[brucepick]

I'm an old NYC boy. Yeah, it's a tough place. To borrow a phrase from an old friend of mine now departed, there's "no forgiveness".

I drove a taxi there in '79-80 and piled up a bunch of tickets. I didn't pay them, but eventually I had to cough it up. Ya can't keep a taxi license if you have unpaid violations on your driver's license!

Then there's the story of my then gf and her ex - they still owned a car together becaue the divorce wasn't final yet. The ex had the use of the car but left it parked on the street in NYC. NYC has "alternate side of street parking" which means M-W-F you can park on one side of the street and Tu-Th-Sat you can park on the other side. So they can sweep the street, otherwise it looks like a trash barrel after a few days. Well, he didn't move the car so it got towed to Pier 76. Tow plus fine plus weeks and weeks on the pier totaled about $400. We paid it, and got the use of the car for maybe a year. Not a bad deal, even back then.

Oh, btw, the gf and I got married 25 years ago. Still married. Car is long gone. Early '70's Nova with straight six and three-on-the tree. That's a 3-spd manual with shifter on the column. PITA. The clutch had a bracket or lever called a Z-bar that kept breaking. Was still a good deal though, at $400.

The gf was a much better deal. I kept her.