Garlic and gasoline

It must be summer, because I see the gas prices are surging again. I spend a lot of time behind the wheel and so I wonder just how the cost of fuel will affect my business.

I remember pondering this same question many years back when I was a teen growing up in New Jersey. My life was spent driving back and forth to college during the day and to Roy Rodgers restaurant, where I worked, at night.

There were two loves of my life in those days. The first was my boyfriend Eddie and the second was my ‘65 Chevy. The boy was great but that car was more than a car; it was teenage freedom. My grandfather had given it to me as a birthday present. It was freshly painted with a coat of fire-engine-red high-gloss paint. Inside he had the seats re-covered with red plaid seat covers.

Of course, in every Greek family, things are passed down. My car was supposed to be owned by some little old Greek woman whom I never knew. Supposedly, she was an old matronly aunt type who only used it to go to the farmers’ market in Paterson and to the Greek Orthodox Church on the hill.

Few things in life are better than being 17 and having your own car, even if it has a few strings attached. My dad had made it very clear to me that I was not allowed to drive that car until I passed his test.

“No girl should ride a car without some basic understanding of how it works.”

Oops, that wasn’t on the state-issued test. I knew basically nothing except how to put the key in the ignition, put my foot on the pedal and make my shiny red car go.

I thought I had all of the emergency equipment I needed. I had a set of matching mud flaps that, of course, coordinated with the floor mats and steering wheel cover. My CB radio was tuned and hung properly from the bottom of the dash, I had a creative handle (Fire Fly) that matched my car’s hot exterior, and—the final touch—my graduation tassel hanging from my front mirror.

Flares? Emergency can of fix-a-flat? Tire jack? Isn’t that what boyfriends are for?

Apparently not, so we spent a whole weekend removing tires and checking fluids and going over emergency phone numbers.

Gas was in short supply then, too. I remember going to my grandfather’s gas station really early, before it opened. Lines were halfway around the block and motorists could only go on odd or even days depending on their license plate. It was crazy, but I kept to my promise: $5 a week and always just up to that half-tank mark on the gadget on the dashboard.

One weekend, I decided that I was ready to drive up to New York to our cabin. My father agreed. However, as always, there was a catch: I had to bring my grandmother with me. So the plan was made, and I picked up my grandmother at her house. For the long trip I decided to spend $10 and fill the tank.

My grandmother packed a bag of fruit for our midnight trip and we were off. The roads were dark and the streets were quiet; not a lot of traffic at that hour of the night. Grandma was sleeping in the back seat and Bruce Springstein was playing on my eight-track tape player. All was good until about halfway to the cabin. Someplace on Route 23 near Sussex, I heard a loud crash.

I remembered Dad’s words: don’t panic and pull to the shoulder. My little red Chevy came to a screeching halt.

I found myself suddenly pelted with cloves of garlic. Nobody told me that the Greek woman who owned the Chevy before me had hidden garlic cloves everywhere to ward off evil spirits. Grandma had awakened with a scream. She saw the garlic. I can still hear her crying and muttering something in Greek. To this day I think that it was something like a counter-curse to ward off the evil car wrecking spirits. I was so shaken that I just sat there for a few minutes.

I stepped out of the car. There in the middle of the road was my gas tank. Guess it was rusty and the weight of the full tank made it fall. I managed to drag it to the side of the road. I was so going to save that darn gas. Grandma was now hiding on the floor of the back seat, because there are tons of murderers in Sussex at 1:00 a.m. Those emergency phone numbers that I was forced to memorize... gone the instant the garlic hit the floor. Nothing to do but wait until someone noticed I was missing. Two and a half hours later, my dad and two brothers showed up looking like the cavalry. Dad just shook his head in disbelief. They collected grandma, me and the gas tank and brought us back to the cabin. The next morning, dad had someone tow the car in for repairs.

To this day, no matter what the price of gas is or will be, I will never fill that tank up all of the way.