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BY GREGORY J. RUMMO

LIFE IN THE BOONIES

It's a gorgeous, sunny afternoon. The breeze caresses my face as I drive along in the right lane on I-287 southbound approaching the Riverdale quarry, which lies up around the bend in the distance. The top is down on the convertible. All is well in the cosmos.

And then, as though cresting a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, I see what has become an all-too common sight on my commute home: The ever-present ocean of brake lights forming a sinuous Congo line of traffic queuing up for the impossible squeeze from several lanes to one exiting on to route 23.

Traffic quickly slows to a crawl and I catch a whiff of something burning. It's either rubber from the tires of some tractor-trailer that misjudged the stopping distance or the acrid vapors from my stomach, boiling up like an angry brew from a witch's cauldron, as I brace myself knowing I am about to waste yet another half hour of my life to travel the last two measly miles home from the office during rush hour.

My mind races in the vain attempt to calculate the odds of saving five minutes. Do I exit on to Hamburg Turnpike and sit through a half-dozen cycles of the traffic light at the end of the exit ramp before getting into another clogged artery snaking through Riverdale, Bloomingdale and Butler or do I take my chances and stay with the route 23 myocardial infarction?

I choose the former.

"He chose poorly..." the voice from the old man sitting in the chalice room waiting for Indiana Jones seems to whisper in my ear from the back seat.

But it's too late; I have passed the point of no return. A quick last glance south on I-287 reveals two police cars flashing their lights in the shoulder. I only had another 300 yards to go before liberation.

While I sit, stewing in the juices of my own stupid compulsiveness, the light up ahead changes green but I am going nowhere because no one can cross the intersection because everyone else had the same idea as I did and the traffic on Hamburg Turnpike is as bad if not worse than on route 23.

So I try to use the time productively by estimating the number of idiots sitting idly in their cars, inhaling all that carbon monoxide which they say kills brain cells. Aha! That explains it. Like lemmings following the leader we're all living out the definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over again, each time expecting a different outcome.

The light changes red. Now, oddly, I can advance three whole car lengths before being forced to stop again. I return to my mathematical mind game, wondering how many hours have been idled away along this stretch of highway over the last ten years multiplied by the hourly wages that could have been earned instead. It's a staggering loss of productivity I am sure. The light is green again but my tires are stuck to the pavement.

Thirty seconds pass and the light is red. I advance three more car lengths before applying the brakes. One consolation: They don't make brake linings out of asbestos any more or in addition to all that carbon monoxide poisoning we'd be sweating mesothelioma too.

More statistics flood my mind as I crawl three more car lengths on the next traffic light cycle. How many gallons of fuel are going up in smoke, adding all that carbon dioxide to the atmosphere (and all that money to Al Gore's wallet?) No wonder New Jersey is so warm in the summer.

Green light. This time I actually start to move on green, advancing closer to the intersection-oh, oh, oh; so close to the prize-it's there for me to reach out and grasp. But the light changes red one last time.

At least I am the second car in line, a pyrrhic victory, for what awaits after crossing the intersection is more of the same for another mile or so and I am not sure I can take another second of it.

Green! Go! In very bad taste some jerk honks a horn behind me but the intersection is blocked by a 4X4 hauling a trailer. He's cheating his way through but the cars behind the selfish slob have the decency to keep back which allows us to zigzag through to the northbound lane of Hamburg Turnpike where we now get into yet another logjam heading north, following the Pequannock River.

Such is life in the boonies. Nonetheless, I am blessed. Despite the carping, it is, after all a beautiful day, the music's playing on the radio, the sun is out and I am working on my tan. All this and it's barely spring.

Gregory J. Rummo is a syndicated columnist and the author of "The View from the Grass Roots." Contact him at GregRummo.com

LIFE IN THE BOONIES

Once upon a time in New Jersey ...