Depending on what happens next Dec. 19, 2023


 

Got up early to drive the car to the repair shop two miles south of where we live.

With the engine light flashing and the car stalling, I figured the earlier I got the car on the road the less traffic I would encounter, so if I stalled and couldn’t start the car again, I wasn’t going to be bumper to bumper and getting a lot of people peeved.

This worked. But I got to the shop an hour before it opened. I sat writing today’s poetry journal about my car, and then waited for the man to show up, greeted by the garage cats that rubbed against my legs – no doubt looking for food.

Then, I walked down to Central Avenue looking for coffee on my way to the light rail station at 9th Street. None of the bodegas were open. I stopped in at a Spanish place on North and Central, where two ladies who couldn’t speak English giggled, both wearing Santa hats, and red shirts with reindeer. They were in a very festive mood, as was the Sheriff’s Department cop who ordered coffee after I did.

The coffee kept me warm for the walk down Central to Congress, and then down Congress to Plank Road and the elevator down to the Light Rail below the cliffs.

I needed the extra warmth because when I got down to the station, the trains were screwed up, four trains going the wrong way on tracks that were designed to take train traffic north. I had time so I didn’t mind as much as the other passengers, who waited for trains in the direction of West Side Avenue or Hoboken terminal, only they stood on the other side and each time a train came, they had to rush over to my side of the tracks, many additionally frustrated when the train was going to West Side Avenue rather than to Hoboken. Eventually, the Hoboken train came, the last of five southbound trains before the one I needed to go North, by which time the warmth of coffee had warn off and I was grateful to be seated in a heated train car for the three stops I needed to take to get home.

This dependence on public transportation shows just how vulnerable we are in an age where we are desperate to outlaw cars, or at best, replace gasoline engines with electric motors, a flash back to the days of trolleys and electric boats, most of which were abandoned when fossil fuel cars made it possible for us to choose where we wanted to go and not have to depend on a three or four hour charge when we run out of energy, or on batteries made of unsustainable elements that sometimes had a tendency to catch fire – you’d think with electric replacing gasoline this would be less of a problem.

But then, all this is coming from someone with a 12 year old car that is in the shop for repairs in order that I might be mobile enough to take our Christmas trip back to Asbury Park this weekend.

I dared not try to make the trip to Scranton with the slow leak in my front tire, grateful that I did not make the attempt since the stalling started a short time after I was scheduled to leave. Hopefully, the car will be fully repaired for the trip to Asbury and then later, possibly the day before New Year’s Eve so I can make the trip to see my kid in Scranton – provided it isn’t raining here, which means snow in the mountains on the way.

Anyway, Christmas is coming. And as I said yesterday, maybe I can hitch a ride with Santa.

What do you think?



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