Don't drive like my brother

Like millions of NPR listeners, I was truly saddened to hear of the death Monday of Tom Magliozzi, half of Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers of Car Talk. He was 77.

How do I explain Car Talk to those who’ve never heard it? It’s kind of a call-in radio show, mostly about motor vehicles (sort of), but laced with a lot of commentary on life and massive infusions of laughter. Tom and his brother Ray had been doing a version of the program from WBUR in Boston since 1977.

I’ve been listening to it since the 80s, and I don’t like call-in programming and I don’t care much about cars. But I loved Tom and Ray, who had laughs that would cure the common cold.

You can read about the Magliozzis and Car Talk in several stories on NPR. What’s interesting about them is the comments: This is the first time I think I’ve ever seen any online content, no matter how seemingly innocuous (dog reunited with family, flowers planted along a highway, man emerges from 40-year coma) that didn’t engender at least 15% of mean, political or just plain crack-brained contributions by those with Internet access and a keyboard.

But take a look at any of NPR’s stories, and every single comment (as of time of writing) is about how much Tom (and Ray) brightened our weekend days, year after year. People proudly proclaim that they don’t drive and don’t give a toss about cars, but they tuned in regularly because Tom and Ray just sucked us in to a better world, where there was a solution to your problems—mostly car-related—even if it might involve a Viking funeral. Even commenters who regularly spew ideological bile and political vituperation on those innocuous stories here post nothing but sadness at Tom’s loss and happy memories of his broadcasts.

If you never heard them, I’m truly sorry for you. Go stream some of the shows—although the best way to listen to Click and Clack is to be driving around on your weekend errands, laughing and slapping your steering column like a demented seal, and be forced to park somewhere so you can hear out the program to the very end of their wacky credits.

Car Talk stopped original broadcasts two years ago, but NPR has been airing older shows since then. Because it’s not really so much about calling in to sort your 1998 Nissan Sentra’s whoop-whoop-whoop noise it makes when you turn left at 35 MPH as it is listening to these guys…well, just listening to them.

In such an unexpected way, the Magliozzis spread joy, with the pretext of diagnosing and solving mechanical problems. There’s so little of that around these days, so I’m glad that they’ve been part of my weekends for nearly 30 years.