Holiday Cheer

My favorite time on the New Jersey Turnpike — and God knows there have been many — was one Sunday evening a few miles from the foot of the turnpike, when I was returning to Maryland after spending Thanksgiving with my parents. (Who have since, thankfully, moved from New Jersey to Northern Virginia.)

As is customary on holiday weekends — or almost any other day — there was a five mile back-up at the toll booths. One mile into that back-up my car died.

Completely.

I got out and began trying to push it across five lanes of traffic to the shoulder. Of course, since I was surrounded by drivers who were stuck in traffic and going nowhere, several of them were happy to leap out of their cars and help me.

Yeah, right.

Not only did every driver between the shoulder and me move up and block my way as soon as the car in front of them pulled up and gave me enough of an opening to push my car another few feet, but they honked, yelled and gave me the finger if I dared to try to push my car in front of theirs.

As if they weren't at a standstill and staring at a five-mile parking lot. I mean, how was I slowing their journey in any way, shape or form? I didn't expect sympathy, but I certainly didn't deserve hostility. (On the other hand, we ARE talking about New Jersey.)

The karma scales were way out of balance that day ... well, unless I'd done something really bad in a previous life.

I eventually got to the shoulder, no thanks to my fellow drivers, and hiked to the nearest exit (luckily not far) and called my stepbrother, an ace auto mechanic, who was living with my folks (now about 100 miles away) at the time. (This was well before cellphones.)

I hung out at a Howard Johnsons for a couple of hours until my stepbrother, Bobby, arrived. He popped the hood and found the problem in five minutes: the points (this story also predates electronic ignition) had broken into pieces inside my distributor.

Now where on a Sunday night on Thanksgiving weekend are you going to find a set of points for a 1979 Volkswagen Rabbit in a small town in southern New Jersey?

Here's where the karma scales righted themselves. For some unknown reason, I'd done a tune-up and changed the points and plugs a week before Thanksgiving, and thrown the old plugs and points in the trunk. When Bobby held up the pieces of points and wondered out loud where we'd get a replacement, I remembered I had the old, worn, but still working set in the trunk and pulled them out.

Bobby was floored, as was I. I was also embarrassed, because if I'd popped the distributor cap I would have spotted the shattered points instantly, and replaced them and been on my way hours sooner.

Still, Bobby popped in the old points and I was on my way.

And for the rest of the trip I never honked, cursed, or gave another driver the finger. Just to prove that it could be done.