The Parking Ticket Story

1955

A True Story

Written 12/2016* 713 Words

#136 By Howard Yasgar

In 1955, I was living in Westville Connecticut.

I was 16 years old and I had just gotten my driver’s license.

It was an exciting time for me as I had also just bought my first car, it was a beautiful green 1940 Ford convertible.

I immediately went to Henry’s Auto Parts, on Whalley Avenue in New Haven and I purchased the noisiest Hollywood muffler he had.

Westville had been a quiet town, that was until I started driving around with that Hollywood muffler on my car.

Now, Henry’s Auto Parts store is located on the corner of Whalley venue and Orchard Street in New Haven. The store had become kind of a hangout for New Havens’ young wannabe hot-rodder’s.

The owner, Henry, was a nice enough guy, but I don’t think he knew a damn thing about cars or car parts.

Henry just carried all kinds of cheap junk that only kids like me would buy.

He sold junky things like suicide knobs for steering wheels, and fake pin striping decals.

Whenever I had an extra dollar, I would drive down to Henry’s Auto Parts and I would walk up and down the aisles, trying to find some additional item that I could put on my car.

Whalley Avenue was a main street in New Haven, so I always parked around the corner on the less traveled Orchard Street. I would always try to park as close to Henry’s store as possible.

One day, to my surprise, the city had installed parking meters right where I always parked on Orchard Street.

The installation of parking meters was quite a shock to me. I still parked where I usually parked, but now I had to put 5 cents into the meter for 1 hour parking.

The problem was that an hour went by quickly, because while inside Henry’s store, I met with other kids like me who came there to hang out and talk about their cars.

On the first day that the meters were installed, I put my 5 cents in for one hour parking.

After a while I remembered that my hour might be up, so I ran out of Henry’s store just in time to see the parking meter click and a red colored flag appeared in the meters window.

I had my 5 cents in my hand, ready to put in the meter for an additional hour, but I was too late, because standing there with his foot on my car’s bumper, was a big fat Irish New Haven cop with a bright red nose.

He was writing me a parking ticket.

I was speechless, I couldn’t believe it was happening, that cop must have just been waiting there for my meter’s time to expire, just so he could write me a $5.00 parking ticket.

As he put the ticket under my windshield wiper, I pleaded with him.

look I said, “I have the next nickel right here in my hand. I was running to put it in just as the meter expired.

I couldn’t believe it, but the big fat cop appeared to be listening to me.

He said, “I always see your car in the neighborhood, and you appear to be a nice kid”.

I breathed a sigh of relief as he reached over and removed the ticket from under my windshield wiper. He then walked over the storm sewer, tore up the ticket and threw it in.

I was so relieved, he had just saved me a $5.00 parking fine, which was money that I didn’t have.

I said thank you officer, and I put my 5 cents into the meter and went back into Henry’s Auto Parts store.

Turns out, about 60 days later, I received a letter in the mail from the City of New Haven. I was fined $25.00 for not paying for my $5.00 parking ticket on time.

That fat cop had only torn up and threw away my half of the ticket, he had turned in his half.