My husband of not quite one week and I lived in Brooklyn. My parents lived out of town and our Shabbos sheva brachos was to be hosted by my sister in Lakewood. We had no car so late (too late) Friday afternoon we made our way to Port Authority in Manhattan (there were no direct buses from Flatbush to Lakewood in those years). It was a rainy Thanksgiving holiday weekend and in our befuddled newlywed state we did not think about how those two facts might affect our trip. By the time we neared Freehold (about 20 minutes out of Lakewood) the clock was moving alarmingly close to candlelighting time. We quickly decided to get off at Freehold and locate the nearest shul — if there even was one. Fortunately we found a shul and it was near the bus station and the rabbi was there. We related our story and asked if we could leave our suitcase until after Shabbos and if we could use the shul phone (this was the pre-cellphone era) to apprise my family of our situation and let them know that we were still planning on making it. My husband wouldn’t have been too perturbed if we didn’t arrive at our own Shabbos sheva brachos but I was determined to get there. And he wanted to make me happy so he acquiesced to all my zany suggestions. The fi rst thing I did was to stand at the side of the street flagging down passing cars. One guy actually stopped. I asked if he was Jewish when he answered in the negative I offered to pay him $50 to drive us to Lakewood before sunset. He agreed. We hopped in. But it took more than five minutes just to get out of Freehold. The guy stopped the car. “I’m sorry but I can’t guarantee I’ll get you there by sunset ” he said. We thanked him and got out. “We’ll have to walk ” I announced. The “walk” was nine miles. My husband being a very very new newlywed (who wanted to make his wife happy) said okay. So in the cold and the dark and the rain we began walking. I was still upbeat. There was no way I was going to miss my Shabbos sheva brachos.