Our paths may cross again, but in which lane?

Some friends you just can’t shake … like Harrigan.

Harrigan has been in and out of my life for 35 years, more or less. He was the waterfront reporter for the Gloucester Times, when I was hired as the Rockport, Mass., reporter for a magnificent $90 a week. He claims today that he made $100 a week, a titanic salary at the time. I don’t believe him.

Harrigan lies.

Eventually he left that job for a one-year, round-the-world trip in a new, red Volkswagen bus. Cool.

But before he did that, he carried me across a snowy lawn to an ambulance one Christmas Eve when I was hemorrhaging blood like a gunshot victim. It was a surprise ulcer. Harrigan has a leg withered by a childhood bout with polio, and it took all he had to get me to the ambulance.

You just don’t forget things like that.

Harrigan thought he was the craziest guy at the Times. We shook that right out of him.

Once while driving toward Rockport, I noticed Harrigan (in his sports car, of course), headed toward me. At about 45 miles an hour, he slipped into my lane in an impromptu game of chicken.

I pulled into his lane and in a flash, we passed each other, each on the wrong side of the road. There was a highway crew that watched the maneuver. I wonder if they are talking about it today. I wonder what would have happened if either of us changed our mind at the last second.

It became a battle of looniness. Harrigan eventually ended up in Rhode Island of all places. We were going to his house one night, and he was stopped at a red light in front of my car. I tapped his bumper and then pretended to push him through the intersection. Scared the hell out of him.

Later that same night, we were driving in his car and came to another light in downtown Providence. Paul liked my maneuver so much that he tapped a stranger’s car and started to push him through the intersection. I will never forget the look on the driver’s face.

Since Providence is known for its heavily armed inhabitants, I advised Harrigan to avoid the new practice in the future. He just laughed.

His heavily educated (PhD.) wife had the good and great sense to jettison Harrigan along the way, so Harrigan showed up in Maine with various women. When he was alone, he adopted the stage name of “Sandy” as he tried to pick up other men’s wives. If I remember correctly, he wasn’t very successful.

We always manage to run into each other every few years to share new stories and laugh like hell at the old ones. The polio came back in his 60s and Harrigan is almost totally confined to a wheelchair. But he manages to get around in a specially equipped van, tearing up Florida roads.

We managed to connect last week in Homosassa. Over a few (damn few) vodka and tonics, we agreed that we were getting much too old for highway games of chicken and spent more time talking about grandchildren than barroom babes.

But when we left the Margarita Grille in separate cars, I was watching that handicapped van just in case. I figured he was ready to push me off the road just for laughs.

With “Sandy,” you never know.

I don’t know when we will ever see each other again. But Harrigan will always be my friend. He can do no wrong after he carried my stretcher across the snow to the ambulance on Christmas Eve.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.