42! This one's for you, Jeremy.

42 more days of school ! Then blissful summer vacation!

Now, I wouldn't ordinarily announce the number of days left unless there was some kind of significance to it. 42 is one of those significant numbers - readers of Douglas Adams will undoubtedly concur. My association with the Hitchhiker's Guide is peripheral: I tried to read it, and could not get into it. My friend Jeremy, however, was a Hitchhiker's maniac 42 times over.

It was back in the misty spring of 1988, our senior year of high school, when Jeremy did his legendary "42" collection. It was a day I will never forget.

You see, by our senior year, Jeremy already had a reputation as one of the most, uh, entertaining members of our class. For his birthday, in November, our friend Stephanie bought him a sign. It was a 9-inch square of white plastic emblazoned with a large 42 in black. You could see it hanging around his neck for many days thereafter. That was also the year that Jeremy sold his shoes.

Nothing unusual in that, you say? Well, it wasn't the fact that he sold them, it was the manner in which he sold them: like plots of land. Jeremy sectioned his white sneakers into plots and sold them to various classmates for about a dime a plot, according to size. I purchased a few pieces, and since they were mine, I painted them in bright acrylic paints. Jeremy was none loathe to allow it. Indeed, he enjoyed it. Other people did different things with their pieces. At the end of the year, Jeremy cut his shoes up according to the plots and gave them to their rightful owners. I still have my pieces in a ziploc sandwich bag in a box of memorabilia from high school. You'd also have to understand the significance of the Goofy Hat.

Unlike my parents, Jeremy's folks believed in taking their kids to Disney World. In our junior year, Jeremy got a hat that looked like Goofy's head, complete with ears flapping at each side and buck teeth hanging from the brim. He wore it every day. I swear. I asked him to the prom that year, being quite forward, and he said yes, as long as he could wear his Goofy Hat. Never one to shy from the unusual, I agreed enthusiastically. Our picture was put in the yearbook.

Anyhoo, I could tell Jeremy stories all morning, but I'm digressing. This is not an Ode to Jeremy, but an explanation of the 42.

You see, at the inordinately preppy and uptight private school that we both attended, we didn't have anything as plebian as homeroom every day. We had three days of homeroom, punctuated by two days of "collection," where we all "collected" in the auditorium for announcements and a short program. I was, in my senior year, co-chair of the collection committee. If there was a day without a program, I pitched in and played the piano for the 10 minutes that was blank. One day, Jeremy came to us with an idea for a collection in April. Here's how the program went:

The morning announcements were read, and the program turned over to me. I went to the piano, began playing, then stopped, tossed my music over my head and said "Wait a minute, it's not my collection it's _________'s" passing it to another person in on the program. After doing a few seconds of his specialty, he passed to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on, and so on... until it was passed to Jeremy. Jeremy stalked up to the front of the auditorium, climbed up the risers, strode to the center of the stage, and lifted his 42 sign high above his head.

It doesn't sound like much to you, but the audience roared with laughter. Jeremy had just that effect on people. I can only imagine what kind of litigator he is today, if he has the same effect on his jurors. So, my friend, 42. The answer to all questions in the universe.