26 SEP 05: WHO'S GONNA GIVE FIRST?

The car started well. It went up the hill fine. But at the corner of Shepard Drive and Murray Street Sunday, my humble Honda decided it had enough. It suddenly stopped running, as if I'd insulted it by calling its mother a Yugo.

The battery wasn't the problem. It whirred and whirred when I cranked the ignition. For some reason, no fuel was going through. Did those low-priced Summit stations buy gas from somebody on a street corner, wearing a trenchcoat?

Since I was at the top of a hill, I was able to coast down Murray Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard. A Chevron station is on that corner - but it's a convenience store with no repair area. In fact, there aren't many working gas pumps -- so the lines there later this week will be extra-long.

My Honda rolled to a stop at one of the entryways on M.L.K. -- and I kept trying to start the car, but to no avail. It seemed the fuel pump was dead. But my owner's manual says it might simply be the fuse for that pump. When it comes to car repair, it's not just fuses for me -- it's CON-fuses.

"Do you gentlemen know anything about cars?" I asked two men walking by. They did a little, they said. Borrowing a wrench from my trunk, one man proceeded to whack my battery poles at least a dozen times. Thankfully, the battery kept cranking after that - even if nothing else happened.

"How's it going?" asked another passerby walking toward Chevron.

That answer was easy: "It's not going."

As I waited for help, I went inside Chevron and bought a soda. The attendant on duty offered me a dollar in change, so I could use the pay phone to call for help.

"Does the pay phone have a phone book?" I asked.

"No." Nor did the attendant inside. Why don't they hand out those "mini-books" in all corners of town?

Realizing Chevron couldn't fix my car, I came up with a plan. A former roommate of mine had me push his ailing car with MY car at times, to get to repair shops. Perhaps it was his Nigerian upbringing -- where people with tow ropes might be considered suspects for insurrection.

(Come to think of it, haven't you wondered how "bumper cars" at amusement parks were invented? The first one probably had broken-down Model T's.)

All I had to do was find another driver to push my car to a Firestone shop a couple of miles away. But that would NOT prove to be easy -- in part because M.L.K. isn't that busy a road on Sunday, and in part because many in that neighborhood
are more likely to know the inside of a METRA bus.

I asked several drivers who stopped at Chevron if they could give me a bumper-car push to the Firestone shop downtown. The responses were wide-ranging, but mostly negative:

+ "H**l no!" one woman said loudly -- only seconds after one of her passengers gave me a hopeful thumbs-up. Perhaps they didn't know each other....

+ A few were afraid the pushing might damage their bumpers. These drivers must have seen how weak SUV's fare in crash tests.

+ One woman suggested I call Firestone and ask for a push. "It's a free call at pay phones," she declared. That was news to me - and so was the news I gave back to her: the pay phone voice asked me to deposit a dollar.

At one point two guys walked to my car, and I explained my situation. A man wearing a Piccadilly Cafeteria name badge then said: "How much are you payin'? Fifteen?? Twenty???" It's that sort of giving spirit which is attracting hurricane evacuees to Columbus.

(I didn't have 15 or 20 dollars on me, so he was out of my price range. If I asked him if he took credit cards, I suspected he might take it -- but simply not give it back.)

A couple of people DID seem interested in helping me. A man driving a Chevy Tracker at first said no, apparently on the advice of his mother riding with him -- then said he could come back and help after they went for something to eat. Do THAT many Columbus restaurants close at 2:00 p.m. on Sundays?

Then there was the man parked at an apartment building across the street. When I asked if he could help, he said: "Give me a minute." He finally came out an hour later. That's "Sunday in the South" timing, you know - a whole lot slower.

He carefully backed up his car with a Russell County tag, leaving me to wonder if he'd turn around and leave. But then the man came up behind me, and the "bumper cars" game began. I never once thought of telling him to "take my car and shove it."

The roads from Martin Luther King Boulevard to Firestone downtown are relatively flat, which made the pushing easy. The only close call came at Tenth Street and Sixth Avenue, when a driver decided to turn left in front of us without signaling. At least he was close to police headquarters, in case we collided....

The streets around downtown thankfully aren't too busy on Sunday, and we pushed our way into the Firestone parking lot without really slowing down anyone. We both exited their cars, and I gave the Russell Countian six of the nine dollars in my wallet to thank him. And here's the strange thing - he never asked for a dime.

The other man checked his front bumper, and thought there might be a scratch mark on it from the pushing. "Look on it as a sign of a good deed," I suggested to him. It's like that old car commercial, you know - scratch marks give it character. In this case, GOOD character....

As I write this, I'm still not sure what the exact problem is with my car. Firestone was doing diagnostic work late Sunday, so any repairs will wait for sometime today. In the meantime, I've learned several lessons from Sunday:

+ Carry some sort of phone book in your car - even if you don't have a cell phone, as I don't. At least it will provide extra weight in the trunk, for icy winter days.

+ That old phrase, "give and it shall be given to you" - it's true, but you have to sort through the people on the take first.

+ Sometimes, a pushy driver can be a wonderful blessing.

+ Instant Message to Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue: There, you see? I did my part for fuel savings.

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