From my early to mid twenties thru my early to mid thirties I was a cab driver. Now, had I spent those years doing almost anything else I'd probably be a lot further along. I did manage to get an education and boy did I read and I had one helluva lot of fun! I can't imagine an occupation that would provide a decent living and allow you to read at least 800 pages a week all the while putting you in regular contact with businessmen, politicians, newspaper editors, pimps, hookers, drug dealers and relatively easy, beautiful women and ya got to carry a gun! Now, c'mon. I was in regular contact with businessmen, politicians and newspaper editors and relatively easy, beautiful women. Fairly scary. Who could blame me for being armed? I didn't have much contact with cops. I'da carried two guns. Just sayin.
That "gun" thing. I never fired the gun I carried and no one ever knew I had it. I never needed the damned thing. I will say that if I happened to meet a guy like me today, in a bar, I would assume he was armed.
I'm not telling those stories today. These are much more innocuous.
Going the long way. If you were obnoxious to me about being late and making it worth my while I would just go like hell in the wrong direction. Plan your day better you mindless hump. If you were nice and just needed to be there I'd do the best I could. My living depended on getting people where they wanted to go, getting rid of them as quickly as possible and getting their money. Then getting the next one and so on. I considered any other assumption to be insulting. I considered that because it is insulting. I'm not responsible for your assumptions. Although, sometimes.... Sometimes you were in a hurry. One morning I was headed up a major thoroughfare to get a fair I had bid. I was in my cab driver, hurry-up mode. At a traffic light, some poor woman's car quit working right in front of me. Frustrating would be a very kind way of saying how that struck me. I got out of the cab, told the woman to put her car in nuetral and pushed her out of traffic and my gotdamned way while saying things about her POS car under my breath. I did not wave or look back. I got in the cab and took off. I immediately forgot about it.
I got and completed the next fare. It was the tail end of the morning rush so I stopped at a convenience store for an orange juice and a grease bullet breakfast sandwich. When I got to the register, the manager of the store, a nice enough looking middle-aged woman told the cashier my purchase was on her.
" I saw you help that woman with her car. It's the least I can do." I did remember to thank her and I did not say, " Lady, if you knew what I was thinking when I shoved that fucking broad out of my way, you sure wouldn't reward me." In a day's work, I guess.
I always answered questions truthfully Well, for the most part. If you asked me how much it should cost to go from point A to point B, I would tell you the truth. If you asked me how much I wanted to go from point A to point B, I would tell you the truth. It's not my fault those two figures were substantially different. ( Hmmm, how much do I want ?)
I'm not sure if this was shameful. That means I think it was but, Boy, did it work. I picked up a guy at the airport. He said no one knew his street in Paradise Valley so he'd have to give me directions. A lot of people said that. People want to think they're unique particularly the more exclusive the neighborhood. I said, I needed his address for my log and chances were I knew where it was. I did not know oddly enough. In our 15 minute drive and the course of the conversation it turned out he was the manager for a very popular boxer. I'd actually made some good money betting on the guy and I told him so. I was single. I was allowed to bet on sporting events. At the end of the trip the guy gave me a $10 tip. That was a handsome sum. He stuck in my mind.
A few weeks later I picked up a guy at the airport. same story. No one knows my street yada, yada.
I said, " I do know your street. A few weeks ago I took your next door neighbor home and the reason I remember is he tipped me $10."
There was nothing unusual about the trip or the conversation. When I dropped him off he tipped me a 20. It reminded me just how competitive these people in these fantastically expensive neighborhoods were. It was actually an innocent remark on my part. The remark was not innocent at all the next hundred times I said it and it paid off like a cash register. Yeah, pretty shameful or shameless. There is a difference but not really that much. The older I get the difference is less and less.
Speaking of kinda shameful: The boxing manager/ promoter guy also gave me two complimentary tickets to boxing matches held at the Dell Webb Townhouse Hotel in central Phoenix. It was a nice place. I'm sure it still is. High-rise hotel, condos, an auditorium and a not bad steak house restaurant. In those days probably $40 for dinner for two including wine. 50 with the tip. It would be like an eighty dollar joint now. A C-note with the tip.
Anyway, I was dating this girl and I really wasn't getting anywhere. It was 1982, I was 30 years old. I was tryin to get in her pants and about to give up. She was being coy like she was in some sort of bedroom farce. I was always an Erskine Caldwell fan. She was more Doris Day. You see the dilemma. I had decided it was our last date. Like most young girls she was almost shocked and appalled at the idea of attending boxing matches but mostly bored at my obvious boorishness. She got to dress up and have a good dinner. It turns out she'd been holding out over Mickey D's and a movie before she met me. I'm sure she is now a lovely wife and grandmother. I didn't corrupt her completely but I wasn't really trying.
So, we had a nice dinner. I probably had the prime rib. I never was a big steak fan and I remember I always had the prime rib when I went there. She probably had a porter house. We had the house wine. That certainly wasn't as dramatic as having the guy open the bottle and all that but wine is wine and the carafe was only about a sawbuck. Even then the pop the cork deally was about $22. I digress.
We proceeded to the auditorium. It was grandly named (I don't remember) but actually pretty small. I don't think you can refer to a fight arena as intimate. It was small. There might have been 20 rows of seats. Even in the bad seats you could see the snot fly. We had pretty good seats.
