The Column: On a roll to Rochester — and beyond?

Boy, like old times — road trip!

Destination: Rochester. But let’s begin in Huntington Station.

There was a slow leak in the rear left tire, and I pulled into my favorite fix-it shop.

"Heading out of town," I told the mechanic.

"Where to?"

"Rochester."

He glanced at me once and then again. "Long way," he said. "You be all right?"

Beg your pardon?

I was not wielding a tripod cane, leaning on a walker or breathing through a tube. I was not bent or trembling, gasping between words or outfitted with a cardiac monitor. Bifocals largely concealed the pierogi puffs under my eyes and my face otherwise was covered by a surgical mask because of the pandemic.

Through some astounding bit of good luck — and, no doubt, a genetic boost from my mother who lived to 91 — I mostly have escaped the woes suffered by so many in the senior-discount demographic. Still, somehow, the repairman knew.

As work continued, I paced with heightened sense of purpose — straight back, long strides, square jaw. A little longer I would have tried a cartwheel.

Soon the job was done, bent rim straightened.

"Good luck," said the worker. "Be careful."

I raised a defiant fist and announced myself entirely capable of driving nearly 400 miles so Wink, my wife, could visit her beloved upstate sister for the first time since the virus shutdown. Before the mechanic had a chance to advise that I pace myself and consider a nap upon reaching Albany, I had disappeared.

There was a time — could it have been that long ago? — when youth, not age, brought safety advice.

Wink and I — and, eventually, four children — did plenty of long-distance touring, most in a series of Volkswagen buses that added to the adventure. Ascending the Rocky Mountains or even the hills of Pennsylvania in one of those lovable but woefully underpowered crates was like hiking Jones Beach in snowshoes.

"Get out and stretch," said my mother, Brooklyn’s first personal trainer, who knew?

"Check the oil every fill-up," said Wink’s father, the engineer.

"Don’t overdo yourselves," said my grandmother on the first floor of our apartment house.

We were careful, but high-endurance. Five hundred miles, 600 a day — no worries.

Wink and I split shifts at the wheel. We had friends near Columbus, Ohio, and made the trip from New York in a day. Once, we drove straight through to Columbia, Missouri, where we went to the university: A cheer for old Mizzou.

On a West Coast sprint, we stopped at Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore.

"Wow," we called out when Washington, Jefferson, Teddy R. and Lincoln came into view. "Look."

"Is there food?" asked the next generation, unimpressed.

But now it was just Wink and me in a Subaru hatchback, not an exhausted VW bus, crossing the Throgs Neck, catching the Hutchinson River Parkway, hitting I-84 to the Taconic — that lovely, less-traveled route north — and then the Thruway to Rochester.

Service stops were mostly empty, thanks to COVID-19. You could still find a Big Mac or Whopper but few customers risked common eating areas. Vending machines wore hoods as if awaiting the firing squad, and coin-operated massage chairs were turned toward the wall, no vibes until further notice.

You can’t escape this thing, Wink and I said to one another, but it was grand cruising along, nostalgic, past farmland and forgotten factories, a stretch of the Erie Canal, a pancake house we remembered, past turnoffs for Utica, Syracuse, Canastota and Verona — the state, up here, as wide open as Wyoming.

Our visit with family was brief but lovely. Vaccinated, we hugged, imagine that.

Wink sat next to her sister Alice, and they seemed like girls, again. Alice’s daughter made a gorgeous dinner. We toasted and said, phew, looks like we made it, and thought for a moment about the terrible number of those less fortunate.

On the way back, Wink found an oldies station around Poughkeepsie. Little Anthony and the Imperials sang, "Tears on My Pillow," from 1958. We joined in: "Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, caused by you, you-oo-oo-oo, you-oo-oo-oo …"

Traffic thickened, pace picked up, the day dimmed.

Before dark, we were home, a couple of tired kids still ready to roll.