In August 1954 my father found his true love - TAXI CAB DRIVER - when he hired on at Blue & White in Minneapolis.
In 1960 he was given a brand new 1961 Ford Falcon, Number 201, that he drove for many years.
In Nov 1982 he bought a used Blue & White taxi. He had a young inexperienced driver use it on weekends. 0n Jan 29 the guy totalled it skidding on ice.
Dad drove until he was 82. Most of it spent waiting at the airport taxi rank where the other drivers were Somali. They treated him with great respect, being the eldest. In fact on his 75th we gave him a tee shirt stating he was the Oldest Cabbie in the Twin Cities.
Link to his taxi page.
 At the pump:
$NZ 2.55/litre
$NZ9.82/gal ($US5.89) |
 
I have not known many other taxi drivers than my father. Matt, a friend of Russell had a minivan service. Navind, a teacher, drove one on the side. And Dean, a former student, drove one in Australia.
The first cab drive I paid for was on Oct 15, 1969, when I shared a taxi with a couple other Peace Corps guys in Sacramento. The next main ride was on our wedding day, July 8, 1972. The staff at Queen Victoria School organized one (driver was Haniff) to take Gail and me to our honeymoon destination near Rakiraki, Fiji. After being up all night and getting up early to shave twice before the wedding, I was so tired that I slept the entire three hour drive.
When we arrived in New Zealand at 1:15AM January 15, 1973, the young driver brought us to his flat for a coffee, said we could stay there overnight and invited us to go surfing the next day. We didn't have a car our first years in New Zealand, so we would take taxis once in a while. They were all driven by Europeans, as was the case in 1984 when a fellow gave me a ride from the steel mill to Sanders. We had a good discussion on the differences of fare determination in New Zealand to the States. 40 years down the line the drivers are now Indians.
Rides Around the World
1990 We had a wicked and wild one; a white knuckle job in Tijuana.
1991 I was at the Phoenix airport needing a cab to Prescott. The first driver in the rank didn't know where it was and when he told me $40 the other drivers all said it was too low. So after some bartering with all of them we settled on $60, including tip. On the 2 hour drive I heard his story. Slaving away in a daytime job assembling computer parts, then paying to drive the taxi at night. He was from war torn Eritrea and sending money back home. I ended up giving him $70.
1997 We got off a train in a barren small town in Scotland with no traffic let alone taxis. I went into a pub and while every man stared at the stranger I called several "taxi” numbers until I found one who would bring us to the rural B&B.
2002 A fellow drove me from the Prescott hospital to Joyce’s house. Since I had spent months there in previous years I knew that he was taking the long way, so he didn't get a tip.
2010 We took a taxi from the Cairns airport to our downtown hotel. The driver racked up some extra miles doing it. He claimed he was following SatNav instructions. He wasn’t happy with the small tip.
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