It was a five bout card with no real main event. There were three club bouts which are actually kinda fun to watch because the skill level is so bad. The other two bouts were guys trying to go pro. These guys were about to learn some stuff inadvertently like: don't drop your right shoulder and so was I about to learn some thing that would stay with me.
By the 3rd bout our Little Miss Proper was on her feet yelling things like, "Jab, Jab!" "The left!, Throw the left!" By the fifth bout she'd ordered Black Velvet straight.
This is what I learned inadvertently. The combination of violence and the concentration of hormones in that small area had an effect. Apparently, you could get a Nun to do inappropriate things in the parking lot after that combination. I know it was hard to stop Little Miss Proper. I think it was more shameless than shameful that I repeated the experience more than a few times with various females of my acquaintance. I still think it was totally understandable.
Experience can be a hard teacher but sometimes .... not so much. We do learn from our mistakes but sometimes we learn from results. Still, don't drop your shoulder. That left is always coming.
It wasn't until well into my second marriage that it occurred to me to say to my Wife, " Check this out!"
I always answered questions truthfully Well, for the most part. If you asked me how much it should cost to go from point A to point B, I would tell you the truth. If you asked me how much I wanted to go from point A to point B, I would tell you the truth. It's not my fault those two figures were substantially different. ( Hmmm, how much do I want ?)
I'm not sure if this was shameful. That means I think it was but, Boy, did it work. I picked up a guy at the airport. He said no one knew his street in Paradise Valley so he'd have to give me directions. A lot of people said that. People want to think they're unique particularly the more exclusive the neighborhood. I said, I needed his address for my log and chances were I knew where it was. I did not know oddly enough. In our 15 minute drive and the course of the conversation it turned out he was the manager for a very popular boxer. I'd actually made some good money betting on the guy and I told him so. I was single. I was allowed to bet on sporting events. At the end of the trip the guy gave me a $10 tip. That was a handsome sum. He stuck in my mind.
A few weeks later I picked up a guy at the airport. same story. No one knows my street yada, yada.
I said, " I do know your street. A few weeks ago I took your next door neighbor home and the reason I remember is he tipped me $10."
There was nothing unusual about the trip or the conversation. When I dropped him off he tipped me a 20. It reminded me just how competitive these people in these fantastically expensive neighborhoods were. It was actually an innocent remark on my part. The remark was not innocent at all the next hundred times I said it and it paid off like a cash register. Yeah, pretty shameful or shameless. There is a difference but not really that much. The older I get the difference is less and less.
Speaking of kinda shameful: The boxing manager/ promoter guy also gave me two complimentary tickets to boxing matches held at the Dell Webb Townhouse Hotel in central Phoenix. It was a nice place. I'm sure it still is. High-rise hotel, condos, an auditorium and a not bad steak house restaurant. In those days probably $40 for dinner for two including wine. 50 with the tip. It would be like an eighty dollar joint now. A C-note with the tip.
Anyway, I was dating this girl and I really wasn't getting anywhere. It was 1982, I was 30 years old. I was tryin to get in her pants and about to give up. She was being coy like she was in some sort of bedroom farce. I was always an Erskine Caldwell fan. She was more Doris Day. You see the dilemma. I had decided it was our last date. Like most young girls she was almost shocked and appalled at the idea of attending boxing matches but mostly bored at my obvious boorishness. She got to dress up and have a good dinner. It turns out she'd been holding out over Mickey D's and a movie before she met me. I'm sure she is now a lovely wife and grandmother. I didn't corrupt her completely but I wasn't really trying.
So, we had a nice dinner. I probably had the prime rib. I never was a big steak fan and I remember I always had the prime rib when I went there. She probably had a porter house. We had the house wine. That certainly wasn't as dramatic as having the guy open the bottle and all that but wine is wine and the carafe was only about a sawbuck. Even then the pop the cork deally was about $22. I digress.
We proceeded to the auditorium. It was grandly named (I don't remember) but actually pretty small. I don't think you can refer to a fight arena as intimate. It was small. There might have been 20 rows of seats. Even in the bad seats you could see the snot fly. We had pretty good seats.
It was a five bout card with no real main event. There were three club bouts which are actually kinda fun to watch because the skill level is so bad. The other two bouts were guys trying to go pro. These guys were about to learn some stuff inadvertently like: don't drop your right shoulder and so was I about to learn some thing that would stay with me.
By the 3rd bout our Little Miss Proper was on her feet yelling things like, "Jab, Jab!" "The left!, Throw the left!" By the fifth bout she'd ordered Black Velvet straight.
This is what I learned inadvertently. The combination of violence and the concentration of hormones in that small area had an effect. Apparently, you could get a Nun to do inappropriate things in the parking lot after that combination. I know it was hard to stop Little Miss Proper. I think it was more shameless than shameful that I repeated the experience more than a few times with various females of my acquaintance. I still think it was totally understandable.
Experience can be a hard teacher but sometimes .... not so much. We do learn from our mistakes but sometimes we learn from results. Still, don't drop your shoulder. That left is always coming.
It wasn't until well into my second marriage that it occurred to me to say to my Wife, " Check this out!"
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