What makes this hysterical is the book is an autobiography. The title came from O'Reilly's childhood teacher.
In 1957, in the heart of the Eisenhower years, in the third grade classroom of Sister Mary Lurana in Saint Brigid's parochial school in Westbury, Long Island, was a mouthy, obstreperous kid by the name of William O'Reilly. Quite a handful he was, and so one day Sister Mary bent over him in exasperation in response to some piece of mischief and told him to his face, "William, you are a bold fresh piece of humanity."
No, he isn't.
In the old days, "fresh" meant rude and disrespectful. If I said something to my mom that I shouldn't have, the response might have been "Don't get fresh with me!"
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