I was a kid the olds were lamenting the blight caused by the shuttering of the DeLand Chemical Company plants down by the canal; today, those plants are filling up with artisanal whiskey makers, cupcakeries, and a small restaurant run by a guy from Dublin and his Mexican husband that only serves boxty, burritos, and beer) and the six or seven cops on the payroll there at the time were long on "order" and very, very short on "law."

-Merc
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