61. Their minds on their money and their money on their minds

Most of my day rides are pretty boring… people don’t tend to talk. They just want to get where they are going and have not had their tongues loosened with alcohol.

I picked up a father and daughter from a fancy resort this morning at 8a. They had scheduled a tour of the university as they were now checking out colleges for the daughter.

The man had a wrapped knee, which, I guessed, was why he was wearing shorts. It was a chilly morning, more pants kind of weather, and for the locals, more parka kind of weather. 

He got into the car struggling with the leg and grumbled that it prevented him from getting in any golf on the trip and that the resort had a great golf course he had played the last time he was here.

The daughter was in a dress made of very thin material and I figured that the cold didn’t phase them. The father confirmed that by marveling how the hotel staff were all in heavy jackets and that the front desk people had space heaters on next to them. He and his daughter were from Seattle and at this time of the year, it was freezing and wet and so temperatures in the 50’s were a walk at the beach for them. The daughter comments how she was sunbathing the day before and planned on doing more of that after the university tour. 

The father had lived here sometime in his past and was recounting to his daughter what every building use to be as we drove along. I wasn’t sure if he was an alum of the university but he sure had a fondness for the city. He talked about how he really liked how the city was laid out, how the university was such a major part of it, how traffic was not an issue, and that it was surrounded by incredible nature. None of which seemed of any interest to his daughter. 

I had been playing one of my driving mixes and Snoop Dogg popped on… something I didn’t realize was in the “Easy Going Morning Mix”. 

I skipped by it and the father said, “Oh, man, we love Snoop! Don’t we, hon?”

The daughter confirmed that they were both fans of the Dee Oh Double Gee. “You didn’t skip that because you thought we would be offended, did you?” the man asked.

“I just figured ‘Gin & Juice’ wasn’t a popular morning song,” I replied. But hey, what the passengers want, they get, and I clicked it back on.

“We haven’t had our coffee, yet, so some gin and juice would help wake us up!” the father said with a laugh. 

As we bounced along, they sang along and harmonized on “I got bitches in the living room gettin’ it on and, they ain't leavin’ til six in the mornin’…”

At that point, the father noticed a Dunkin Donuts and was surprised that they were here. He commented how he was originally from Boston where they were on every street corner like Starbucks was in their current home of Seattle. 

Which brought them to, “So we gonna smoke a ounce to this, G's up, hoes down, while you motherfuckers bounce to this… Rollin’ down the street, smokin’ endo, sipping’ on gin and juice… Laid back… with my mind on my money and my money on my mind…”

At that point I told them we were near the university but if they needed that mornin’ gin & juice, there was a Starbucks in the University Square. He asked me to drop them off there. The both of them got out and I saw the daughter’s dress was sheer enough to make it practically see through (sheer enough that I could see what kind of underwear she had on!) But the chill didn’t bother her. They walked into the coffee shop with their minds on their money and their money on their minds. 

60. Guilty pleasure

I got a request for a ride at 3:30 AM from a tattoo parlor. I didn’t know tattoo parlors were open that late, but heck, why not? If this was some kind of all night place, I would make note of it for when I finally got my next tattoo.

When I pulled into the strip mall where the tattoo parlor was located, the gate was down at the parlor and the lights were off. It was definitely closed. No late night tattoos for me. 

Then I noticed some lights on a few doors down… at the marijuana dispensary. This shop was open 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year, as are many in town. I was guessing that this is where my passenger was coming from. 

I was curious as to why they would put in a different address. Pot shops are legal here and so why should it matter? Then I thought, maybe they thought a driver wouldn’t want to pick somebody up from a marijuana dispensary at 3:30 AM for fear of their safety? Nah. I couldn’t imagine this passenger was concerned about the driver’s feelings. 

Maybe they were ashamed to be buying marijuana at 3:30 AM? It made me wonder if people still felt as if marijuana was a criminal enterprise. It was legal now, and not just for medical purposes. So, I don’t understand the stigma. 

The passenger waved me down from three stores down in the strip mall. They were in a dark spot, waving  their cell phone. If they had been worried about my feelings, they would have realized that someone standing in the dark and waving a cell phone for me to approach them was a lot scarier than me picking somebody up from a well lit store front. 

I drove down and picked them up. They got in, and sure enough, they smelled like a weed farm. They were cordial enough and thanked me for picking them up at this hour. 

They asked if we could stop by a convenience store on the way. I don’t have a problem doing this for passengers if they don’t seem sketchy. They actually seemed all right when they got in. They were wearing a safety vest and looked solid. 

So, I stopped, they got out, and then they came back a few minutes later, grumbling that the breakfast burritos were still not ready. I should have figured they were looking for something to snack on as I’m sure they had the munchies. 

I drove them home, which was 17 miles away from the dispensary. Now, I was pretty sure they felt they were doing something criminal. By going and purchasing marijuana legally SEVENTEEN miles away from where they lived, they had to be wanting to hide what they were doing. I mean, they had gone out at 3 AM  paid for a rideshare to a location 17 miles away from their home, when I’m sure they could have found a 24 hour store much closer to them. 

Well, it was their money to spend, but if they had accepted what they did was completely legal and nothing they needed to hide or be ashamed of, they could have saved themselves a lot of money.

But, hey, I’ll take the guilty fare any time.

59. Radio Days

I picked up an older man who told me he was in town for the funeral of his 75-year-old brother. He told me he was 71. The man was certainly full of energy and vigor, and did not seem like he was 71. He said that he had taken care of himself his whole life and he lived a healthy lifestyle. 

His brother, on the other hand, had not. He had been a smoker, was extremely overweight, and just had a triple bypass few years ago. Then last week he just dropped dead at the mall. Said his heart just gave out and he dropped. Quick and sudden. 

He went on to tell me that he loved his brother and they got along on every single level except one: politically. At that point, the man asked me my political leanings. I am always wary when someone asks me this question. I told him I was a centrist that leaned a little left. He breathed a sigh of relief. He said he was a liberal, and that his brother was a hard-core, conservative translated: “Trumpist”. 

He said a few years ago, after the election of 2016, he and his brother were having a discussion about the results. He told his brother he had voted for the Democrat candidate and his brother went off the handle.  “How could you vote for her?!?” his brother shouted at him. “She should be locked up!”

After that, they agreed to never talk politics again. He had talked to his brother 10 days ago, which was a few days before he died, and they still didn’t talk politics. 

He told me that he worked in the radio business for the last 40 years, in every capacity from a disc jockey to a producer. Since I was more left leaning, he told me he had a great story to tell me. 

He was in charge of a number of studios in one of the cities he worked in. Their main offices were in New York and LA and the New York office called him to see if he could provide a studio for one of their hosts. That host was Dennis Miller. 

When Miller first came into the studio, he sat down and took off his shoes. They looked at him like “Oooookay…” and Miller told them all he liked to be comfortable and they should deal with it. I imagined Miller telling them that but through a bad Dana Carvey impersonation. 

The man told me he was very lighthearted and accommodating and that he was never looking for a fight but always fought to keep the peace. It’s why he and his brother made that agreement to never to talk politics. It was his idea to keep the peace between them.

Miller‘s guest that day in the studio was none other than Ted Nugent. The man explained that he grew up in the 70’s and he loved the music of Ted Nugent. “Cat Scratch Fever” was one of his anthems. 

So, when Ted came into the studio and offered him a hug, he took it. He knew Ted was extremely right wing, but figured if he was going to start off with a hug, why not accept it and keep things peaceful.

He told me this was all around 2013, so a few years before the 2016 election and things getting super nuts. He was setting things up as Miller and Nugent, who were talking about what the topic would be for the show. They were both discussing pretty radical right wing ideas. 

As he listened to them, he calmly chimed in and asked, “Can’t we negotiate between the two sides? Wprk together to get things done?” 

Miller got super upset and said in a loud voice, “There should never be negotiation! Negotiation is bullshit!” He said, of the two men, Miller was the more radical and a bigger jerk. He walked away snickering, finding it funny that he had poked the bear. He wasn’t ever looking for a fight he said, but sometimes he found it hilarious when he inadvertently did and someone would go off. 

Nugent said his wife was supposed to meet him there and if he could escort her in. He said he would and went downstairs and waited for her. He told me that a few years before this, Nugent’s wife had been stopped in an airport because she was carrying a loaded handgun in her purse. When they confiscated it, she made a scene. So, while he was walking her down the hall to meet Ted and Dennis, he asked her, “Did you really need to have a gun in your purse?“ and that made her head explode. She went off at him and that made him laugh. 

He wondered where all these conservative celebrities came from. Before 2016, most of them flew under the radar. Probably because Hollywood pretended to be liberal, and the conservatives didn’t want to lose jobs because of their political leanings. 

There were still loud voices like Miller, Nugent, and others. But sp many came out of the woodwork after 2016z Today, there were all these lunatics like Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain, James Woods, Kirk Cameron, and Chachi. They all now feel free to spew their hate and use their celebrity to spread anger. 

He wondered if it was because they felt the government took all their celebrity money in taxes. Didn’t seem like these were the ones who had a lot of extra cash to spare and had probably already wasted whatever Hollywood money they made. None of these people were paid huge amounts to act and some were barely working at all, so maybe this all just to get people to notice than. 

In listening to Miller, he felt that money was the biggest reason that Dennis became a super conservative. Miller constantly ranted around the studios how his tax money was being wasted because of Democrats and that he had been taxed unfairly just because he was successful. The man laughed at that because he didn’t think Miller was that successful anymore and was getting paid shit for his radio show compared to others like Rush Limbaugh. He reminded me that Miller originally started on SNL which is a pretty liberal program. 

He had once worked with Rush Limbaugh, in the beginning, of his career. Rush knew his whole schtick was an act. And the more popular he became, the thicker he laid on the bullshit. But then he started to believe his own bullshit and began to think he was the word of the people. 

He said that was the mystery about the extreme right. You could show them all the evidence against their people, the crimes committed, show them the lies they spread on video, saying one thing one day and something completely different the next day and the extremists would still say it was a lie, made up, or fake news. They would never listen to reason. These people had so dug in to their beliefs that no amount of proof would change their minds. 

That was his brother. The reason he agreed never to talk politics with him was because he knew that he would never change his mind. He thought the same could be said of all of them, including the so-called celebrities. 

He talked about how all the politicians in Washington were now fighting with each other, not just over issues, but physically fighting. There was a senator who said we should go back to having duels like Andrew Jackson had. Kevin McCarthy elbowed another House member. They all wanted violence. Fortunately, he felt that these right wingers were only being violent towards each other. 

He did follow this with saying that the problem with the other side, the left, was that they didn’t do any fighting and that they should. The left had no fire, and seemed unwilling to fight on any level whether politically or physical. He imagined if someone raised a fist at someone on the left, they would flinch and jump back. 

They didn’t need to get into a fistfight, but he definitely think they needed to show some passion, because that’s what the right side had in spades. They might be crazy, but they are very passionate about their beliefs. And that’s what makes them frightening. 

I dropped him off, and he thanked me for listening. He said he had been holding his tongue for the past three days, because all of his other relatives were Trumpists and he did not want to rock the boat in this time of mourning. 

It was really interesting to hear this man’s stories of his radio days. He had mentioned he hung out with all kinds of people from Elton John to Bruce Springsteen. 

I was happy that he had found a way that he and his brother could talk over the years. It’s just sad that he feels he can’t have a rational discussion about politics with his relatives, because he knows they will all go off. 

It’s an election year coming up and it just makes me wonder how many more people will go off the handle and if the violence the right is asking for, especially from politicians on the floors of Washington, will be picked up by more and more people.

We do not need to go back to the ways of Andrew Jackson. 

58. Four near misses.

I picked up a guy from a hotel today with a big smile on his face and a bag of golf clubs over his shoulder.

“It’s been a long week, I got their shit done for them, it’s a beautiful day, so I’m not answering my phone and I’m playing some golf! Fuck ‘em!”

I smiled and nodded and said “Well, the weather looks good for golf.”

As we drove to the course, he continued, “I’m not married and have no kids, so I can go golf without answering to anyone.” He looked to be in his late 40’s at worst. He was younger than me, that was for sure.

He told me he was a “superintendent” for something, a job a friend of his from his Navy days hooked him up with. He had no qualifications for the job but said it was easy to figure out. His job required him to travel across the Southwest checking out systems at different locations and he said he was never in one place for more than a week. And he had been living that way for the last four years. 

“If I was married and had kids, there is no way I could do this job!” he said with a laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, man, I’m not against marriage or kids but didn’t happen for me.” 

I was tempted to tell him that I was also not married and never had kids, either, but I just let him go on his rant. I certainly did not have the kind of job he had that required it.

“It almost happened for me a few times,” he continued. “When I was 19 and just joined the Navy, I got a girl pregnant. But she had a miscarriage and so that didn’t happen.” He didn’t say that with any joy or relief, but rather, as a matter of factly.

“I had four instances where I might have had to get married,” he said. “And I would have if things had worked out, but they didn’t. Two miscarriages, one abortion, and one lying cunt who was just trying to con me.”

“Funny thing is, I really liked her and saw a future with her. Then she pulled that shit. She told me she was pregnant and it was mine. I didn’t jump up and down when she told me, but I also didn’t kick her to the curb. But she was pissed because I wasn’t happier or proposed instantly. My sister-in-law told me to ask her to take a birth control test, you know, to make sure, but that I should be there when she does it. She fucking blew a gasket. She then told me she wasn’t pregnant but was testing me to see if I was serious about us. Fuck that! After that bullshit, I did kick her to the curb.”

“The two miscarriages were tragic but that first one was a blessing… I wasn’t ready to be a dad at 19. Especially since we were both in the Navy.”

“The abortion was her choice. She didn’t give me any say, and I didn’t think she had to. Her body, man. But I would’ve been there if she had decided to keep it.”

“I admit that I always fuck without a raincoat but I always pull out,” he said. 

Well, that’s certainly not the 100% way to prevent babies, I thought.

As if he read my fave, he said, “Yeah, I know that is hardly the guaranteed way to prevent babies, and after three legit scares, I should know better, but you know something… I’m still so fucking stupid that I still fuck bareback. But, fuck, this job doesn’t keep me in any one place for long, anyways…”

I figured he thought that gave him a license to have all the unprotected sex wanted and he would be gone before they could find out if they were pregnant or not.

He then told me, “I give every girl I hook up with my numbers, email, business card. If I am careless again, I’m not holding it on them.”

I really didn’t know how to react to this guy. I was a little envious of his job, though. Always on the road. Made me think of George Clooney in “Up in the Air”. I used to want to live like that. I thought it if I could become a full time working g theatre director, I could have lived like that. Rehearsing in one city for six weeks on a show and then movie off to another city to do the next show and so on.

Well, that dream never happened for me. Instead, I drive people around one city and while I don’t move from place to place, I make my own hours and am my own boss. And I am not the cock hound this guy is, by any means. I go home at the end of every shift and am very happy to have a home to go to. 

57. Three for the road

When I work during the days, I tend to pick up a lot of older folks. They often need rides to medical appointments or from medical appointments, or to get some shopping done and so forth. Things they can no longer drive on their own and so they have found the magic of ride sharing. They are generally nice, gracious folks, and I don’t mind driving them.

For today’s rideshare, I will tell you about three such rides that I gave today. 

The first was an older woman who, when I pulled up, I saw was going to need some help. She had a walker and a cane, and looked very unstable. 

I got out of the car and helped put her walker in the back of the car and then opened the back door for her to get in the car. 

She saw my cane in the front seat and asked if I had physical problems. I told her that sometimes I needed the cane for balance. I didn’t want to get into any details about my ailments. I feel it might make riders uncomfortable and so unusually tell them that I have a bad left knee. 

She told me that she had just had hip surgery and was relearning to walk. I found that pretty incredible at her age. I know a lot of older people get hip replacement surgery, but I feel if I get to the point of needing a new hip, you can take me out of the ball game, coach. When major parts of my body need replacing when I am at an advanced age, I’d rather not. 

She went on to tell me of the whole procedure with her hip. It sounded very painful. She was now getting physical therapy several times a week and that’s where she was headed off to today. 

She was not fond of growing old, but she was going to live as long as she could, “God willing.” She went on to tell me that most of the issues she had were with the right side of her body. I told her most of the issues I was having were with the left side of my body. She said if we could join our bodies together we would be quite a pair! We could make one healthy person and one mess of a person. I laughed. 

I asked her if she was right handed and if her ailments affected that. She took a beat and told me that it wasn’t her right hand that she cared about, it was her right leg. Without it, she could no longer drive, and she loved to drive. 

She sat quietly after that, and we approached the physical therapy place. I got her walker from out of the back and helped her out of the car. She thanked me for the lovely ride. She looked at me and said, “I just wish I could’ve driven hear myself.” I wished the same for her.

She tipped me eight dollars.

The second older woman I picked up was in a trailer home. Her trailer was decorated with Marine emblems and stickers. Semper Fi! 

I was early to this appointment and she popped her head out her screen door and exclaimed, “Oh my God, I wasn’t expecting you for another 10 minutes!” I told her it was OK and there was no rush. I could wait. She asked me if I wanted a cold bottle of water. I thanked her for the offer and declined and she told me she would just be one minute and again, was very sorry. Before I could tell her again that it was ok, she was gone. A minute later, she rushed out. 

She got in the car and was grumbling. She started  talking about the neighborhood and saying when she first moved in here, despite it being a trailer home, it was very nice. That trailer parks have a bad reputation but this had been a very nice one. But over the past few years, it had become real (and she apologized for saying this) “ghetto.” She followed with, “But hey, the truth is the truth and I’m too old to bullshit anymore.” She went on to tell me that the  condition of the neighborhood had severely declined over the past few years, but she couldn’t really afford to move anywhere else and, at least, she owned her home. 

She was off to get a physical, and was not seem elated about it. But it was a necessary annual procedure so she could stay on her meds. I understood that. This was something they did every year to her and every year she hated it. The only meds that she was really worried about was for her asthma and she doubted the physical would tell them anything different than last year. 

She hated all the paperwork she had to fill out over and over again with every appointment, asking all those questions. No, she didn’t do drugs, or smoke or anything, but yes, she did drink. She was always annoyed when they asked her that. 

Of course she drank! She didn’t trust anyone who didn’t drink. And with Thanksgiving coming up and the 49ers playing, she was going to make sure she got her drink on, and anyone who didn’t while watching football on Thanksgiving wasn’t an American! 

The song “Islands in the Stream”came on, and her tone shifted. She brightened up. She loved Dolly Parton and Dolly was going to be performing at halftime during the Thanksgiving day game! Now THAT was what America was about! 

The year before she had taken her granddaughter to Dollywood for her Sweet 16 birthday. She did this because her granddaughter was also a huge Dolly Parton fan. But who wasn’t?!? She said her other granddaughter was turning 16 next year, and if her mother did not take her, she was definitely going to take her to Kentucky. To her, Dolly was the perfect human being. I didn’t disagree with her. 

It was a short ride to her appointment and she thanked me for the conversation. She got out seeming much happier, and I wished her luck on her physical. She smiled at me as if to say she had this and after she filled out all that paperwork, she would go home and have a beer… like any good American.

She tipped me seven dollars, which was great considering she had such a short ride.

The third ride I will share with you from the day was an elderly couple that I picked up from a clinic where the husband had just gotten his eyes dilated. They were a very nice couple. She was very energetic. She loved to talk and I was willing to listen. Her husband, for the most part, just sat there, but he did not seem perturbed by his wife’s energy. 

She told me she had been an elementary teacher, kindergarten specifically, for over 30 years and loved the job. She had never missed a day of work and always relished waking up every morning and going to work with her 57 kids. 

She told me that women only really had two jobs in her day. They were either teachers or nurses, and she was happy to be a teacher. I did not really want to tell her about the state of teachers today, but would rather have her enjoy her memories of a better time for educators. 

She talked about how the parents would come in to meet with teachers and ask what they needed to do for their kids and how they could help. She said many of those parents became friends because they would always see each other at these meetings. They would always volunteer to help with any events the school was having, always eager to help the teachers and the school to make their kids better human beings. 

She shared with me how her and her husband had four grown children. The first three were boys, born one after the other, and when they were having their fourth child, she told her husband that she hoped it would be a girl. It would be OK if it was a boy, but she really wanted a girl. It was a girl, and she was elated. 

She then complimented my car. She said I kept it very clean and it was a very nice car. She asked me how old it was and was impressed it was on such good shape after that many years. She asked me what kind of car it was, and I told her it was a Honda. She asked her husband if they had ever had a Honda, and he told her that they had had many Hondas over the years. “It was a good brand”, he told her. 

She seemed physically, healthy and sprightly as opposed to him. He had obvious physical ailments as he walked with a cane and moved very slowly.

As we drove along, I did notice she seemed to have one issue that I was familiar with. She was having memory problems as she would repeat  herself over and over. 

She told me several times over the course of ride how she was impressed how my car was in such good shape and how I kept it so clean. She thanked me for the ride on several occasions, to which I always replied “My pleasure.” 

And she told me about her teaching job, how she had never missed a day, and how great the parents were, and how she loved the 57 students she had multiple times. She was very proud of her years as a teacher and how good the parents were and her perfect attendance record as well as loving getting up every morning to go to work. 

She told me again about her children, three boys and one girl. And how she really wanted the fourth to be a girl. 

Looking in the rearview mirror, I could see her husband, holding her hand and smiling. I could see the warmth he felt for her even underneath the dark glasses he was wearing. 

I felt he was the one with the strong mental acuity that would be enough for both of them.He seemed to acknowledge that she was repeating herself over and over, but showed no sign of frustration. As he was there for her in that way, she was there to help him through his physical difficulties. 

I pulled up to their house, and she once again thanked me for driving them, to which I replied, “my pleasure.” She once again a told me it was great how I kept my car clean and in good shape, and that I was a very lovely young man. 

Her husband also thanked me for the ride. He looked my direction as he got out and smiled and nodded his head, as if to say thank you for listening. I smiled back and watched them walk into the house together, arm in arm. 

It made me a little weepy to see them together like that… a perfect match.

They tipped me $11 for a short ride.

I don’t know what it was about those three rides that made me think of my own mortality. The first woman made me think how I don’t want to be in a position in my life where I can’t do the things I enjoy, like driving. But she was a fighter and would go to rehab and do what she could. I know do not have that strength. 

The second woman was so full of piss and vinegar, and that impressed me. Although she started by grumbled about things, she still found good around her. She had talked about the good neighbors in the trailer park and how no one had any control over the vagrants that were coming in and trashing the place. How she had lit up at the prospect of taking her other granddaughter to Dollywood after having taken one before she had plans. And how she was going to drink, damn the questionnaire! She was going to enjoy her life. I was envious of her enthusiasm and vigor at her age.

The third ride, the couple, made me think of love. They had obviously been married a long time. They had gone through a lot. She talked about her early teaching days and it made me think this must have been the 60’s or 70’s, at best, when women only really had two jobs they could do and she loved the job she had. She wouldn’t have wanted to be a nurse and being a teacher had been everything to her along with her family. 

As she was in a stage in her life where she was losing her mental faculties, her husband was there by her side. Just as she was by his side as he was losing his physical capabilities. 

I was envious of their connection. I would hope everyone I know could find that kind of connection before the end of their lives, someone who they could be with that complemented and supported them, and who would be with them at the end.