"The Wheels on the Car"

By Jerry Zezima

Hey, boys and girls, and all of you adult drivers, here’s a song you can sing to the tune of the everlastingly popular but fantastically annoying kiddie ditty “The Wheels on the Bus”:

The wheel on the car goes thump, thump, thump

Thump, thump, thump

Thump, thump, thump

The wheel on the car goes thump, thump, thump

All through the town.

That’s what I was singing to myself, with a few other choice lyrics, when I drove my wife’s car, ever so slowly, to a nearby gas station to put air in the right front tire, which was flatter than my pathetic baritone.

Sue and I hadn’t been home for almost a week. Before we left on our trip in my car, the tire on her car was fine. In fact, all four tires were fine on her car, which was parked in the driveway.

When we got back, we noticed that the right front tire was low. The car itself agreed. On the dashboard was this electronic information: “Tire pressure low.”

It was at 21. The three other tires were at a normal 36.

I drove to the gas station and pumped enough air into the sagging tire to bring the pressure all the way up to 43. I’m surprised it didn’t explode in my face.

The next morning, it was down to 36. Later in the day, it had flatlined.

Back to the gas station I went. Back to flat went the tire.

So I got in Sue’s car and thumped my way up the street and around the corner to Dave Kunzler Tire of Port Jefferson Station, New York.

“My head is flat,” I told James, Dave’s friendly assistant manager. “So is the tire on my wife’s car.”

“Where is it?” James asked.

“On the right front side,” I answered.

“No, I mean, where is the car?” James asked again.

“Out front,” I answered again.

Sue had followed me in my car in case I had to leave hers at the shop.

“We’ll call you when it’s ready,” said Autumn, Dave’s equally friendly assistant manager.

Later that afternoon, James called to say two things:

1) Sue needed a new right front tire because insufficient air pressure in the old one had created a problem along the inside wall that couldn’t be repaired.

2) She also needed a new right rear tire because the old one had a bubble that could blow if she hit any of the 17 million potholes on area streets.

After picking up Sue’s car the next day and paying a very reasonable price for two new tires and excellent service, I sat down with Dave and found out that he is the third generation in the family business.

“My grandfather Bob started it in 1957,” Dave said. “He was a mountain of a man. And he was like the mayor. There wasn’t a place you could go and not know Bob — except church.”

Dave started working there when he was 13.

“Customers would say, ‘That kid’s gonna work on my car?’ I learned fast,” recalled Dave, adding that he’s a lot like his grandfather, who was outgoing. “My dad was quiet,” he said.

Dave, an Air Force veteran who was stationed in Germany in the late 1980s, returned to the family business in the early 1990s, then went to Atlanta to work for a big tire company before coming back home and buying the commercial end of the business from his father in 1997 at age 28.

“I’ve changed more tires than I can count,” said Dave. “I can change a tractor-trailer tire and stay clean.”

“If I tried to change a tire, I’d end up in the hospital,” I said.

“You don’t have to,” Dave noted. “Tell your wife that if she gets another flat, we’ll take care it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Now the wheels on her car go round and round, all through the town.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima