Real Cab Driver

A couple of things I have to remember

2011-12-11T10:12:00.000-08:00

1) Mike Finnigan, one of the best guys to drive a cab. He's dead of course, like so many cab drivers I once knew. Jesus, I must be getting old. Duane Holloway is also dead, he came here from Key West and drove for around 15 years. Any how........ We're out at the airport, and Mike is driving one of the mini vans as usual. He starts talking about bringing a load of scientists from the Physics Lab in Stoughton to the airport and charging them individual fares (highway robbery!!!). Then he chuckles and says, "Those Canadians tip good too."

2) The Essen Haus has always been a good place to troll for drunks. I'm parked at the end of the awning, and here comes Mike the door man and Neil the guy who always wares the German leather short pants, struggling with this guy who they throw on the pavement right next to the cab. The guy gets up and asks for a ride, and I say ok. He gets in and he's really pissed off. Turns out that he had a 1/2 stein of beer when he went in to the john to take a whiz. When he got back to the bar, he had a full stein, but they had a pitcher so he didn't think anything of it. He starts sipping on his beer and his room mate is laughing his ass off. His room mate continues to laugh his ass off and he finally asks what's so funny. His room mate tells him that he pissed in his beer to bring it up to full. Of course he's not amused.

Know what pissed him off the most? They didn't kick his room mate out, so he can't kick the shit out of his room mate. He bitched all the way to Langdon st., but he tipped well.

Home again

2011-10-20T11:43:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Cambridge, and it's beginning to really feel like home. The dog and I take the long walk around the fishing ponds and along the river, and it's really nice.

I was down on Willy (Williamson) street and saw a bunch of people I hadn't seen in years. Futon, Pinhead, and Boyle all in about 15 minutes. And seeing Boyle reminded me of the famous Don.

The famous Don was a real ass hole. It all started that Boyle wanted to borrow my step van to move from one place to another, so I loaned it to him. Then Boyle decided to do his friend Don a favor and let him use it. Only Don wanted to move a bunch of his friends to make some money. So I had to hound Boyle for days to get it back, and when I finally did get it back it was full of crap from somebody doing a tear off of a roof, and hauling the trash away in my truck. Needless to say, Boyle never used it again, and I was tempted to slug the famous Don first time I saw him. That was back in my nice guy days. Today I'd report it stolen, and press charges.

Don wasn't the only guy who liked to steal the truck. A guy named Diamond used to steal it too. Another friend told me what Diamond was using it for, and that was it, he never got it again. By then I'd welded hasp's on the doors so I could lock it up, and another fellow used it a lot so I could tell Diamond I didn't have the key to the locks and couldn't let him into it, he'd need to ask Jim, and of course Jim would always say no. One day Diamond came over to waste my time yet another time and ask for it, and when I said I couldn't let him into it, he threw the key that he claimed he'd lost on the floor and said I might just as well have it back.

There must be something wrong with me. I always thought it was easier to simply work.

Leaving Touristville

2011-09-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

I don't recommend this area. Today in court, I gave the judge and clerks a piece of my mind about this crumby little town (not Lake Geneva, but same area). Why?

A local cop has taken it upon himself to run me out of town. I didn't think crap like this still happened, but I guess it does. Dog tickets. It's ok to race a bike on the sidewalk (illegal, but ok), it's ok to be drunk in public, it's ok to drive home from the bar drunk (from what I've seen), it's ok for there to be raw sewage flowing up out of the ground less than a 100 yards from a trout stream and up hill from same stream.

That guy rubbernecked my dog eating a bone in the yard 4 times in 4 minutes, wanting to go for another ticket. Ok, fine with me. Who'd want to visit here, live here, or vacation here anyway?

I'll be gone before the first.

Lake Geneva

2011-05-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am. It's the first time I've lived outside of Dane County since the year I spent in Baraboo back in the 90's.

I never really chose Sauk County (Baraboo) over Dane County and Madison. I wound up there, and it was nice enough, but my life was still in Madison. I don't need Madison anymore. I don't have a job there, my few friends will still be friends. And...............

I like the Lake Geneva area, I like it a lot.

It's unclear if I will still be in these digs a year from now. Unless something drastic and terrible happens, I WILL be in the area. Fairly close to the lake. Now that I'm here in the area, if this place doesn't work out, I'm close enough to find something else. Perhaps even nicer. I could afford a tad more.

Why are these digs unclear? Wooooooo............... Why me...................... So I'll tell you.

The first time I came here with stuff I met this bozo in the next room. He gave me this song and dance about being a set up man in a high tech precision metal parts factory. Yeah, right. He also gave me this song and dance about his last apartment catching fire, and the fire dept. carrying him out on a week end afternoon. He said the cause of the fire was unknown and under investigation for arson, but it started far away from his apartment. So, I said, hi, how you doing, sounds interesting, and I'd really like to hear about this factory. (I like industry, and manufacturing, so I was being truthful)

I actually start staying here, and the first day or so meet a couple of the other folks who live here. We, share some charcoal and brats, and it's looking like a real friendly place. All of a sudden there's this really ugly confrontation between the bozo and this guy I'm sharing the grill with. The bozo borrowed $25 from the guy I'm sharing the grill with, and he's supposed to pay him back today, and all he's got is $7 for him. The guy goes crazy over the $18 bucks and wants to fight over it. So I try to put the fire out, I don't want to see anybody hauled off to jail. The whore with the guy next door starts drunkenly attacking me, it was a huge mess. FORTUNATELY, nobody got hauled off to jail. However, if I was managing this place, I would have tossed out the occupants of 4 units over it. The rational being, it doesn't matter who is at fault, it's not going to be a problem of this motel.

I worried about it for 2 days, then went in and paid another month ahead. Why? To see if the woman who manages this place would take it. If she's going to ask me to leave, she isn't going to accept another month ahead. She took the money, so I sighed a big sigh of relief.

Now, I have had a big confrontation with the guy who wanted to fight over $18. It's who he is, and henceforth he doesn't exist. No hello, good bye, or kiss my ass. He just doesn't exist.

Back to the clown from next door. He magically had a work related injury after 3 weeks. Wow, how did that happen. And he's got an apartment provided by his old landlord to move into. And he now claims he's in construction and his "partner" is going to re-roof all the cottages here. AND, he says the fire in his apartment building was electrical. Now how would he know that. I tell him there's nothing wrong with the roofs, and he gets real huffy and says I'm stupid.

Know what I think. The fire was sketchy, bet it coincided with the end of somebody's unemployment. The summer job was ready, so it coincided with that work injury. And why not collect workman's comp in one state while working in another?

I saw Lefty in the grocery store.

2011-05-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

First...... I was lucky. I'm here for another month. GOD was/am I lucky, but I'll get into that later.

Lefty and I talked for 5 or 10 minutes. It was good to see him. Nice guy, he wanted to say hi, but he didn't really want to listen to me rant about the company. From what he said, I'm wondering when the company goes up for sale publicly. Not that the company is broke or anything, but the owner is old enough and wealthy enough to get out. It's a sole ownership, so if they got a lunatic that did something 'newsworthy' with a cab, lawyers would be going after him. Yeah, he's got insurance but it's not cheap. I'm fairly sure that if someone offered him close to his price, he'd get out.

Lefty is a real good guy, I hope his life goes well, and I'll miss him. Most of the others don't realize what thin ice they're standing on. How so? Well..........

The company is in a growing market, but it's not growing. They spend almost NOTHING on sales. One of the reasons I was considered a trouble maker was I would suggest that effort be spent on new business. I was told, by the owner, that accepting plastic was the great move to drum up new business. No, I'm not kidding. That said............

They lost M+, I just found that out. They are losing almost all the rest of the MA (medical assistance) rides soon. They can barely keep 20 cabs out on week daytime hours. Roy Boy knew I'd be critical, and he knew this was coming 16-18 months ago, I think. (I'm very sure) So, all the loyal, ride it down in flames crowd, will end up abandoned. I wonder what that fat idiot who started the argument in the office will do for a living. The dispatchers will all go down the road, and who wants to add them to the staff at another company in town? Nobody, those jobs go to loyal drivers.

Thanks Roy. I know you only wanted to cover your butt, and you probably promised yourself that someday you'd fire me before you retired. Ok, you kept your promise to yourself. Now, guess what? When you get finished going down with the ship, you're unemployable too, and nobody is going to care. How many loyal friends did you shaft for that end? Idiot.

That's ok. I believed you were my friend. I'm an idiot too.

Miffland

2011-05-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

This last weekend (it's Monday morning and the party was Saturday) was the Mifflin street block party. Wooooo hooooooo. Did I attend? No. Fast Eddie had all my fun for me.

TV news says there were 2 stabbings. I wonder if that means stitches, or surgery........

The best scar I have on my face (whole body probably), is the one I picked up at my first block party. I was sitting on the rail of a second floor balcony/porch roof, high as a kite. And my friend Peter (don't recall the last name) was playing frisbee with a guy on a porch roof across the street. He let one go, and hit me with his back hand. That follow through will kill you every time. It knocked the lens out of my glass's, and it cut the nicest crescent you'd ever want to see in my cheek. My wife and I called it a day at that point, I went home, and miracle of miracles, with no stitches or other tending it healed so nice that if I wanted to show you the scar you'd have to search my face to tell me which side it's on. We would find it though, it's there.

There's nothing like blood to kill a good buzz.

What's it like to drive a block party? Really good, day shift or night, though if it's day shifts Sunday will be real good, and if it's nights Sunday will be real poor.

What's my situation? Well.....................

I had to move. Why? The folks who own the place where I was living usually rent all of the rooms to people who attend this car show/swap meet, and told me those people had the room reserved. My deal with the owner was to move out for 3 days, but it was super obvious that the people who take care of the motel didn't want permanent or semi permanent people, which meant they wanted me to not come back. Nothing personal, they just wanted the room empty so it's available for who ever. I'll refrain from commentary about this at the moment.

Where am I now? Lake Geneva area. Where the hell is that? Well, it's about an hour to Chicago, an hour to Milwaukee, an hour to Rockford, and because it's a 2 lane highway, a bit over an hour to Madison. So, if I was being true to my promises to myself, I'd be headed into the Chicago area to seek out trucks to load, instead of sitting here looking at the dog sitting next to the door wishing he could get out right this minute.

The place I'm in, like most of the rest of what you run into in life is good and bad. I'll try to pay my second month's rent today, hopefully the lady who runs this place will accept it. I don't know if I would or not. If she declines, I'll immediately start looking for my next place, and tell myself that I don't ever want this kind of thing to happen again. What happened? Well......

This place has 10 rooms. The guy who lives in the room 40 feet in front of my door, claims that the guy who lives next door to me owes him 25 bucks. It's probably true. The guy who lives next door says he needed to move in here because somebody burned down the apartment building he lived in before he was here. Hmmmm, bad feelings with his neighbors there, bad feelings with his neighbors here............ And he's a very smug SOB. 35-40ish. Inconsiderate (his friends come here and honk the horn because they're too lazy to get out of the car). He works nights, so he makes noise around 9 pm and does things like barbacue outside at 6 am on Sunday morning. I hope he moves at the end of his 30 days which is consistent with ripping off the other neighbor. If he rips this place off (consistent behavior), his rent will come due in 3 weeks, he'll beg off on not having it, and use it to rent his next place. He'll rent that next place for June first, and refuse to move from here until May 31, and leave owing this place a little over a weeks rent. He doesn't have a car. That would raise a HUGE red flag if I was renting to him, but you don't find out people don't have a car until they move in and you see they don't have one.

There was a HUGE parking lot conflict between them (the neighbors) over this 25 bucks. The guy who is owed the 25 is a nice enough fellow (mostly), and I tried really hard to convince him to let it go. Walk away. It's ONLY 25 bucks. This can certainly be seen as taking sides, and if the lady who runs this place views it badly, she could say to herself, all of them are gone. Him (the guy owed the money), them (the pair next door who owe the money), and me. If she decided to handle it by saying, ALL OF YOU ARE GONE, I'd say ok I understand and start looking for my next home.

The guy who raised all the hell wasn't around yesterday (Sunday). I took the dog for a super long walk, the landlady's kid walked past me and didn't say anything, which doesn't really mean much, but if he'd said hello it would have meant something. So..... When her car reappears in the lot, I'll try to pay June's rent. I hope I can stay here, it's as comfy a room situation as I've ever seen, the price is reasonable, and I really want some stability in my life.

She's home..... guess I'll go and find out, wish me luck.

A great line

2011-04-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

"On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." Told you it was great!

I have to move, AGAIN. It's not my fault, some things aren't anybody's fault, it's just the way something works out. I have high hopes, that the new digs will be an improvement. The dog just rolls his eyes and moans........................ He hates to move more than I do.

Slick Willy made one of the most astute comments ever made by a public figure in the United States, life isn't fair. I told the dog that, and he again rolled his eyes and moaned. I can turn that behavior off with a dog biscuit. Wish I could ping myself into the new digs with a dog biscuit.

The new digs will be about a block from one of America's greatest tourist lakes. If somebody had asked me if it was the coolest place on earth to live when I was 8, I probably would have said yes, and even said yes including winter in Wisconsin. So life will change a little.

I doubt I will ever again hit one of those writers groups after this coming Tuesday. Which is ok, the guy who runs the group would rather I didn't come anyway. He's a retired mailman, and he asked me why anybody would find a book about cab driving interesting anyway. After all, he has dozens of dog chases mailman stories. What would I call a book of cab driving stories anyway?

This bothered me a lot. Discouraged me greatly. Then it occurred to me that it isn't so much that he thinks the idea of a book of cab driving stories is dumb, he's jealous. Jealous of what? The world is full of stories, some of them are first person experiences, some of them are simply made up, most of them are out there in front of us, and we watch them happen every day.

Well, let's see..... I could say it's procedural. We have procedural cop opera's, how many dominate prime time? A bunch. We have story TV, stuff like 60 Minutes, and that's been popular. could we have mailman adventure? Sure. We had (have) a mailman, he's been a cab driver for over 20 years, as well as a mailman. We HAD another mailman, but he escaped, Opie is a mailman to this day, and he doesn't drive cab anymore.

Our mailman has had his ups and downs. Armed robbery is again a theme. He was a day driver when I started. He must have a hell of a mailman pension coming, he'd been a mailman for a while back then. Anyhow, like many of us, me included, he got greedy and decided nights was the time to drive. Then he got robbed. I don't know the details of that one, but I do know that it showed on his face for years, and that his wife said no more driving nights. And that stuck for a long time, perhaps 10 years. He's a night driver these days to the best of my knowledge. For YEARS I could see it on his face.

People who do stuff like that don't see it that way. They only see it from their own perspective. When the robbery is over, the robber is done with it, he's off work, and it's time to think about grocery shopping or otherwise spending the money.

Part of me thinks society is way too soft. There should be consequences for doing things like that. Consequences? Yes, consequences.

A couple of poor under privileged minority youth with a knife or something that looks (either is or isn't real) like a gun shouldn't have free rein to crap on some fairly innocent middle class guy who is simply trying to pay his mortgage. They don't have free rein? There are laws.... Yeah, right. They don't care if they get caught, they're young, they don't have anything to lose except a few hours of their time, and if they succeed they're hero's to their friends. The system almost forces them to do stuff like that.

And the cab company, what do they do about it? What would I have them do? I'm not sure. I do know this, the few of us who win such little incidents (regardless of the psychological effects of simply being in the situation) seem to leave for one reason or another.

too funny

2011-04-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/165925/crazy_japanese_port_o_potty_prank/

This is perhaps the funniest thing I've ever seen on the internet. Do watch the whole thing too, it looks like the same prank over and over, but it isn't. The second prank is much funnier than the first prank, and the first prank is pretty funny.

I'm not sure how many of my readers have ever used a portable john, I try to avoid them myself, they always stink. I do have a personal funny porta john story though....

When I first visited Wisconsin, a friend and I were hitch hiking. The end of the trip was East Lansing, my traveling companion was a Michigan State student. The plan was to take the car ferry from Milwaukee to Luddington, which we did (it is Sooooooooooooo cold on Lake Michigan in the middle of the night). Some guy gave us a ride out of Luddington, so there we were standing by a 2 lane highway just outside of town at about 5 in the morning. Who should pull over but a guy pumping out porta johns. He was heading to Lansing too, said we'd get there about noon. So we spent the last morning of our trip riding to every little town fair, and construction site that had a porta john. He'd get out, hook up the pump, run it for about 3 minutes, and toss in a roll of toilet paper.

When was the last time you got a ride in a truck pumping out porta johns?

Being a kid, justice, and working

2011-04-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

For no particular reason, a bad memory drifted to the front of my mind. This machine shop in Dexter, Michigan I worked in when I was young. What do I remember of the place, and what do I think of it now?

Regrettably, Riddle is the most vivid memory. It was front and center Vietnam time. Everybody was either a vet, or worried about how they were keeping their deferment. He talked a lot about his time in Vietnam. My most vivid memory of his ramblings was his description of killing some peasant's water buffalo. He was a door gunner on a helicopter, and one of his cute stories was wasting some of Uncle Sam's ammunition killing some poor peasant's draft animal. Using it for target practice. The other thing I really remember well about the guy was what he spent his own money on and how he spent his time. He had a flawless muscle car (mopar if memory serves), and spent his free time, after work, driving from one end of Dexter to the other, leading a little parade of losers like himself who also drove "real" cars.

Driving from one end of town to the other in a little parade of cars, and doing it for hours on end....... Talk about the essence of being a loser................

Anyway, the economy was falling apart, and most companies were really struggling to find work for their men and machines. Reminds me a lot of now. And when I think of it, it would ALWAYS be useful to have an employee or 2 who was always an inch from being canned. Why? Well, if they want to cut expenses, they get rid of employee X who is always an inch from being canned. You wouldn't want to be in a position to get rid of Riddle, for instance, who was real popular with all those farmer/machinists, who loved the army and hated communists. Why did any of them give a damn about communists? Who knows. It was kind of like wanting Michigan to win on football Saturdays.

Moral? If you're in a place were they have a designated loser, think real seriously about taking a powder as soon as possible. Why? Because if they ever have to get rid of him, the next loser might be you, and it's just a question of being in the right place at the right time. It has nothing to do with productivity, it has nothing to do with ability to learn the task. They wouldn't think of getting rid of Riddle, no matter what. And the boys, those farmer/machinists, well you can't get rid of A, B, C, D, E, or F, because they're all buddies, and it wouldn't be acceptable to get rid of one, if you don't get rid of all of them, or unless you're about to bankrupt. So, why would anybody want to work there? Unless they're one of the boys, who are farmer/machinists? Answer: You don't want to work there. And: If the farmer/machinists have any brains they leave for greener pastures as soon as possible too, because such a business model isn't going to make anybody, except the owners relatives any money.

A new muddy trail

2011-03-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

The dog and I went walking in the woods today. Nice walk too. Terribly muddy place. We ran into a half dozen guys, laying oak planks on the ground, they said they were building a bike trail.

Where we stay, we're kind of half way between an overbuilt "up north" lake, and that trail. It made me think about being a kid, and going up north. When I was a kid, up north was a place called Skidway Lake. Skidway Lake is actually a lake, but more than that, it's a hand full of lakes with a couple of church's, a hardware store, grocery......... My grandfather's sister and her family lived there. When I was a kid, there was no place as good as up north.

This town has a bunch of art gallery's, some bar's (they all serve food), some eateries that don't serve booze, a golf course, and an incredibly overbuilt lake area. I've never seen the lake up close without ice on it, that's coming up in less than a month.

By overbuilt, I mean there are 700 square foot houses on tiny plots of less than 2,000 square feet in some places. Picture being able to reach out the window and touch the house next door. It's not quite that bad, but close. In other places, there are million dollar homes on plots of land measured in acres, some on high ground that are seriously impressive. Why would anybody want most of them? By them, I mean the extremes, the low end and high end. Beats me. Much as I love a lake area, a dinky little shack that's 8 houses away from the water, and so close to the neighbors you can hear the alarm clock go off doesn't sound too great. Nor does a mansion where the tax's are measured in thousands per month, when it's less than a quarter mile from the shacks, and everyone shares that same little bit of water with the millions of motor boats on it. And if I wouldn't want the mansions at any price, I have to confess, it's a lake I wouldn't want a cottage on.

BUT......... if I was a kid.......

It's so congested that there would for sure be other kids. So, if I was a grandparent, and I wanted to have the greatest cottage up north for my grandkids, it would indeed make sense to have one of the shacks. When I was a kid, up north was great, but on weekends it got better when the few other kids came to the lake. That lake from my past was driving distance from the factories that made General Motors cars, and one way or another, that was the source of the money that supported those cottages up north.

That bike/walking/skiing trail that heads south away from town, is mostly for adults, but if I was a kid here, I'd know it like the back of my hand too. Why? That stream that flows through there has to have bass, pike, and probably walleye's. When I was a kid, I'd walk 5 miles one way, to sit next to a bug infested stream and try to catch a couple of 9 inch brook trout. Lunacy, right? My father certainly thought so. This afternoon, the dog and I, while getting covered with mud, ran into the mountain bike guys. They were out shagging oak planks out into the woods along side that stream.

Up north hasn't changed much in 50 years. It never made much sense. My dad never could understand it. I guess I've matured, it doesn't make sense to me anymore either. But I must admit, it's a great place to get covered with mud on a spring afternoon.

Mars Hopper

2011-03-18T03:38:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure why I was thinking about the guy, he's pretty much been gone for quite a while.

He got cut up in a robbery. Back then, many of the Dodge Diplomats had cloth seats. I got to drive the cab with his blood all over the cloth seat for months. I never liked it, but the company couldn't care less, so there was no point in complaining.

How would you like driving a cab with your friends blood staining the drivers seat? Not a trivial amount either, a lot of blood.

The bagel incident

2011-03-13T14:58:00.001-07:00

For the first year, I cringed every time anything happened. I was sure I'd get in trouble. People play this too. If I had ten bucks for every time some random stranger told me they were going to have my job, or otherwise hurt me significantly, and do it over just about nothing, I'd go and put a down payment on a house.

There used to be a regular Saturday morning delivery that went from Bagels Forever to someplace, and I liked doing it because I could get some cream cheese and bagels for me too. Bagels is on a little rise around a slight curve. Meaning? It's parking lot is a dangerous one to pull into and out of.

I parked in a marked parking place. It would have been possible to veer off University ave., up into the lot and broadside the cab, but anybody doing so would have gotten a ticket. I'm waiting inside for bagels, and this guy comes charging through the door and demands, "Who is driving that cab."

I told him I was. He shrieked, "Do you know what you're doing to traffic patterns out there?"

I replied that I was a cab driver, and didn't care what I was doing to cab patterns.

This guy was one of the very first people to call up and demand that I be fired. Henceforth, I was a little cagier about what I said, but his problem was he needed to scream at somebody on a Saturday morning, and I happened to be available. Since I didn't ask if I could lick the toe of his shoe, he decided he needed more, and come Monday morning, he had to take 10 minutes away from playing solitaire on the computer on his desk to see if he could get one of his inferiors injured.

Why wasn't he in the middle of that earthquake the other day....... Gee, there is no justice.

I'm glad I found a note I wrote to myself about this one.

The capital, politics, and a really great quote

2011-03-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from it's government.

Thomas Paine

Lately, the state capital has been a very public circus. I didn't care too much who got elected when the election for Governor happened. Most of us here in Wisconsin didn't care too much. We've had a few really popular republicans, Tommy Thompson was soooooo popular. People liked Dreyfus. Most of us here in Wisconsin didn't know much about Walker, so a lot of us didn't show up at the polls to vote against him. Vote against him? Yeah, pathetic isn't it?

So now, Mr. Walker is a national figure in less than 6 months. Did he do this for us, the people of Wisconsin? No. He did it so he can run for Senator, or President. Particularly President. Obama isn't that popular, and the world has "issues", so a bunch of republicans are thinking about who's going to beat him in the election coming up.

Do I want someone who did 'this' to the state of Wisconsin, just so he could make his bones as a national political figure, in the White House? No. Hopefully, the rest of America will think of it the same way and come to the same conclusion. Regrettably, this would mean we'd be stuck with that jerk for an open ended period of time, but for America, this patriot could live with him rather than see him screw up the entire country for his own personal gain.

Joe Butterfly's

2011-03-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

One of my driver friends had 3 dogs, now she only has 2. Joey is gone. I stopped by her house yesterday to say hi, it'd been a while. We, she and I and our 3 dogs, went out to Governor's Island for a walk around it. She's a night driver, and she needed to get ready for work so it had to be a fairly quick walk.

The 3 dogs were Betty Lou and Angelo, her dogs. And Gromit, my dog. Like all dogs, they love the island. It's a great place to walk, be a dog, watch birds..... It's a great place.

Joe was an English Spaniel, I think.... English retriever..... He was a tan dog, weighed around 30 pounds, and had floppy ears. He was a real nice pup. They don't come to the dog park much any more, and I don't either, but that's where I met Joe and Betty Lou. A matched pair of hunting dogs. Bet they've never been hunting, but most dogs never have been, that's not special.

Joe loved to chase butterfly's. It was really cute to watch too. Very much like watching a small child chase them. He was a really really good pup. We will all fondly remember him, I will anyway.

The old German woman

2011-03-08T04:47:00.000-08:00

I saw a reference to her, and to the famous Don. So, I'll tell you about her.

The famous Don, another time.

She and some other real old German folks got into the cab for an airport ride. I don't recall if it was to or from the airport, but there were 3 or 4 people in the party, and it went from this really old farm house out at the corner of Cottage Grove and Atwood.

There were huge trees, and the whole place was generally speaking, over grown. I'd seen her before, and I'd probably seen her companions too. I'm guessing they were 75 - 85 years old. It was an 1800's farm that had probably been a working farm until the 60's or 70's. I didn't think much of it, but I did remember her for some reason.

Then about 6 or 7 years ago, I had her again, and she went to an old folks home. I learned a little bit about her. He fled Germany when she was 8th or 9th grade. Her kids wanted to develop the farmstead so they took her out of her house, told her she couldn't live there, and were waiting for her to sign off on developing it or die, which ever came first.

I asked her if she liked her old folks home. She shrugged. I went and asked a friend about taking care of this woman. It would have worked out for my friend, the old woman, me, everybody except her kids. She told me if I cut my hair she'd discuss it, other wise not. I looked at her and said to myself, she's crazy.

She probably had no intention of discussing it. Just an elderly ass hole doing her little part for making the world like she wanted it, no long hair. Woo hoo. What a moron. But perhaps not, she might have simply loved that assisted living place, it wasn't cheap.

Mean while, her kids developed the place. 7 or 8 years later they still have condo's for sale, want to buy one? No? Gee, why not? Doesn't money grow on trees? Nah, the trees are gone, the first thing they did was knock them down. Just another brick in the wall.

you must check these blogs out

2011-03-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

http://abitchcalledmom.blogspot.com/
http://megalisfamily.blogspot.com/
http://seecevolve.blogspot.com/

The 3rd one reminds me of these 3 girls I drove past once at the corner of State and Lake. They were on the sidewalk on the Library Mall side of Lake, and they were doubled over with their drawers pulled down. Mooning State street. Must have been graduating.

All are cute. The photo at the top of the 3rd one is a classic.

The journy is the destination

2011-02-27T13:09:00.001-08:00

How did I get here anyway?

When I was young, I took a number of trips, where the trip was more important than the destination. The road trip through Key West to New Orleans. The walk about from central Michigan around Lake Superior to Winnipeg, through Fargo and the cities, to here and back to East Lansing...............................

Yesterday was a great day

2011-02-26T06:18:00.000-08:00

I saw a few of the old crowd. It was great. Almost like going back 25 years in time. Kev, Eric, Amy, Andrea, Bob, Doug, Jeff............................. I need to get out more.

After all these years, I now know how to tell Doug and Bob apart. Doug is the guy on the left. There are other small differences, I'll get to know them on sight now that I've made a start on it.

The last twins I knew were Mark and Steve. I was told they looked nothing alike, and after I got to know them well, I agreed. Before I knew them well, how did I tell them apart? Steve has one eye which is half green, half brown. Steve is the lawyer, Mark is the doctor. Great friends, I wish I still saw them too.

Pinhead...... I saw him too. He reminded me that I used to tell people that Pinhead, Pinup, and Diaper Pin, used to live in the Pin Cushion. I should give credit where due, Wild Bill (Amy's ex) was the person who named Pin Head's place, The Pin Cushion. Mrs. Pinhead, who I used to refer to as Pinup, had/has a name, since I'd rather not get sued, I'll pass on sharing it, I do remember her name, it has 5 letters. And, I don't think anybody ever referred to Pin's kid as Diaper Pin except me, and only when I was clowning for the tourists. I guess the young man is in high school these days.

Pinhead, as he was yesterday, is by far, the best Pin I've ever encountered. Unlike some people, he has aged really well, and I'd say he's a screaming success at life. I owe the guy a drink. I told him I'd buy him one, but he wasn't ready for one yet, and we went in opposite directions. I'll hunt him up and pay off next week.

I collected my money

2011-02-25T06:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I went over to the office and collected my money. All of it. The deposit, $100, was down for 22 1/2 years. The rest of it, a few hundred, was in what they called 'my account'.

Roy didn't think I was very nice. I wasn't. His notion of closure is we both stand there and smile, and think to ourselves, the other guy is a disgusting two faced bastard. This is supposed to be done while being a disgusting two faced bastard. I had no reason to play that bull shit game. He asked how I'd been, and I asked why he'd want to know.

I ran into Bull Frog in the drivers room. Now there's a disgusting man. He hasn't changed much in twenty years. The image of the Bull Frog that will stick in my mind forever is him in the dispatch office telling me and Jim Bob, he's going to call the cops on us if we don't sell him a top we have in a zip lock bag lying on the desk.

It was a beautiful top, picked up at it's day of perfection, in mid summer. It was probably 8" long. It had the good looks to make it onto the cover of High Times. Only, it was like smoking toilet paper. It burned, made you cough, and had none of the desired effect what so ever. It had been impossible to resist picking a top and bringing it to the office. In my entire life, I've never seen a bud or top that's in the same league, looks wise.

Where we got it, was over in Middleton by a pond, where small construction companies had been dumping 'trash' and fill illegally. Let's say you're a sidewalk contractor, you need to remove the old sidewalk, a little dirt, and take it someplace and get rid of it. You tell your guy, take it so and so a place. He does, runs up the box on the dump truck, and it's gone. Cool, you didn't have to pay to get rid of it.

Jim Bob was building a retaining wall, and the same thing was going on. He needed materials, broken pieces of sidewalk (larger than 24"x24"), to make his retaining wall out of. Viola!!!!! Look at all that wonderful broken concrete, just begging to be taken away. It was going to leave the same way it came.

So Jim and I are wrestling large concrete pieces into the back of his pickup, and I keep smelling this strange smell. What is that smell? I know I've smelled it before. What is that smell. Finally I looked up and saw 5 and 7 lobed leaves, saw toothed leaves, bright green leaves. Wow!! Hey, JB, know what this stuff is?!?!?!? We took our concrete, got rid of it, and came back in my car. JB jumped out, ran over and grabbed that top, and ran back to the car, and we took off quick. When we'd driven around in circles for 15 minutes, we figured we were safe.

That was when we broke out a cigarette paper and rolled up a doobie. JB took the first hit. I thought he was going to cough himself to death. He told me to use care. I tried it. It was GOD AWFUL. Another 15 minutes later, it was brutally obvious that it was the worst either of us had ever seen.

Does Bull Frog still indulge? He's supposed to get drug tested, but with so many things, the fix might be in. I wrote the computer program they used for years to pick random groups of drivers to test. It's flawed in a way that would let them cheat and protect particular individuals. They claim they don't do that, and they don't use it any more.

Gee, that's what the Bull Frog claims. He doesn't do that, and doesn't use it any more. What a coincidence.

The end of Xanadu

2011-02-24T06:56:00.000-08:00

Xanadu? Yeah, I lived there. Many, sort of wild memories. I loved the place, but I had to leave Ann Arbor, so I had to leave Xanadu too. Many great characters too. And the little intrigues in the house, like the John Adam's Memorial Closet, and the Death Patrol...... Sigh.....

What ever happened to the place? It was sold back into the Greek system. Last time I was home and checked, it was a frat or sorority, I didn't look close enough to determine which. What ever happened to the place? I killed it.

Say what? Luther would tell you the guy at the Detroit paper killed it. It happened at that last house meeting he (the writer) attended. Well, it is true, Luther came up to me after that house meeting and asked me to do something, and I asked him what I was supposed to do. Luther had watched me take the podium and tell the other members that they were doing something they'd really regret, and it is true that Janet Marquart, who was from here, called in March and said, "You were right, everything you said would happen, happened." Sigh..... Being right and three bucks will get you a plain coffee downtown.

What did I really do that was so bad? Why was it me, not the guy from the Detroit paper? I'll tell you: One day in the dining room, Scott Strahl was standing around with some other people, and I complained bitterly to him that Luther was an absolute idiot. Luther was an absolute idiot BECAUSE, if somebody moved out owing the house money, Luther would simply let them go. There would be no significant effort made to collect the money. So, why should anybody pay their rent the last semester they were there? They shouldn't of course! Only a fool would pay money if there was no consequence for not paying.

I knew immediately that I'd screwed up. How many people heard me quoted, and tried it out. And after it was seen to be true, it must have gotten really bad. At first a few people would stiff the house for a few hundred, and the percentage would increase every semester. Bad jig jig, as they'd say here on Fraternity Row.

I made that unfortunate (but true) comment about 3 weeks before I was to leave Ann Arbor forever. I wouldn't be around to apply peer pressure to dead beats. I wouldn't be around to que the office in on special problems so we could cut the loss's. But you always thought I was a bad influence anyway, didn't you Luther?

The only choice the organization would have would be to sell the place back to the Greeks, which is exactly what they did.

God, did I do a stupid thing. Luther do you hear me. And you did just as stupid a thing buddy. Didn't you understand that sooner or later somebody would see it and exploit it. It was just your own laziness, you didn't feel like going and doing the running around required to win the case and judgment you couldn't collect. You could run your own rental property that way, but not an organization with over 600 members.

At the time, Luther was the head salaried administrator of the organization, and he had an office down in the student union. He's long since retired. The Admiral used to do the wiring in his rental properties, so I knew more about him that most of did. Cryptic? You betcha, Xanadu and Bag End are worth an entire other blog, AND do I want to get sued for remembering the truth? No, I'll pass.

PS. Thanks John Jerko for being an honest guy.

PPS. The people, couple, I was complaining about was Tim and Erica. Erica was this little airhead who was, a sophomore or junior. Tim was ten years older than her. Once they started living in the same room, both of them stopped paying. They lived off the money her mom sent every month for her rent and expenses. Tim was supposedly in the comic book publishing business, but he was living off her and doing nothing. I watched them get farther and farther behind. Tim tried to tell me he'd had a heart attack, so he couldn't pay me the money he owed me. I told him that what he owed the house was the house's business, but money owed to me was my business, and he was expected to pay. I was very diplomatic, and he was very....... I don't know... I never mentioned a consequence, but I'm sure he imagined one. He was a pretty wimpy guy. He paid me a week later, I thanked him, and told him to never knock on my door again. An image I will never erase from my memory was Erica looking lovingly at a new blouse in the store dust wrapper, as she cruised through the front door with it. The rest of us paid for that blouse.

Gromit went shopping

2011-02-23T07:23:00.000-08:00

I must stop by Kinko's again, and put his photo on the web, so I can put it with this posting.

Who is he? He's my dog of course. Gromit Smiley Dog.

Why is he interesting? He took off Monday night, ran off into a blizzard, leaving me standing at the door staring out into the swirling snow. I'll spare you with how I felt.

He wandered over to the grocery store. It's always been a place of treats. Often, I buy a couple of pieces of fried chicken from the deli, and we share. Don't even bother with the, it's not good for him routine. He's always said, he never intended to live forever, and if he dies before I do, that's tough. He doesn't want to spend his old age mourning me in a small kennel with a concrete floor at the humane society, waiting to be euthanized, eating bland 'healthy' dry dog food.

I once asked him if that wasn't kind of cynical, and he told me not at all. He said that if it was a question of me crying for a month straight, or him being on a thin mat on that cold floor for ten days waiting to be executed, he'd much rather be eating fried chicken every day.

He does have an amazing gift for clarity, when it come to describing what really matters in life.

Here's what he did. He took off, and ran toward downtown for a few blocks. Seeing nothing was open, and no people were around, he changed course pretty quick. How do I know this? Somebody saw him on the sidewalk headed east. He got to the grocery store pretty quick. They close at nine, and he got there before they closed. He walked up to that automatic door, it opened, and he went right on inside. One of the customers decided to take the nice doggy who was lost home.

She called the cops from her house. If she hadn't taken him home, I might have found him, but I don't blame her for taking him home. I can only speculate if there was some, 'can we keep him' going on, and that husband who was at home said no way, look at the size of him, he'll eat us out of house and home, and we'll need a wheelbarrow to haul away the dog shit.

Did I sleep at all Monday night? Of course not. I did get pretty well versed on 'lost dogs', which might be worth the ordeal, but I'll only know that if the time comes. I mentally accepted being single, and I only cried a little.

It costs about $75 bucks to get your dog out of dog jail. Toss in the fuel for running around, and the other little details, and you've pretty near got a C-note. I could get ten - 8 piece fried chicken for that money. Do you hear me pup?

What a guy.... He just opened an eye from his nap, and spoke in that single word language of his, hmmmmmm, and said, "8 piece? Are you kidding? You never even buy those for yourself, let alone buy them for me. Once a month maybe, if I'm lucky, do we share one. So I should care?"

He closed his eye, and now he's twitching in his sleep again, chasing something out there in the woods. I'll bet it's a wood chuck, he likes chasing those things.

Last night, Tuesday night, with him beside me again, I got the best nights sleep I can ever remember getting.

Another story - and what is narcissism?

2011-02-21T09:57:00.000-08:00

I was looking at a commentary about something unrelated and came on this stuff about narcissism. My immediate reaction was, do I suffer (excessively) from that. Do I suffer at all from it?

Good question. I can only say that the most upset I've gotten a doctor in the last 20 years was the way I filled out his 'new patient' questionnaire. Guy was into Jesus, and he was looking for some kind of 'god put me here to do his bidding' answer to the question, "Why are you here:". I answered it, "Nothing has killed me yet." Then he wanted to argue about it, and I said, "Nothing has killed me yet, I'll be around until something does, and not one minute longer." He really didn't like that.

I believe that guy was losing his mind. All of a sudden, I'm real critical of a lot of older people losing their minds. There were a few in my life. My Finnish grandmother used to say she wanted to be allowed to wander out on the ice and freeze to death someday. Her grandmother who took care of her when she was a tot was 'elderly-crazy', infected her with it, and in spite of it not being a biological pathogen, I really think she was doomed from the time she was four to screw up every life she would touch for the entire rest of her life.

When I was in my mid 30's and a non traditional college student, my mother said she was going to put my grandmother (her mother), into a loony bin. I told her grandma was harmless, and to send her out here, she could live with me. My mother asked me what would happen if Jesus told my grandmother to kill me? I told my mother, that was such an absurd comment that I should dismiss it out of hand. Now, I wouldn't. Now, 25 years later, after she's dead, I have to admit, "Yeah Ma, people like Grandma are capable of doing things like that, only I'm way too hard to kill. I'll take the chance, not because it couldn't happen, but because she couldn't pull it off." Now, ESPECIALLY now that I'm getting up there in age, I know how bad you can hurt from head to toe, just moving around, and even if Grandma did out weigh me by more than 50 pounds she was totally incapable of holding a pillow over my head, awake or asleep.

Where was I............ oh yeah, the Jesus freak doctor. Well, that guy poisoned me, about 100 weeks ago. Why would he do that? So, I'd be broken financially, and out of desperation I'd have to seek out Jesus. Sick, right? Regrettably, I'm absolutely certain that's what went down. Would I offer his name or the details? (do I want to get sued? ah, no) Was his sick relationship with Jesus a lot like my own grandmother's? Unfortunately. Yes, Ma, I should have listened to you. Historians note that when Nazi Germany was falling, a huge number of people found god. Take away an old person's warm place to live, food, booze if they're a drinker, and... it figures.

It never ceases to amaze me how many screwed up people are running around out there. In the 'perfect' world we had 2,000 years ago, there was no societal support system to keep propping people up. So, 2,000 years ago, we didn't have supermarkets, TV's, or many elderly who were crazy.

When that guy (the doctor) was 55, which isn't that old, the rest of the medical community stripped him of everything but his license to practice. He was no longer a surgeon. I understand why now.

(Please, if that kind of thing ever happens to me, let me wander off into the cold. The thought of being that fucked up is really repulsive)

The fictional character Olivia Soprano has really struck a nerve, and I really see Virginia McPhee in her. (the name on my mothers high school diploma)

Oh, yeah......... The other story. Here goes: Years ago, when I was in college I met this guy who grew up out in the plains, became the all American success story, and was hiding something totally unacceptable from his family, the people he grew up with, the professionals he worked with as a young adult, the people of his small home town, the people he worked with while learning his craft............. Everybody! AND, if my hunch is correct, the driving force that made him such a screaming success, was precisely the reason he can't ever go back to his home town to live. Strange isn't it? Add memory of Dave Dixon to material to work with.

I mostly have a couple of snippet length images in my memory of the guy, and 'his story', but I'm seeing a lot of potential in it. Why?

Well, I was the opposite. There is nothing about education I could not have handled. I like reading. I like problem solving. There are specific things I don't do well, but you don't have to do those things well. I've never done Physics or Chemistry labs well, because I ran out of time perpetually. Solution, avoid those two areas, I did, and it wasn't a problem. With enough burning desire to be a chemist I could have done those labs, but can everybody be top 2 percentile in every thing? Not really. How did I actually do? 1.88 grade point average in high school. Passing grades in college, but how well you score in college is in large part a function of how well prepared you were when you walked in the door, and I wasn't. (prepared, that is)

I was acceptable to my father, and his theory was if he pounded the shit out of me enough, I'd be even better. The guy I thought of, got along great with his father. In large part, his burning drive to achieve was solely to avoid letting that father who thought so highly of him, see who he really was. Did his father ever see who he really was/is? I doubt it. Shame isn't it?

The Soprano's

2011-02-20T06:22:00.000-08:00

I acquired the first 3 seasons, and I've been watching them. That's where I was exposed to the term 'vig'. I hadn't heard it in at least twenty years. The quality of the the story, continues to amaze me. Part of me wonders if presented in novel form would it would be mediocre? Some of the details of family's they're able to weave through it are really really good. And I love the shrink, I'm almost tempted to go talk to the guy I used to talk to, to see what he thinks of some of the stuff in the story.

Tony's mother and wife are particularly great characters. His mother because she's such a monster, much more dangerous and evil than Tony, and his wife because she's always there in Tony's shadow, being the strongest character in the story.

Tony's mother tries to get him wacked. She tries to get her brother in law, Tony's uncle to do it. Then she tries to get Artie, the restaurant owner to do it. The shrink is reticent to say, "Well, Tony, your mom is your worst enemy, and she'll kill you if she gets the chance." Tony wants to be a good son, and take care of/respect his mother. Being a good son, nearly gets Tony killed.

I see so much of my family in The Soprano's, especially my mother. When I was a kid, I wanted to be in my dad's business, and he screwed me over until I moved away from southern Michigan. But my mother....... And she had 2 sons, one she loved without qualification. Brother Eric flushed everything my mother had when she was in her mid fifties. Those of us who are over fifty can appreciate how bad an act that is. He was a rotten kid, he was a rotten man.

My mother's father, our grandfather didn't approve of my brothers behavior when he was a kid or an adult. I can remember being about 12, and my mother coming to me and saying that my brother had over heard my grandparents talking and they'd said I was their favorite, and it hurt Eric's feelings. What was I supposed to do about that? Was it true, or one of my mothers made up facts, which she would swear on her soul was true? I think she was lying, but what was the object, why? Was I supposed to go to grandma and say, 'You need to love Eric more.' What 12 year old is supposed to do something like that.

My mother's mother also has a link to Tony's mother. She was raised as a small child by her grandmother. She spoke of her grandmother as a religious saint. She grew up in a small log shack a few miles south of Lake Superior, in the sticks of the UP. I have to wonder if a lot of her behavior as a middle aged to old adult was the result of having a real sick (alzhimers or something similar) real elderly person exclusively taking care of her when she was real small. I'll never know. I only know, I didn't accept her crazy act, and when people wouldn't tolerate it, she got lucid and sane pretty quick.

When my brother was thirty, if there was life insurance on me or some other current profit, would my mother have wanted to see me dead, so she could give Eric even more money to flush? God, I love that Olivia Soprano character. And I love the shrink saying things like, 'well I was reluctant to call a spade a spade but your mom might be out to do you real serious harm..........'

Tony Soprano gives me questions about my own father. Tony is very real. Vito Corleone is more make believe. I can picture Tony being someone I run into from time to time. Tony is a very real character. My dad didn't want me in his business, road building, and why is anybody's question. Was it because my dad didn't make his money honestly? Good question. I will say this, he owned a vice cop. How did he get to know that cop that well in the first place? Why would that cop screw around with some random Joe-Blow if there was no profit in it? Were there cops like that in my hometown? Sure, that was before their modern age of great wealth.................... And does their modern great wealth make them above reproach? If you believe it does, I have a swamp in Arizona I'd like to sell you. I wish my dad was around so I could ask him about a lot of this stuff, and I wish he trusted me enough to answer me.

Did my dad hang around in a 'coffee shop', back in the day? Yes he did. It was a bacon and eggs joint called Fowlers, which was on the corner of Stadium and Liberty. If he wasn't home, my mother would tell people, to look for him there, just like Carmella would tell people to look for Tony at Badda Bing.

Sigh...................... Great fiction, really is.

The vig

2011-02-18T22:34:00.000-08:00

Vigorish.

I was looking at a friends blog and he's making these observations about vocabulary. One of the words he found interesting was Vigoda, which is the name of an actor from my child hood.

A word I learned at 12 (the old old office) is vig which is short for vigorish. It was explained to me by Timmy. Timmy deserves a place in my stories for a number of reasons, I wonder what ever happened to him.

A different time. All the PSHA crowd, Timmy, and the word vig. I should expand on this and him.

The beginning of a new collection

2011-02-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

In a .txt format file I have a growing collection of first chapters. It's very educational to read them. I read them out loud to myself too, perhaps I'll get to a point where I have them memorized.

My new collection is publishers, and the first in the collection will be:
http://www.openroadmedia.com/

Why them? I don't have a good reason, I saw a reference to them somewhere and went to their web site. Maybe they were on 60 Minutes or something. Anyhow, they do have some authors, and I'm actually familiar with a couple of titles by their authors. Small world.

On a similar but different subject.....

In the process of working on that first chapter, I discovered a couple of reasons why people go to fiction for stories that are really memoirs. You can't remember all the tiny details well enough to fill in the stories in your book, so you say to yourself, oh well, that's what fiction's for.

For instance: I well remember when I made the decision to move to Madison, Wisconsin. How many details do I need to fill out the scene that I can't remember? And how many of them can I look up, so they're accurate? Well, Terri (to become my second wife later on), and I are sitting on the end of Francis street. It's late June or early July, nice warm day, and we're arguing about something. What? Who knows. All that #*@%^ ever wanted to do was argue about nothing, or something there was no control over anyway. Francis street runs into the lake, literally. I'm sure it was some kind of boat ramp many years ago. There's a bluff/hill on the east side of it, and at the top sits French House. On the west side, the low side, sits the DU house. There are wonderful trees with a canopy of leaves over us. So, we're sitting there in the shade, listening to the waves lazily lap against the pavement, arguing over nothing. Sitting on the curb.

There's a guy sitting on the curb on the opposite side of the street, that we weren't paying any attention to. It's a public place, and we're not slugging it out or anything, but she's got to argue. I wish I'd had enough sense to get up and tell her to find her own way back to East Lansing, and walk away. I know what she would have done, called her dad, and he'd get to rescue her, yet again. He lived for that. God, he was such an idiot. Anyway..... back on subject...... We're sitting on the curb about 15 feet from the water lazily lapping the end of Francis street, across from this guy we don't know. ARGUING, as usual.

The guy introduces himself as Jerry. He asks us if we'd be willing to shut up, if he got us stoned. Terri would always stop arguing for a joint. So, Jerry got us stoned, and I said to myself, "Here we are sitting by this beautiful lake, in this great campus district, and this guy has a joint for us. What a great place. I want to live here."

And that's how I chose Madison, Wisconsin. Now, where do I go with that...... Perhaps a longer work that is a collection of arguments with that idiot. But I'm really glad I made that realization about her father being a moron who gloried in saving his daughter. In a lot of ways, she's just like my younger brother was. Too many ways. Only, my mother wasn't as stupid as her father was. Nice guy, I really liked him, but stupid........ So stupid. And let his wife lead him around by his nose. And, WHY would she want a man like that? He was pudgy, stupid, didn't make much money.... She was pretty good looking, ambitious, had family behind her, what did she see in him? Sigh.............. who knows.............

Since I bored you..... (sorry bout that) Chapt 1?

2011-02-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

......Yet again, I'm rewriting chapter 1 -- what/where I am this morning. ( from 1/1/89, 3am.)

I pulled up to O'Cayz looking for a pair. A guy ran out to the cab wearing only shoes, slacks, and a t-shirt. He was in good spirits and wanted to go to State street so he could party on. I had one in and two pairs to get, so I didn't have room for him. For a drunk, he was real nice about being told he couldn't get in. As I watched him run back into the bar, I couldn't help noticing the back of his t-shirt. It was black, probably from other men walking on him. Then a woman wearing an evening gown and her date hurried out. They carefully weaved through the dozen or so men wrestling on the ground in the snow. I pushed the passenger door open so they could slid into the front seat before one of those drunks grabbed one of them and dragged them into the melee. I was really pleased when the woman said Breeze Terrace. That was the destination I was looking for, they were my passengers. I didn't have to tell them I couldn't take them. I put the Dodge into drive, and pulled away.

Her date, sitting next to me in the middle of the front seat was a sight. One arm of his tux was hanging by a couple of threads. The back of his right hand had a knot on it the size of a golf ball, surely caused by a badly broken bone. She was wearing a beautiful evening gown. Over and over she said, oh you poor baby. He wasn't bleeding on my cab, but his general appearance could only be described as, all beat up. I thought to myself, "Yeah lady, that's why you spent five hundred bucks on an evening gown. So your boyfriend could get himself in a bar brawl and get all beat up."

Four blocks later, I was sitting in front of The Fess, tooting the horn. A couple hurried out and piled into the back seat, their destination was State street, specifically The Pub. They had the trademark New Year's Eve hats and horns. They were loaded, the cab was loaded, everybody was happy, and I hadn't even gotten to the square yet. All short rides too! I swung around the corner onto King street, every light the city had was on, giving it a surreal look. There was a line to get into The Majestic, at least thirty couples deep. Both gin joints on the other side of the street had lines too.

Slush

2011-02-11T12:52:00.000-08:00

We all know what slush is, and god knows there's going to be a lot of it out there in the very near future. It's supposed to warm up to just above freezing, daytime temperatures starting tomorrow, so all that knee deep snow will start to melt. Then we get black ice (snow melt water that freezes into slick ice at sunset), and everybody who is driving professionally would almost be money ahead to park it for a week, rather than risk higher insurance premiums.

In publishing, slush refers unsolicited queries. I'm not sure if it's the whole query, or if it's just the sample of the work the author is hoping they'll publish. I do know that reading slush is considered drudgery by the people in the business.

An agent turned author had a contest of sorts on his blog. Post a first paragraph on the blog in the comments and it's entered. The winner basically gets an agent. No, I did not win, nor did I make it into the finals. BUT, I did enter. A step forward. Next time, I'll do better.

Which brings me to what I'm really thinking. First paragraphs......

The last time I seriously thought about writing a paragraph (that I remember) was when Kennedy was either running for, or had just become, president. A long time ago, to be sure. After that, instructors assume you have already learned basic English, and don't present it again. And why would you care anyway, if you can speak, you can write. This makes sense and works fine until someone expects you to do a good job on something longer.

Which is where we come to that first paragraph, and that "slush pile" on a literary agents desk. 100's, or 1000's of submissions (they call them queries), and if that agent is late for his kids little league game, he might not care how good the top query on that pile is.

My reaction to this is to get myself a big collection of first paragraphs. I can't keep them on the internet because I don't want somebody chasing me around over copy rite issues, but I can keep them in a file on a disk, and study them. I'm not scanning them, I'm typing them in, so book by book, I'm seeing what finally made it into print. AND the comments of that agent who got to judge the finalists of that contest begin to make a lot more sense.

Why didn't my 4th grade teacher tell me about this stuff? I seriously doubt she had a clue. She'd just gotten her Mrs. degree, was only minimally interested in teaching, and was just like a lot of the other morons teaching in the public schools in my home town back then. She was putting in her time, and putting her husband through grad school (another big 10 town), and wanted a nice neat little formula she could use in class. She had NO CLUE what a paragraph was really used for, and didn't care. I'm sure she's a grandmother today, and I'll bet her ears still touch. Oh well..............

Back to transcribing those first paragraphs.....

What's funny anyhow?

2011-02-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

Back in the day, I used to sit in front of the awning at the Essen Haus if there was nothing else better to do. One night I'm sitting there, and Mike and Neil drag this struggling guy out and toss him on the pavement. Back in they go. Mike's the door man, and Neil 's the bouncer.

The guy comes up to me and asks me if I'll give him a ride to Langdon st. I say ok. He gets in, and we're off.

Almost immediately he's telling me what happened. One of the things you learn is you don't have to ask, usually they'll tell you what happened. If they're ashamed of what happened they won't tell you, and it doesn't matter if you ask or not.

He tells me he went there with his room mate. That's pretty common. They were drinking a pitcher of beer, sitting at the bar. Also pretty common. It's a week night, and on week nights they don't have that UUUoom Paaaahh polka band going. If you go there, it's to dine or more likely to drink. German beer on tap, and the best freshly made warm soft pretzels you could ask for to munch on while you drink.

He gets up and tells his room mate he's going to the bathroom to relieve himself. We all know you don't buy beer, you rent it.

He comes back and his room mate is cracking up. He asks the guy what's so funny. The room mate just snickers on trying hard to control the giggles and breaking into fits of laughing his ass off. Just what the hell is so funny?

So he takes a sip of beer and asks again. The room mate goes bonkers, laughing his ass off.

Finally after much pressing, the room mate confides that what's so funny is he pissed in the guys beer. It was only 3/4 full, so he unzipped his pants, slipped the stein down under the bar and topped it up.

What would you do? Almost anybody I've ever met would be ready to kill the guy. He acted just how you'd expect.

Neil doesn't wait for explanations, he breaks up fights and tosses people out. So the poor victim got tossed out, and was sitting in my cab telling me the story.

Now comes the punch line, sort of ....................... The guy tells me that the ultimate insult, what he's really really really pissed off about, is that his room mate is still inside the bar drinking. They didn't boot him out, so he can't kick the guys ass!

You've got to wonder what happened when the guy who didn't get kicked out finally got home.

Evolution

2011-02-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

This blog started out as a collection of cab stories. I'd read Hack and said to myself, I've got so many more stories, and better stories.............

I told myself that when I started actually writing the book, I'd go back through the posts, and one by one take them down, as they went into the pages of the book. Otherwise, I wasn't going to go back and read my own writing. Lately, I did a little reading of my own writing, and it's evolved. I now see why people don't write in certain ways. You don't say, "Ah, yeah................ Ah, am, er.... and so forth", before you begin to speak like you would if you were actually speaking. Readers won't tolerate it. They just put the book down, or click into the next website, or what ever they do. When I started this blog, I put that stuff in on purpose because it's how I'd actually tell the story if you were in my cab listening. I, the reader would put the book down too.

Perhaps my writing has improved.

There are a few reasons for reading those old posts. How many of you keep a diary? Do you ever read that diary? How much value is there in reading your own diary?

I came across a letter that I'd written to my daughter. I've written dozens of letters to my daughter, and only ever mailed 2 perhaps. Last time I saw her, she was 5. All the stuff I'd write to her is on real paper, so to get it here I'd have to transcribe it. Last time I talked to her, she told me I'd have to do some really off the wall things if I ever wanted to talk to her again. Some time later, my mother told me she'd had second thoughts, but what she'd said to me was sufficiently off the wall that I said to myself, I should be afraid of somebody with that much hate in them.

How did I come to be talking to her? I had hunted her up on the internet, I sent an email to someone who was probably her. Bingo, it was her. I'd sent an email to one, Lisa Sherrill Schumaker of the Tuscon, Arizona area, employee of the State of Arizona. Over the years, she'd kept in contact with grandma, and my sister, but not me. I was this monster or something, and everyone was to hide her from me. Something she probably never realized was how off the wall my relationship with my mother was. Her total image of me was the one painted by my mother, her mother, and her mother's family. Great portrait.

Back in the early '70's her mother figured out that it was much more profitable to not have a husband. She had a live in boyfriend who paid 1/2 her rent, and a female room mate who paid 1/2 the rent on the house, and she went to my mother and grand parents frequently with her hand out asking for more money to tide her over until next months child support check came. I'm sure she never hit on her own family. In spite of the fact that her father was a salaried consultant to a major automaker, and a tenured professor at the University of Michigan, and a staff officer in the US Air Force, he never had any money. Just like her. She asked my dad once, and he asked what she was willing to give him for it. For ever more, she'd claim that my dad had propositioned her.

So do you ever read your own diary? Huh?

A dangerous Ground Hog Day

2011-02-02T06:05:00.000-08:00

I've seen cold, and I've seen snow, but..............

Last night was the first time I've ever laid in bed and said to myself, if the electricity goes out, I'm in a lot of trouble. I thought of the flashlight, and said to myself, "The truck will start, and the tank is full." The last time I really remember something like this was when I moved here in January of 1979. I lived in a huge old converted frat house on Lake Mendota, south shore. I can remember watching those waves of snow sweeping up against the house off the lake. It wasn't scary then. It never occurred to me that the heat or electric could fail. Where I'm at as I write, the heat is electric, so if the electric failed, well, the dog and I would be in a lot of trouble.

The national news, (NATIONAL, not local, NATIONAL), mentioned 7 cars out on an Illinois interstate highway, about an hour from here, stranded for over 12 hours. They say a snowmobile club is trying to rescue those people from their cars. Before I moved here, I'd seen blizzards before, but they were pretty warm compared to here. Heavy wet snow. This snow is really cold, and blows good. Snow that blows good, creates drifts, and it doesn't take a drift over the top of your house to put you in a lot of trouble. A drift across the highway that's 12" deep is enough to trap the car in front of you, then your, then....... A truck sliding off the highway can drop an electric pole that will kill the power for 1,000's of people. And, as if it wasn't bad enough, they say that tonight the low will be around -10, which is around -23 centigrade.

The news people have been making a big deal out of the 'thunder' snow. I heard the thunder last night, and it didn't worry me that much, but perhaps it should have. Another way to wipe out an electric pole and kill 1000's of peoples power is a lightning strike on a power pole. Where there's thunder, there's lightning.

They say that in Indiana the electricity is out in places and they don't expect to restore it for days. They also say there is an inch of ice on some highways. I've been through Indiana in a truck during a storm like that, it requires very careful driving. The biggest problem in a storm like that is you can't get off the highway. Imagine pulling down the exit ramp and the only place you can go is back up the on ramp. And the on ramp looks kind of sketchy, but you can't park in the middle of the highway, so back up onto the interstate you go. Indiana is a lot warmer than here, so they'll get warm air and rain that will burn it off.

In Egypt there are riots with soldiers trying hard to not kill people. The news just announced a molotov being thrown from the roof of a building into a crowd of people. The result of the unrest in Egypt is a 10% overnight increase in the price of gasoline. So in this neck of the woods, gas is around $3.20/gal, and diesel is around $3.40. That means that driving a truck around is getting pretty expensive, figure a dollar a mile for where ever you're going, round trip. Wow, a trip to Seattle, just for fuel, is around $2,000.............. Wow............

Oh, yeah, the ground hog. Since he's under snow, he's unlikely to see a shadow. So, why should he be scared of it, and go back inside. If I was the ground hog, I'd be digging a tunnel through the snow looking for some frozen greenery to eat. So, I'm guessing, the ground hog prediction will be early spring.

One of my first lessons

2011-02-01T16:09:00.000-08:00

That first fall, back in 1988, I drove Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. I started as early as I got it together to show up, and I had to park it at 10 am.

There was a regular ride that went out of De Forest at around 5 am. They'd read it off, and take bids like normal, then say, the same guy was up, every day.

I tried hanging in the north, I tried hanging by the end of the airport runway. Not even close. What was going on?

They'd lied to me when they hired me, and when I was trained. They told me that sitting on time calls wasn't allowed. Sitting on a time call, what's that? Joe Blow has a regular ride at so and so a time, and it's a big money ride. So, you go and wait for it. 1/2 hour, 45 minutes, what ever it takes, as long as it's worth it. It's done in all cab environments, dispatching or no dispatching.

It was my first serious exposure to the lying and cheating that is the norm in the business. Eventually, I was there when Mader showed up one morning. Nobody was happy about it. But it stopped being his personal shift starter. 3 days a week, it became my shift starter, most of the time. How early did I have to go there? About an hour early. Coffee and the Wall Street Journal became the start of 3 shifts a week.

parlay card

2011-01-27T10:21:00.000-08:00

When I started driving, I saw something I'd never seen before. Parlay cards. Perhaps I'd led a sheltered life.

They had them in the office. I don't recall any drivers being interested in them, only the dispatchers and non management office people. I don't recall when they faded out of the picture, it was many years ago.

I mentioned them to a friend, and he smiled broadly. Then came the story of a 7 team parlay he almost made, 6 of his teams won. He'd prefaced his comments by saying he'd never been interested in gambling. I guess it's not gambling when it's a couple of bucks, kind of like a state lottery ticket.

Only, I know a plain working stiff who buy's at least $60/weeks worth of scratch off tickets. Sometimes more. Sure he wins a few, but I'm sure he has a net loss of $2,000/year, minimum. That's actually a lot of money. At least as much as the sales tax he pays.

What I wonder is, which one of them was running the parlay cards? And, when he finally couldn't pay for it, what happened to the guy who screwed the whole deal up? And, did the parlay cards simply move over to the bar (that goes un named) where they all play pool tournaments a couple of evenings a week.

Hmmmm, would that fellow allow them to be run out of his bar.............. I'm pretty sure I know how he'd handle it, he'd tell the first person he saw selling them, it was the last time he was going to see one, or the last time he'd see that guy, which ever came first. He'd accept that they were being passed there, but passed not seen.

Fear and cowardice

2011-01-24T19:43:00.000-08:00

Fast Eddie has said that if he was going to get in a bar fight and he was only allowed to bring one friend, he'd want to bring me. It's a joke, of course.

A well trained cop can tell you that some people appear very calm when they're terrified. Most people act normal, and appear terrified. I think this quality of appearing calm is a liability. Most people think you're not afraid, and when it's men, often what's going through their mind is, "Well who do you think you are? Billy Bad-ass?" Then they posture and act as if you are Billy Bad-ass. They usually don't take a shot at you because they know they're not real good, and that makes them more dangerous. They're standing there looking for a cheap shot to take, a preemptive cheap shot, and if they get the chance, they might panic and actually take it.

How do I know all about this? That should be obvious. In case it's not, allow me to share a traffic accident I was in in Oklahoma a few years back.

My log book was so far behind that bringing it up to legal was hopelessly out of the question. Some how, a white Cadillac had gotten in front of my truck, and I was pushing it down US69 sideways, at 65 mph. When I realized it was there, I took my foot off the accelerator and let everything coast to a stop. As I jumped down off the ladder (cab over), the fellow who'd been driving the car was getting out of the passenger door of his caddie. He was visibly shaking. We asked each other at the same moment if we were all right, and both answered that we were.

Imagine that. A car, semi truck collision, that happens at 65 miles per hour, and not only does nobody get hurt, but both vehicles are drivable. Simply amazing! I knew I was going to jail, and when I took my foot off the accelerator, I looked at the dog and told him I was going to jail and he was going to the pound.

When the cops and the TV cameras arrived, they asked me if I wanted to sit in the back of the squad car. That was when that cop knew he was dealing with one of the strange people who look absolutely calm when everything has gone crazy. I calmly told the cop that I was as upset as I ever get, and asked him if he'd let me sit with my dog in the truck. He said, "Ok."

To the cop and all the other people standing around that accident site, the driver of the truck appeared as if nothing had happened. The cop knew better. The cop knew I was as terrified as the guy who'd been in the car. The TV news people were probably more interested in film of the vehicles. Talking to the guy in the car was normal to them, he was visibly terrified. He'd been sitting in a car with the head lamp of a semi truck on the other side of his drivers window, riding down the highway sideways. He was shaking.

I was up in the cab of that truck in an instant. I knew at that point they weren't going to ask for that hopeless logbook, and I wasn't going to jail. It was an unforgettable moment, if ever I had one.

The truth is, I accepted that I was a coward when I was real young, probably in elementary school, but for sure before I finished junior high. Being a coward shaped every life decision I ever made. And make no mistake, children start making life decisions pretty young. Think about it. When did you make your first life decision.

Am I still a coward? Of course. Being a jock in school when I was a teenager might have given me skills, but I probably would have been even better at figure skating. As an adult, people confuse aquired skill with courage.

Ex cons and criminals

2011-01-24T08:51:00.000-08:00

We constantly see statistics about prison populations, courts, and crime. How many ex-cons do you know? In my little world, there is only one, he's a guy I only ever met once, and so far I like him.

A guy I don't count, who I've run into many times, is in a county jail for back child support. His son is 27 now. He was unemployed anyway, his living conditions were primitive, and he may well be much more comfortable in that county jail cell. An unemployed dead beat doesn't qualify as a criminal, does he? I mean, if he was a real criminal he'd have money and pay his bills. Right?

A fellow who won't exit my memory, is a kid I didn't meet driving cab. His name was Creston. He helped me move a neighbor of his. Very nice kid. He worked hard. When we finished, I paid him the pay any other man would expect for such a days work.

I ran into his former neighbor in the grocery a few months later, and asked about him. She said he was in the county jail, awaiting trial for some kind of robbery charge. She said, he and some other kids of the same ethnic background had gone out and held up a couple of white college students one night. She said his mom was letting him rot in the county jail awaiting trial.

This woman went on to say that Creston's mother had confiscated the money I'd paid him. His mother was supposedly angry that I'd allowed her son to have money, his own hard earned cash. His mother just happened to be a student at the U at the time too. Her major? Criminal Justice. Her educational track? Pre law.

Well, Creston's mother, did that money spend good at the mall? Did you think, even once, about the future of your son? Or, is it the case that you're guiding his career intentionally?

Just a question.

I'll try to write the post I had in mind tomorrow.

Never go to a funeral early

2011-01-20T07:22:00.000-08:00

Fast Eddie told me 3:00 pm. I think I showed up around 10 to 3, but wasn't looking at the clock. I was the first cab driver. Only the intimate family had arrived earlier. Funerals are for the living. I shook Doug's sister's hand and told her I was a cab driver. As I write this, I wonder if she'll remember me of the cab drivers. I didn't see any of the others say hello to her . Only Christine asked about the family, and actually she only asked among the drivers if anyone knew which person was Doug's girlfriend. Perhaps Doug's sister will associate me with the drivers. Doesn't matter. I don't care.

Doug was a night driver. It's an odd brotherhood. You'd have to be one to understand.

They had a bunch of photo's, Doug looked like his mom, and his sister looked like his father. Doug in general looked like he came from Rockford. Rockford? Yes, he really did come from Rockford. Back in the '90's I did quite a bit of business in Rockford, and more than a few people in Rockford look a bit like Doug, or should I say Doug looked like them. I'm betting his mom comes from an old, old family. I always thought Doug was a good looking man. His mom was probably a looker when she was young.

It was hard to be alone at the funeral parlor. I got up and walked around a couple of times. When Fast Eddie arrived, it got much easier. I'm thinking a dozen to 15 drivers showed up, and all 4 cab companies were represented.

When Eddie and I sat back down, there was a guy about 4 chairs to my right that I didn't recognize at all. He was one of the day dispatchers from my first weeks driving, and he still dispatches. He's a daytime only person, so I hadn't run into him at work in years and years. When he said something, that voice rang clear as a bell, I knew who it was. He's never gained a pound. He was well dressed, could have passed for a business man. It's odd that a little of his hair is really dark, and the rest is gray. It's still curly, he still has it all, still wears it the same way, but neither he nor his hair look right. That hair was and should be very red in my mind. His comment was that he's glad he still has it. I know exactly what he means.

It took me until about the middle of the service to figure out that the little wooden box up at the front of the room was Doug. His guitar was next to it. In the presentation, they showed photo's of his dog, and said he and his dog were reunited. Hmmm. Dogless............. The depression when you lose a dog you're really close to is bad. Have I ever recovered from the loss of my first dog? Probably not.

They showed photo's of places he loved. Doug and I had the same taste. Perhaps that's why I got along with him. I haven't visited Devil's Lake in years, but when I lived in Baraboo , I went there all the time. I started to say I took my dog there too, but I don't know about that. It's a state park, and I remember climbing those rocks. Would Petie have climbed those rocks with me? Probably not. I do remember the artesian well at the dog park in Baraboo. We went doggin there a lot. It was really had to look at the photo of Doug's dog. Harder than it was to look at his photo. I don't like to think about losing the dog I have now to old age.

Which brings me back to depression. It was the dead of winter, and the middle of the first real serious cold snap. The winter money for a night driver is good, but sometimes you don't see much of the light of day. They say he went home from work, and died. He was only 52. Nobody found him for 3 days. Nobody had any reason to think it was anything other than, he just died. A blood clot in his brain perhaps. A friend who used to be an EMT said he'd picked up a 3 day dead body once or twice. The kind of body you'd just about have to burn. Well, it doesn't matter now. But I wonder.

When the service was over, I stood and walked away from the cab drivers section. Went straight up to the front of the room, where the little box was, next to his guitar. I placed my hand on the box, about like you'd put your hand on the shoulder of an old friend, and said, "Good bye Doug." Then straight outside. I said good bye to no one. When I was a kid, my grandmother had to spend 45 minutes socializing after church, every time. That was quality time, when I could have been fishing. That's why it's something I never do.

Good bye Doug. You now know, or for an instant knew, the answer to the eternal question. I wish I'd gotten to know you better when the opportunity was available. I will miss that smile.

Good bye Doug

2011-01-19T06:59:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I will see my estranged family. The occasion? Unfortunately a funeral.

Douglas Robert Blomquist, was a night driver. I'm thinking he'd been around for about 15 years, but I don't really recall when he started driving. He was experienced, he knew what he was doing when he started here. I have no idea where he drove before Madison, Wisconsin.

Fast Eddie called yesterday and told me of the funeral. I don't know what I'd do without him.

I found yet another login to a site for writers. I'd given up trying to remember the site. When my previous laptop died, my access to it died. The password was no problem.

What I'm thinking is that there are a hell of a lot of people who want to be writers. That's nice. What do they want to write? Lit class exercises? I accepted being unable to write when I was 10 years old. I accepted it for a lifetime. Obviously, all these would be writers never had that obstacle.

What 'lit exercises' should I write? Perhaps some based on the Xanaduvians. I wonder what ever happened to that fellow from South Africa. Kind of funny story, but I can tell it because the only name in it didn't do anything she'd be able to sue me over. Her name was Andrea, and she probably disliked me more than any other house member. If memory serves, she was lady natural, one of the whole grain mamma's in the house. She had a brother in the house too, Jack. Anyway, Andrea really had it in for me. Then the fellow from South Africa cruised into the house one evening. He was looking for something. He found what he was looking for.

I asked him how he ended up in Ann Arbor, he told me he was a draft dodger. Ran to England rather than shoot people out of a helicopter in SA. He got a real good job as a computer programmer. His company transferred him from Leeds, England to Ann Arbor. He was real young too. As in, 21-ish. He must have been a REALLY smart kid.

15 minutes after he left on his first visit, Andrea was at my door, and she was real friendly. Would I introduce her to my new friend. Yeah, right. He was cute, she wasn't, at least in my estimation. I don't recall making the introduction. Why would I want to do something like her to my new friend? She didn't think of it in those terms..... Raging hormones. Even the biggest politically correct jerks have that going on when they're young it would seem.

Another funny story is the house member who wrote Lesbo Cult. That's a funny story too, I'll bet he got a whole $100 for it. He'd always claimed he was a writer. He had the right prerequisites, he drank too much, didn't fit in in a Hemingway-esque sort of way. Does he rate being remembered by anybody? Nah, he doesn't rate being remembered. Worth remembering is the fact that he was free to live there. Equal treatment for people, in a cooperative setting. The way cooperatives should work. Reflections of The Principles of Rochdale.

Another great blog, I should read this one daily

2011-01-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

http://howpublishingreallyworks.com/

And daily is the way to read it, because it doesn't come with links to all the back posts.

I was really interested in these publishing blogs and people a while back. Not so much anymore. Anymore, I see a small point of light at the end of the tunnel. Today's task is to finish chapter 2. I've got to integrate the retired Army Major, and retired school teacher who were the first 2 people to rip me off as a cab driver.

That's really great isn't it? A retired military officer, who has a great pension, and a retired school teacher, who also had a great pension. Both of whom, lived in a luxury old folks community. Based on their behavior they're no different from the first guy I ever got the cops to take to jail for skipping out on a fare. Common thieves. And, if you'd like to discuss it Major, I'd be happy to call you a thief to your face.

That first guy? If memory serves, his name was Larry Ford. The whole ride he spit on the floor of the cab and repeated that he didn't 'pay for no god damned cab rides'. Then there was the woman he lived with who came out of that welfare shack and offered me about 1/3 of the fare in nickles and penny's. God, she had the worst rotten teeth I've ever seen. It's amazing what a black guy will latch on to just so he can say she's white............. But I digress.

Anyhow, you're in fine company aren't you ladies? Especially you Major.

Went cybervisiting today

2011-01-16T09:13:00.000-08:00

Visited a place I haven't been in almost a year. http://blog.nathanbransford.com/

That guy has 1,000's of followers. I used to be interested in him because he was an agent, and I thought I'd find an agent before I had a book to sell. He's still pretty interesting, but he's given up being an agent and become an author. Looks like he writes kids books.

I logged in as an alter ego of mine, that I haven't used in almost a year. I can only imagine what I'll find in the deepest alter ego, never log into blog...........

Now that I'm writing, I'm less interested in agents. When I get more written, I'll be more interested, I guess. It's moving on pretty good too.

Junk

Junk is something
You always keep
You keep it all
Heap by heap

You pile it up
Beneath your bed
Or maybe outside
in the shed

Now and then
You'll search it out
And find the things
You could do without

You'll throw it in
A boat that's sunk
And next day you'll say
You needed that junk

I had this poem transcribed on a sheet of paper and needed inspiration to toss stuff out. Well, I need to toss that poem out too. Wish I could say my kid wrote it. Oh, well, now I can toss the hard copy.

Talkies

2011-01-14T07:33:00.000-08:00

Since I first saw Ken Burns first major treatment of history, "The Civil War", I really liked that sort of presentation. The old photos, with someone explaining the history, sort of like an old primitive movie. Only it isn't Chaplain, or some 3 Stooges type thing, it's interesting.

So, while looking for the explanation of a mining term, I came across a very cool website. They have some really nice "movies", which I really liked. The website is: http://www.heritageaspen.org/ahs_home.html
and it's about Aspin, Colorado. When watching the mining movies, say to yourself copper, and northern Michigan, the lake Superior shore region, is really similar. The mineral they were after was copper, and it's similar right down to hiring divers to come and try to pump the mines out after they were allowed to fill with water during a strike, which is what killed the industry. My Finnish ancestors were copper miners when they hit the US around 1900 and didn't speak much English.

My personal travels have included Colorado, but only the flat part. There is a highway from Denver to Cheyenne, and from that interstate you can see the mountains, but the area you are in is pretty flat. It smells like cow manure when the wind is right, they have a lot of feed lots in the area, and produce a lot of the steaks we have in the grocery store here in the midwest. The locals claim they don't smell it, I suppose..... It's a pretty area, expanses of green prairie as far as the eye can see to all directions except west, and to the west the mountains rise like a wall out of the prairie. If you've never been to Boulder, it's at the bottom of the mountain, about 20-30 minutes north of Denver. From Boulder you don't look west at the mountain, so much as you look up, like straight up. I guess it's cool. People sometimes compare it to Madison, I don't think so..... We don't have the rich people from Orange County driving up the price of homes here that they are rumored to have there.

Allen Hall

2011-01-12T10:41:00.000-08:00

I was downtown yesterday, as in State & Lake. That's as downtown as downtown gets. I wanted something from University Book Store, and for some reason, I blanked on the Hilldale location, which is cool. Everybody in town should walk through the intersection at State & Lake on occasion.

When I first moved here, The Towers and The Statesider (2 private dorms really close to State & Lake), were called Allen Hall.

At that time, the national drinking age was 18 for drinking all 'beverages'. The old tradition in Wisconsin was that you could drink at 18, but it was 3.2 beer. During the Vietnam war, the public demanded that 18 year old's be given the right to drink. The reasoning was, 'Old enough to die in Vietnam, old enough to drink.' So, here in Wisconsin, the taps at the student union started serving real beer.

When I moved here, you could get a beer at the student union if you looked old enough, and practically speaking, most people over 16 looked old enough. So, almost anybody could go up to the bar and get beer. A pitcher of beer cost a dollar, and the deposit on a pitcher was a dollar. Watch somebody get up, put their coat on, and stumble away from an empty pitcher on their table, and you could cash it in for a pitcher of beer for yourself.

I've digressed.......

Allen Hall was a residential facility for "challenged" people back then. Ok, challenged is too politically correct, call a spade a spade. They were crazy people. Like most crazy people, they were supposed to take "meds." Most took them of course. Then these 'challenged', medicated people would cruise over to The Memorial Union and get a pitcher of beer. And why not? They were old enough. It was only a 3 block walk, and 3 rather short blocks at that.

As you may have correctly surmised, the combination of meds and beer got them more than a little looped. What do looped crazy people act like? Great mental image, isn't it?

So, the University of Wisconsin decided to start carding people not for a drivers license, but for a student or staff ID. It was said that it was a membership organization, which it is, I have a life membership to the union, anyone can buy one. That was the beginning of carding people, in the early winter months of 1980.

Now they card you for age and membership.

Was it a fun place? I went there a lot, as did all my friends. I guess the answer is yes. Did we ever push those heavy wooden tables together in front of the band stand and dance on the tables. Yes, we really did dance on the tables.

One of the things that I thought of was "experience", in the context of being a cab driver

I thought I knew Madison

2011-01-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

When I started driving cab, I did think I knew Madison. Most of the people in town also think they know the place. Oh well.

I happened to remember a guy from my college years. There were a bunch of us who used to hang out together, have lunch together at the Union, things like that. Most Jewish, and most Nicolette HS. alumni. I was kind of an odd member, I was in my 30's and from Ann Arbor.

At the time, there were a bunch of Palestinian's who hung out on State st., and at the Union. Most were older men, 30's and 40's, but a couple who were young. There was one in particular who was young and good looking, and he was dating this really good looking Jewish chick who'd attended Nicolette. All my friends knew this girl, and all had something crappy to say about her choice in boys. She was making a statement, they were making statements, and the boy she was with, well he was making a living for himself. How so?

Before I go into how so, allow me to explain that these guys were here on some sort of government program designed to feed the poor, and make the world a better place. Thank god they used up all the money in the program or wore out their welcome, or what ever they did. Like many of our current resident aliens, they weren't people you'd want living next door. Anyway.... How do I allow myself to digress like that...........

I'm walking back from the front desk at the Union (back then they sold cigarettes in addition to news papers and candy), looking down at change in my hand or a Cardinal (student paper) or something, and I almost walk right into the beautiful young Palestinian boy. He was looking down into his hands too, so he also almost walked into me. Why wasn't he looking where he was going? He was fishing a glassine envelope out of his wallet to give to one of those tough looking older men. In that glassine envelope was a white powder.

I went back to the Rathskeller, and sat back down with my friends and 5 minutes later, beautiful young man brought back every rough looking old buddy he had. Must have been 15 of those guys. They all walked past me, single file, very slowly, and looked me in the eye, fixed gaze. It was very tempting to say something like, "Koose ama.", but I decided my friends didn't need the kind of excitement it might have generated.

What was the young man's business. Does anybody need for me to spell it out?

Eh

2011-01-09T07:24:00.000-08:00

That's Canadian for, 'right on.'

I will never forget a bill board I saw in NW Ontario. It was a hand with a cigarette between the fingers, and the caption, "Eh."

For those of us in the US, imagine a hand with a Winston, and a pack of Winstons, with the smoke curling up from the lit ash, and the caption, "Yeah."

If I'd had any sense at all, I would have gotten lost in the woods and never managed to find my way home from Kenora. Perhaps Canadian smokes had something to do with it. I never cared for them.

Hebrews 4:16

2011-01-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

There is a Saturday morning fishing show on TV, and during a commercial break they work in a biblical devotion. Ok, it's the sabbath, I suppose....

Anyway, this quote they introduce should apply to the majority of the "Christians" I've ever met in my life. The guy on TV says it means to pray specifically, not generally. The idea is that a prayer like, "Bless everyone", isn't a valid prayer. You need to pray specifically, something like, bless my wonderful dog today, make it the best day of his life. Then tomorrow, I'll again pray for tomorrow to be the best day in his life.

Why would I pray for my dog? He's the most important creature in my life. Those of you with a spouse, pray for your spouse if that's what you do. My dog holds down that spot in my life.

I must pull my mother's bible off the shelf and look that verse up. My mother's bible? Yes, it's the bible that her grandmother gave her for confirmation when she was 14 or 15, so it has the handwriting of my grandfathers mother, wishing my mother well in it. One of the things I collect for some odd reason, are handwriting samples. I have one of my father, mother, grandfather, and so on.

Sabbath? Saturday morning? Well, my second wife............... But that's another story for another time.

I added a most wonderful home touch to my living space

2011-01-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

It's a simple radio. A nice, basic, AM/FM clock radio that you can probably buy at Wal Mart for under 10 bucks. How many years has it been since I've had one? I can't even remember, which means it's way too long.

Programming this afternoon was classical music. Classical music is so much better than TV. I can write with the radio on, no chance with the TV on. Right now it's afternoon All Things Considered. Why did I go so long without NPR. Sigh.........

Lead story is about education, and the military. According to the story, there are way too many teens running around out there who can't qualify for the military. Further, of the ones who do qualify, many don't qualify for good jobs, and are only qualified to carry a rifle or wash dishes.

What is the real problem? I have an opinion on this matter.

There is no shame in having stupid kids. There is no shame in having criminal kids. Basically, nobody is responsible for the fortunes of their kids. Responsible in the eyes of society, that is.

Anchor babies are ok. Having a bunch of kids so you get child support or welfare is ok. Is there any penalty for the parent if these kids they are using to support themselves with don't succeed in United States society? Nope.

As long as this is the case, our society will continue to decline.

In my home, both of my parents expected the schools to magically raise their kids for them. Did it work that way? No. Does it work that way? No. Is this the limit of the problem? Regrettably, no it's not. Let's say you're a 4th grade teacher, and Johnny's mom disgusts you. You'd like to try talking to Johnny's dad, but his attitude is children should be seen and not heard, and if Johnny doesn't come home a high achiever it must be the teachers fault.

Really? Yes 4th grade teacher! Johnny has my genes and if he doesn't achieve like I have, or think he should. it is your fault for not teaching him. I pay tax's and send him to school, that's all I'm responsible for.

It's also his fault for not learning, and he will be severely punished. Punished without end, his entire childhood.

Has anything changed in 50 years? Not from what I see.

Speaking of 4th grade............ Allow me to share the biggest impact my 4th grade teacher had on me. And before I share it, allow me to also share something I was exposed to in a Comparative Literature course at the University of Wisconsin.

Ever heard of Edgar Allen Poe? If you have not, you are unusual. Most people have heard of the guy. He's one of America's great authors. What kind of stuff did he write? Horror stories.

Ever heard of E. T. A. Hoffman? Probably not. You have heard of one of his works. The Nutcracker. Everyone has been exposed to a ballet called The Nutcracker, or a child's story, or the simply the music. All owes it's beginnings to a German author named Hoffman. Well it turns out that Hoffman wrote horror stories. And, Poe read those German stories written by Hoffman. Then Poe turned around and rewrote them in English, and to this day most Americans credit him with writing these stories as original stories.

When I was in 4th grade I saw a real cool episode of Twilight Zone on TV. The story they used was the legend of the Flying Dutchman. The way it works is you get in a loop in time, and can't get out. Sort of like walking in a circle when lost in the woods. We were given an assignment to write a story. So, I wrote a story similar to the Flying Dutchman. That 4th grade teacher who didn't like my mother, and didn't like me, made me feel like a criminal. She punished me for doing the same thing Edgar Allen Poe did, as an author. Who was the criminal?

I never wrote anything again until I struggled through fundamental Lit at the University of Wisconsin, 25 years later. It's amazing who they give a license to poison a child's mind to, isn't it?

Ah............. Folk music! Sunday night folk music. It's as good as it was 30 years ago.

A rare character

2011-01-01T15:29:00.000-08:00

I met somebody who impressed me yesterday. He's a few years older than I am, and he was complaining about being his age. I told him he looked really well preserved for 70 something, and he is. A rare character, truly rare.

On a more somber note, I found out why I haven't seen Carl lately. He's an amazing character too, but in a different way. Happy holidays Carl. You have a brother, and I'm not him, if he's not helping you there must be a reason. Besides, I have an excuse. I don't know what your last name is, so how do I help you?

But I did think about it. And I did ask Tom if he had any idea how much it would cost to help you.

And now, back to watching the Rose Bowl. The Badgers are down 1 to the Horned Frogs, and it's half time. The Badger marching band is on the field, and it's half time.

I, a native of Ann Arbor, noticed that Michigan got wacked pretty good in the Gator Bowl. I never was a Michigan fan, but I did go to high school across the street from the Big House. Mighty Michigan wouldn't let me in. I'm a Wisconsin alum.

Go Big Red!

Game is over..........................

Sigh.......... The kids from cow town got it done. Well done TCU.

And sure enough, Andy Dalton squeezed a bible quote in, on camera. A true north Texas boy. Have a great pro career Mr. Dalton.

Donnie

2010-12-31T15:37:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about some of the regulars the other day. The old man who used to go to Snicks, Linda S. who is blind, and I suddenly thought of Donnie. Perhaps it was because I'd been watching old movie footage of American troops in Vietnam.

Ever seen the movie, Forrest Gump? Forrest was a hell of a soldier. Donnie was a hell of a soldier, and he really fought in The Nam. I don't think he ever got a drivers license after he came home. And I will leave it to your imagination, I wouldn't want to be less than complimentary. He and another fellow out ahead of the rest of the men. He was a man on point in a jungle patrol. He said his last memory was an explosion. The other fellow on point with him tripped a booby trap. According to him, it was a while before he woke up, as in days or weeks. Seems like he said he woke up in Germany, but I'd have to see him again to ask to be sure. It doesn't matter what VA hospital he woke up in, seems like he said he was there for a long time, as in more than a year. He was one of those people that all the drivers know, and I can't think of anyone who didn't like the guy.

My last memory of him? He was happily talking about a trip to Hawaii. A vacation. I'll bet he's still a happy guy. So much like Forrest, only happier, much happier.

Have a great New Year, Donnie.

The first chapter of the book

2010-12-30T08:53:00.001-08:00

The version of the first chapter, that with minor editing will be permanent, is written. It went off to a couple of friends this morning for their opinion. As the chapters of the book are written, the corresponding blog entries will be retired.

Perhaps the great Canadian trip.......... Yes, why not? How did I end up in Madison, Wisconsin anyhow. When I chose the format and beginning, I'll share that story, as a blog.

By the way, there is a significant little twist to the cab driving book that has never appeared in the blog, and will not appear in the blog. You'll need to bop down to the local library to get that part of the story, actually buy the book, or ask an old time Badger driver about it.

Rescue the driver

2010-12-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

The usual reason you rescue the driver is because the cab broke down. These rescue cab rides are handled the same as any other charge ride that is a person ride (as opposed to a delivery, which pays a different fare). You pick up the passenger at the specified location, fill out the charge slip for the fare, charge the fare to the company, and take the passenger to the destination. The charge slip, like all charge slips, goes in your envelope, and that goes in the slot at the end of the shift.

Lean Jean was the first ever driver I rescued. I want to recall it as off Granada Way, and I want to recall it as a robbery. It is a frequent move on the part of bad guys to take your keys as well as your wallet. They don't want you to be able to sic the police on them before they're safely gone. So, frequently the driver needs to be rescued.

It took a number of years before the hollow look left Lean Jean's eyes. She eventually recovered, but the few bucks that changed hands nothing compared to the trauma.

I guess I want to say it took me a month to recover from mine. That said, take into account that first of all I won, which is pretty huge. Second, take into account that it lead to the compilation of the 5 knife stories, and the passengers loved them. If I have sufficient requests, I will share them here.

All in all, the money is always trivial. It is NEVER proportional to the trauma.

In a future post, I think I may share 3 robberies where significant blood was spilled. That happens too sometimes. It's a rough business.

The story of the crockergator

2010-12-29T08:23:00.001-08:00

A friend asked for the story of the crockergator. Well, she didn't really, but she did ask what a crockergator was, which is sort of the same thing. I was told this story around 40 years ago. It's designed to have a dig in it about a minority group, but that doesn't keep it from being funny.

And after you've hear the story of the crockergator, here's something you can do. If you're sitting around buzzed, say about 10 minutes after the pipe went around, quietly whisper crockergator. I can still picture my first wife's face, she'd turn and say, "Did you just say crockergator?"

Then you say, "Nah, what kind of BS is that?"

And it can go back and forth for 10 minutes. Yes you did. No I didn't. And at the end, you both laugh your ass's off. Now.... the story of the crockergator.

Picture 3 really poorly educated fellows sitting on a porch in Chicago, on a hot summer day. (fill in the ethnic slur of your choice) The first one says, "Do you know what the meanest animal in the world is? It's the lion, because the lion tear yo ass up."

The second fellow says, "Nah man, it's the gorilla, cause the gorilla tear the lion's ass up."

The third fellow has a sly grin, and he's slowly shaking his head no, back and forth. He says, "Nah. It's the crockergator."

Second guy says, "Crockergator?! You mean Alligator."

Third guy's grin widens and he says, "Nah....! Crockergator. The crockergator tear the gorilla's ass and the lion's ass up! He got alligator head at one end and crocodile head at the other."

First guy says, "Well, if he got alligator head at one end, and crocodile head at the other how do he sh#t?"

Third guy says, "That why he's so mean!!!"

To those of you out there saying to yourself, what a jerk, telling a story like that, all I can say is every ethnic group has 3 guys like that. Mine, yours, and all the others too. If you can say that none of your folk tell ethnic stories, all I can say is your folk must be better than mine. Are your folk better? And, did you chuckle?

To tie this back to cab driving, something every cab driver should have is a collection of really good stories to tell to customers. If you can make them laugh, they generally tip better.

Rescue the passengers

2010-12-27T17:04:00.000-08:00

That is what they say when the cab breaks down, or gets smashed up. I really remember the first time I ever rescued passengers quite well. It was the corner of Park and West Washington.

It was a Saturday or Sunday, I was working a 3a-3p. All morning long this maniac had been zooming all over downtown, snatching stuff from right in front of me, and I'll assume everybody else.

When you've got a ride in, the dispatcher should simply give you the fitter. Give you the ride in front of you that goes with the ride you have in. But there are times when that doesn't happen. This morning it wasn't happening.

Who was this guy? He contested every call, and he never left downtown. I distinctly remember him stepping on my fitter in the 300 W. Washington, he came up the incline doing at least 45, in a semi residential 25 and did a U turn 100 feet in front of me to get in front of the house. The dispatcher let him keep it too. Who was this guy? A new guy for sure, nobody on the street knew him. Maybe a dispatcher knew him, but none of us did.

If I'd pulled that kind of crap the dispatcher would have yelled at me, taken the call back, retaliated by not giving me any calls for an hour. It just wasn't something that should have been tolerated. But it was.

Then around noon, there was a call to rescue the passengers, and I got it. Sure enough, it was that new guy. He'd T-boned a car in the middle of the intersection. Totaled both of them. I asked the lady who got in the cab what happened. She said he was sitting there watching the light, and when it changed, he floored it. Well, gee, there just happened to be a car stretching the yellow, and it was right in front of him. No matter! The light changed. Boom.

The lady telling me about it was pretty amazed that somebody would do that. All I could do was sigh, and say to myself, it figured. The only guy they ever let me train drove like that and I told them to not hire the guy, and they didn't. They also never let me train anyone again.

The moral of the story? Doing the right thing, and having the company's best interests at heart doesn't mean a thing. Simply doesn't.

Oh, yeah. We never saw that guy again, they did can him, and to the best of my knowledge he never came back.

I was also an over the road truck driver

2010-12-20T09:17:00.001-08:00

Something made me think of: the gun case story. I'm glad I did, because I can write it and polish it and get it published. It's a great story, and it's another of the little parts of my past that make a good tale. But first, I guess I should perhaps explain how it relates to cab driving.

Cab driving is seasonal, so the money gets poor in the summer around here. That first summer, I'd go and sit at the airport after my formal shift was over to make a few bucks so I could have a profit on the day. You can't do that now. A guy named Hicks used to keep his cab out for hours after the end of his shift, which resulted in the time clock in the office. Now, they make you pay for those extra quarter hour units of time, and they're very expensive. And speaking of that jerk, I well remember the night he brought his kids to work in the back of his station wagon. It was a cold night, fall season, and his kids wrote stuff like, "Save us", in the condensation on the windows. Really bad show, all the way around..................... Where was I?

Oh yeah, summer alternative income. I got into house hold moving. Company's like United, Atlas, and North American. That was pretty good for a while, make great money in the summer, and go back to cab driving in the fall.

So, I'm getting empty in Naples, Florida. North American put a single item on me, which paid real well, considering it was a single item. It was a gun case. It was stunning. Made from the finest walnut, it had a taxidermy scene in a center section of the case that was a group of quail running through the grass and sand. Brought back memories. There were quail where I grew up, and I'd forgotten the little quail family running single file through the grass. Of all the furniture I ever hauled, it was arguably single finest piece of furniture. It really was stunning.

When I got to the twin cities to deliver the gun cabinet, I was told I'd have to wait until after 4:30 pm. to get the paperwork signed. It delivered to a fairly modest older home, with a ratty garage, in an old working class neighborhood. It was a neighborhood full of small homes, and this one fit right in. They had 2 kids, boys, about 10 and 12. Nice looking kids, very blond. The house keeper was a foreign national from someplace like the Dominican Republic who spoke good English. She cleaned the house and watched the boys until mom got home. I brought the cabinet in, unwrapped it, and sat down in the living room to read the paper and wait.

It was almost 5:00 when mom arrived home. I stood up, introduced myself, and offered to hand her the clip board so she could sign the bill of lading. I understood her reaction, but was still really taken aback by it. She immediately snarled, "Get that thing out of my house."

I should have taken it with me, but I didn't think of that until I was driving away.

She told me to put it in the garage, which had a leaky roof. Oh well, it's not my stuff. I took it down and made a spot in the packed with junk garage. It was right next to 2 other fine quality gun cabinets that showed the effects of being abused by the elements in that garage. Then I went back inside and got her to sign for it.

What I saw in my minds eye as I drove away was a well to do grandpa. Probably lived on Marco Island. When he was bringing up his son, they hunted together. They were his finest memories. The finest memories of an entire lifetime.

His son and daughter in law probably owed everything they owned to grandpa. His son had chosen a wife primarily based on looks. She was tall and slender, very blond, and very attractive. The kids looked just like her. She was one of these, we don't have guns, we wouldn't hunt, we're not that kind of people, types. I had to wonder if it was worth it. And I said to myself, she's not worth it. She doesn't give a damn about anybody except herself.

I then wondered how old her sons would be when they discovered the real pecking order. Or if they ever would. Mom loved mom first, then the kids. Did she love dad? Probably not. She was willing to tell the guy she loved him, but what she really wanted was grandpa's money. He just wasn't dying young enough to suit her. Then I wondered which one of those boys would be saddled with her in 30 years. I just wondered........................

Cab driving the job

2010-12-18T18:03:00.000-08:00

It's the only job where you can come to work hungry, horny, broke, and sober, and have all your problems solved in an hour.

The movie

2010-12-17T00:58:00.000-08:00

I forgot I owned a copy of Taxi Driver. I was shuffling my tapes, and there it was.

I'll watch it a couple of times in the next few days. The scenes in the coffee shop where 4 or 5 drivers are on break are very realistic. Wizard's comment that you take a job, and you become that job is very realistic of cab drivers too. Some escape, some do not. That coffee shop on break, or that bar where a lot of the drivers go after work is where you transition from not knowing anybody, to being one of the group. Being one of the group doesn't mean you're well liked, it only means everyone knows you.

It's also true that most people become a nick name after some period of time. People named Jonathan, who will only tolerated being called Jonathan simply will not make it.

At this point, I'd like to offer a line that I attribute to Sandy Van Sickle, who escaped in the early '90's if memory serves. "Everybody's doing something, all the time."

Think about that line. What does it mean?

Lesson #2 ,of the how to drive a cab posts

2010-12-16T19:35:00.000-08:00

Lesson #1 was primarily, how to get stopped by a cop and not get a ticket. Lesson #2 will continue the theme of dealing with the cops.

I know of NO JURISDICTION where the police will help you collect your fare. That doesn't mean it never happens. In 21 years, a handful of times, I saw a cop shake down a dead beat for the fare. Once or twice I even saw them make the dead beat pay the waiting time, but usually they would do nothing to collect any money what so ever. Most of the time they don't even want to write the ticket for not paying.

Why don't they want to write the ticket? It's real simple, cops want good numbers. Good numbers means they want a lot of convictions, and a good conviction percentage. I once asked a cop why they don't enforce the noise ordinance on these cars with the obnoxious sound systems. He said, "Because judges won't give us convictions."

I asked him what that meant, and he said that you write the ticket, the guy who gets the ticket shows up in court and contests it, and the judge dismisses it. He's guilty, no question of it. He knows he's guilty too. So what?

The guy who gets a ticket for not paying a cab fare is probably a low life who, has plenty of time to show up in court. He's going to lie and say you insulted him, or made him late, or what ever. The judge is a busy guy who wants numbers too, and he knows from experience that many cab drivers do sketchy things, and say objectionable things. It's your word against the low life, so the judge will probably tell both of you to refrain from wasting his valuable time in the future.

Does the cop have to show up in court for this? Probably, and he's not getting his numbers either. The judge knows the cop wants numbers, and there's no better way to tell him to not waste the courts valuable time, than to dismiss the ticket.

Result? Everybody's time got wasted. The low life tells a great story about beating they system to all his friends, and doesn't have to pay either the fare or the ticket.

What will the cops do for you? In my experience, probably 1/2 the time when you call the cops, somebody goes to jail. Why? Well, a lot of people have warrants out on them for not showing up in court, or are behind on their child support, or drugs.

Then there's drunkeness too. If this jerk looks visibly drunk, the cops can take them to jail for public intoxication. If he's got drugs on him and the cop has some free time, he might wind up in jail for that. Another thing you want to do after it's over, pull your back seat and check the ashtrays. Why? Those drugs might be under the back seat or in the ashtray. I have had that happen. What you do with the drugs is up to you.

The title of the post with the first lesson is "I found a direction to write in".

Puffie & Alex

2010-12-16T17:03:00.001-08:00

I was tying to remember these guys and couldn't. Alex hated my guts, why I never found out, then I saw a reference to Merrill, Wisconsin and instantly remembered both of them.

Over the years there were a few pairs of good buddies among the drivers. When I first started driving, I was pretty good friends with a guy named Dennis. Dennis claimed he was in some kind of treatment program, booze I think, and that his life at the moment was basically all a scam. Well, if you're busted down to nothing, why not get free housing intended for drunks while you work your way up to having a couple of bucks free to rent some place. Dennis and I both drove 3am. to 3pm. shifts on Saturday and Sunday. I'd complain to him about the night drivers refusing to bring the cabs in. He'd just smile and chuckle, "Night drivers rule."

Dennis was gone with the end of the school year. Probably with the end of the snow, I don't recall when he left.

Alex and Puffy were both night drivers, who may never have driven a day shift. There must have been some mystery night driver who offered enough instruction to let this happen, contrary to what some people believe, it's not that easy to make a pile of money at night. Alex left town and moved to Washington, D.C. Puffy supposedly has an eatery in Milwaukee that his father bankrolled. I hope both of them are doing well.

Why was Puffy named Puffy? His full nick name was Puff Boy, and it was because of a ride went more than 15 blocks he wouldn't take it. Hence, he was the "cream puffer".

Years earlier, when the Hog couldn't move a long call, or a deep call, he'd sit there and mutter "Cream puffing fagots", nonstop. He always did it off mike, so you had to be in the dispatch office to hear it.

Saw another something interesting on TV

2010-12-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

They have work shows on cable. Many different themes, fishing in the artic, logging, basically dirty, and of course the cop shows. The guy who owns this logging company is screaming at a young employee, just like my father used to scream at me. Another guy who owns another company is screaming at his own son, they say he's driven off most of his other people. Why does this matter to me?

When I was in my early 20's I worked for my father. He'd come and scream for at least 30 minutes every day. And he wanted maximum effect, he wanted to hit me as hard as possible. So, one day I went over to a welding shop on Carpenter rd. and got myself another job. I learned a lot in that place. When I was visiting home, thinking about moving back there, I walked around the place a little. Only a little, it's a dead building these days, with bums living in the office. I didn't go back around my father for well over a year.

When I finally did go back around, his payroll had gone from close to 20 men, down to Pres, Doyle, and my grandfather. I always wondered if he really needed me to make money. Now I'm sure he did. He had to scream at somebody, and those fellows all went to work for his competitors. He made quite a bit of money off land, but that was just luck, being in the right place at the right time. When he was making the money to buy that land he needed somebody to scream at, and I was it.

Your laugh of the day is.......

2010-12-06T14:37:00.001-08:00

I haven't figured out how to resolve this. First thing is going to be, finish fixing the feather comforter. Why do I need to fix it? Well, the dog was fluffing up the bed (yes he sleeps on the bed, he's my dog isn't he) to get it just perfect, and he dug a hole in it. So, I fixed it, and the next day he dug an even bigger hole in it. I haven't finished sewing that one up.

Any idea how big a mess a handful of goose down is? Beyond belief.

It's amazing how hard it is............

2010-12-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

It is real hard to throw stuff away.

I'm in the process of moving my life into 200 square feet. Years ago, the ideal living situation was a smaller space than that. And slowly, over time, stuff relentlessly attached itself to me. It is so easy to just shove it into the cabinet over the bathroom sink, or a dresser drawer, or.......

Which makes me recall the Dave Sun rule. Dave lived in one of the co-ops on Gilbert ct., I lived in Bag End (also on Gilbert ct.). Deal was, in summer the double rooms became singles, which made them nice to move into for 3 months. But Dave had so much junk he could never get back into his single at the end of summer, so they passed the Dave Sun rule. And it was, if you had a single for 9 months of the year, you had to keep it in summer too.

Once I had to accept giving my books away, that helped. I try to keep telling myself that I'm paying a warehouse fee for junk, but still it's hard. I have a nice scanner and a nice printer, they're going to goodwill, just as soon as I get the ambition to open that carton. Know anybody who wants a nice little chest freezer in really great condition?

Why you can't let them win

2010-12-04T12:59:00.000-08:00

Who? The passengers. Why? Well, if it's a win/lose issue, it's a scam. How can I be so sure?

I wasn't until I'd rewritten this about 3 times, and finally saw that the 2 guys I went up against on Wilson st. and the Nigerian woman were exactly alike. They had a plan, they knew what the plan was before they even called and ordered the cab. They'd worked the plan before, it was practiced. The plan had always worked too.

For the Nigerian woman, it was simply a refusal to pay. She knew that she could get away with paying about 1/2 of the fare, and all that would happen was is the driver would say he'd never take her again. That's ok. There are lots of cab drivers.

For the 2 guys, the plan was a little different. They planned on getting kicked out of the cab for being obnoxious about 3 blocks from home and walking the rest of the way. A lot of people work this scam, it's a very common student scam. Enough, so that I'd decided many years ago that if I was kicking someone out of the cab, I was also taking them back to where they came from to do it. Imagine being in the middle of trying to get kicked out of the cab and have the cab do a U-turn and the driver tell you he's taking you back to where you came from. Usually they say they'll behave, and you collect the money right then and there. The guys who went to Wilson st. probably set the protocol for dealing with people like them in stone.

What's most pathetic part of these scams? You can call up after the ride and scream bloody murder because the scam didn't work, or it didn't work as good as it could have, and the company will actually sympathize with you, and might even punish the driver. Who makes the first decision on dealing with the after scam complaint? The guy answering the phone usually. Is he trained to deal with anything like this? Not that I know of, not at any of the companies in town that I know of.

Is there any solution for this problem? The only solution I can think of is for there to be a shortage of drivers. Right now, you fire a driver and their are 5 people anxious to take his place. Do they need to know the town? No, a street directory will take care of that. Do they have to be great drivers? No, they need to have a clean driving record. Someone who has driven very little, can have a great driving record and be a disaster behind the wheel. Do they need to be good at dealing with the public? No, there is no test or criteria for that beside the job interview and everyone is nice in a job interview.

Sad, isn't it................................

Sadly, the majority of drivers will just go on to the next call. Consider it a small part of the price of doing business. At some point, it will grow in magnitude to the point where the only rides who can be counted on to pay will be charge accounts and hotel rides to the airport. Perhaps that's the way it should be, but if that's where the business is going, at least 1/2 the cabs (not drivers, cabs) will be sitting idle, and ultimately the owners of those vehicles will lose a bunch of money. Are those owners the people who drive them? Of course not.

This is MY CAB!!

2010-12-03T16:30:00.000-08:00

Sooner than later you will hear some passenger say this. They don't need to be drunk, but if they are drunk, they'll say it with even more conviction. I've heard it a countless number of times.

The issue is, the passenger wants to do something you don't think is a good idea, or they want you to do something you know you shouldn't do. People out to steal or rob have always been more subtle in my experience. When you don't snap to immediately, they'll tell you you're fired just as soon as they can get your boss on the phone.

Of course it is the drivers cab. Just ask any cop, and he'll tell you the driver is responsible for the vehicle and the passengers. But the passenger wants to do something reasonable! They have a right to do ___________. Nope.

I don't recall why I decided to never roll the windows down, but one day, years ago, I did. The cab is air conditioned, so why not? Rolling the windows down became a big issue a number of times. And when I got this, I'll get you fired crap, I used to tell them to go ahead and do it. Sitting there reading this blog, can you imagine wanting to take somebody's job away from them over not being able to roll down the window, during a ride that will take perhaps 10 minutes? Sounds really petty doesn't it?

That's the essence of J. Q. Public.

I found a direction to write in

2010-12-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

21 years is a long time, but I mostly ran out of anecdotes about passengers. I've got more than enough passenger material for a book, but most books are more than collections of anecdotes.

While watching one of the many cop reality shows on cable TV, I saw something interesting. Something that made me think of the new direction to write in. Did your mom and dad teach you about dealing with the cops when you were a kid?

There are a bunch of other skills you'll need if you're going to drive a cab for very long, I'll get to them too, but dealing with the police is the beginning. They have expectations of you. They expect you to know they're behind you, for instance. And if you've been driving too fast, or ran one of those "pink" lights, you might as well simply pull over before he turns the cherries on. You can always claim you needed to look at something in your papers if he acts like he doesn't know why you pulled over.

FIRST: When the cop reaches your window, you need to have your drivers license between your first 2 fingers, and your arm needs to be out the window, your hand up as far as possible. Your other hand needs to be on the top of the steering wheel. You should be calmly looking straight ahead. You assume this position as quickly as possible after pulling over. It doesn't matter if it takes the guy 10 minutes to walk up to the window, stay still, and maintain this position. He'll take your license from your fingers, look at it long enough to read your name, and the expiration date. He will then speak, you ALWAYS let him speak first. You should have been watching him walk up to the car in the mirror, he will assume you did. No matter what happens, you only answer him, and you speak calmly.

SECOND: He may ask if you know why he stopped you. This is an opportunity for you to either commit a crime, or make him seriously angry. If you tell him you committed some specific crime, like going 16 over; well you just told him you committed a crime, he needs to write you a ticket, and usually he will. If you tell him you don't know why he's stopping you, you're obviously lying to him, and he doesn't like that. Something like, I was probably going too fast, is about the limit of what I ever say. If he comes back with a direct question like, "Well, how fast?" I tell him I was looking at the road, not the speedometer, but I must have been going fast enough for him to want to talk to me about it. They usually give up at this point, and either write a ticket or scold.

In my personal car, they frequently want to 'look over' the vehicle. They don't know what they're looking for, but they'll know it when they see it. So, what happens is the guy who pulled you over waits for another cop to come in a second squad, and both of them approach the vehicle, one on each side. You hand should still be on the top of the steering wheel, and safest place for the hand you gave the license with, is right next to it. Being able to see your hands is real important to a cop. They'll look in the windows, and if you act the slightest bit nervous they'll want to search the car. Calmly look straight ahead, don't give them an excuse. If your care was messy in the first place, it will be VERY messy after they 'toss it'. If they're simply going to toss it, they won't bother asking for permission. Politely say you'd prefer that they not contribute to your messy car becoming even messier.

This will get changed a little, I decided that I'd present the anecdotes of police contacts in individual entries. Putting them into a single entry would make this way longer than I like.

When dealing with the cops in a situation other than a traffic stop, being nice goes a long way. I pulled into a precinct station in Chicago one night, and the guy smiled and said he couldn't help me collect my fare. I told him the fare was collected, what I needed was propane, could he tell me where I could find some at 4:00 am. He said he didn't know, but offered me a desk with a phone and phone book, and told me I could call around and try to find some. Very nice fellow. It solved my problem, I thanked him, went and bought my fuel, and drove back home.

Another story,

2010-11-22T04:39:00.000-08:00

I just answered one of these open internet questions. The question was, would I (anyone) read a fictional blog. My answer, sure if it's a good read, I'd look forward to it.

Sure would. When a writer I like runs out of story, it's a drag. For example, Bernard Fall. He didn't run out of story so much as he just plain got himself killed. He wrote military stuff, and he was in the right place in time to specialize in Vietnam. He died in Vietnam with an American green beret, one of them tripped a land mine. Or, Rowling. She had great Harry Potter stories for about 3 books, then they just weren't as good (in my opinion). Anyhow, if the story is good, sure I'd read it in a blog.

Then I got to thinking, a bunch of people I've known over the years would make great characters. No, they were/are great characters. For instance..............

I knew these 2 guys who went into business, and they had a real big influence on my life. The professor wasn't a very interesting guy, he was simply good at using people. The other guy? Am I the only person who remembers he was the guy who kept the old candy machine in the basement of the co-op full of joints? It was called the new machine because the old machine had died and it got tossed out. The way it worked was: deposit a quarter and pull the handle, nothing happened, put in another quarter and pull the handle, out came a strike anywhere kitchen match, and on the third quarter out came a joint.

How did this guy influence my life? He was kind of like big bird, he was what they call smart in the head. His father was a big shot with an insurance company, and he'd lived in an environment that was conducive to doing well in school, and college was all expenses paid for him. Me? I was just a steel fitter at the time, a common idiot, right? But he had self esteem issues too, he was only smart in the head, he wasn't interesting or good looking. Is anybody ever happy with what they've got? Nah......

Then there was his old lady, he didn't have one when I met him, but right about that time he got one. He didn't pick her, she went after him. After a few rolls in the hay, she got him. She had self esteem issues too, she was, ah, er, well, pleasingly plump. She had a couple of older brothers who were good guys. I recall one of them, the one closest in age to her, Steve I think his name was, glassy eyed drunk, recalling the great taste of a real cold Genesee Cream Ale in a 7 ounce bottle, the hometown brew.

All these years later, recently their daughter was a grocery clerk at a neighborhood grocery store on the near east side. How do I know? She is the spitting image of her father. I wonder if she knows about the "new machine".

And Duckless, well, he's still around. Who is he? When he came here he as a rich kid, but that didn't last long. His grandfather was a banker in a wealthy town, but his grandfather died and his father got the money. Was his father really that stupid?

Well, his father liquidated the bank (at a loss? probably), and went into the sporting goods business. His father liked fly fishing. He bought a successful sporting goods store, got rid of the guns and anything else he wasn't into, and concentrated on fly tying and fly fishing. Duckless laughed when he described the bank's tow truck coming and towing away his dad's Cadillac. Needless to say, fly fishing didn't support the business like hunting and shooting had.

Do I like fly fishing? There is no finer way to waste time than fly casting for large mouth bass. Did I, as a kid, wonder why it was impossible to find fly tying materials? Yes I did.

Anyhow........ Duckless wasn't allowed in the grocery clerk's mom and dad's place, even though he was a member of their inner circle of friends. Why? Seems he had this fire cracker, and they were sitting on the sofa in the living room, and the lit fire cracker found it's way under her mothers fat butt. Duckless was 86'd permanently from the house.

Is there any literary hope for these bozo's? There are more of course.

I picked up a couple more cab stories

2010-10-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

I also think I might have found the right starting point to write from to make this into a book. Maybe.

The problem with writing the book is getting the first page, and the first chapter to hook an agent or publisher. Many of the good stories are not good material for this, for a variety of reasons. The flow of the book needs to make sense. Ah yes, now I remember, the kid with lice!! That was the little story that I think is funny enough, light hearted enough, and peopley enough.

It's the first day of school, and I'm a day driver. I pick this kid up and the destination is home, it's about 10am. We get about 1/2 way there and he says with all the excited enthusiasm of a normal healthy 9 year old, "Do you know why they sent me home from school!?"

I tell him no.

He says, "I have lice!!"

Ok...........................

Well, the guy who owns the company is a pharmacist, so I key the mike and tell the dispatcher what the situation is. There is this total radio silence that lasts about 5 minutes. What that tells me is that everyone in the office is rolling on the floor laughing. I was told that what I do, is up to me. So I went to the office and wiped down the seats.

Yeah, this definatly falls into the you never know who or what will get in the cab.

I have to remember to put the old German woman in, and the famous Don. Don I can actually talk about because he's dead. I have to wonder about the German woman. Her property redeveloped is offering free boat slips with condo sales now. The condo's aren't doing so well, but I offered her a chance to go home, and she passed it up. Maybe she actually liked living in the old folks home, but it's hard to imagine.

Not a 501C3.

2010-09-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

I talked to the IRS, and they looked him up. Neither of the 2 companies are 501C3's. What does that mean?

Let's say I create a blogger blog that is a web site for a charity of sorts. Why, I could say I was feeding the poor. I could have buttons all over it that say donate, donate, donate. And, I don't have to be a charity. If I'm not a charity, the donations won't be tax deductible. Why would anybody want to contribute to such a charity, when there are so many legit charity's out there? Good question. I pretty much doubt that anybody would want to donate to such a thing.And it all works fine until somebody asks for the paperwork associated with making a donation to a charity that actually is a charity. 2 possibilities, you simply never get the paperwork, or you get phony paperwork. If phony paperwork is being passed out, that's a crime, and sooner or later the government will catch up with it, and then they will talk to EVERYBODY.

So back to the question of where do you get the designer tomatoes from? At the farmers market, when they're shutting it down for the day, some kid comes along and asks me to give him my unsold tomatoes, he'll give them to charity for me. Got a receipt for me kid, I'm going to want to write that donation off on my tax's. Now what happens? He either cuts me a receipt using someone's legit tax id number (a 501C3's), or he cuts me an invalid receipt that will get me audited if the tax people pick up on it, and the deduction for charity will be disallowed. What does he do with the stuff? Does anybody care? Can it be tracked?

If nobody cares where the tomatoes came from, who then will care where they went? The guy who grew them will care a lot! I've sold at the farmers market before, the vendors are a real close knit bunch. If one of them finds out about such a thing, it will be around the square faster than you can walk around the square.

Was I right?

2010-09-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

Yes I was. Got a rise out of him too.

Food pantry garden

2010-09-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

I went by a charitable agency, CAC, and talked to them the other day. They said that for someone to be collecting for charity, they have to have a certain form filed with the IRS. So I went to the IRS and asked them if the kid's organization was compliant. Woman was, I won't say rude, but very unfriendly. Did I have a personal interest in the kid? Sure, would I be here looking into him if he was my favorite person? Get real. Up went the stone wall. Ok lady, I know how to deal with people like you. Monday morning I call Senator Kohl's office and ask them to get what I need. It will happen same day. Senator Kohl's office is REAL good about that sort of thing. If the kid is a legally registered charity, ok, fine. If he's not.............

I will say this, the people I talked to said that they check on all the food pantry gardens that come to them for assistance, or what ever else they interact with them for. This season, they checked on all the gardens, and there was one that was non existent, as in no tilled ground, no garden. It was the kids.

I also found out where all those bedding plants came from. WalMart gave them to the charity, and the charity put them out for people to take for free. That explains the trailer load of WalMart bedding plants. You keep them there so if people come out to look at the place, you can show them plants. Then you talk about green houses you're going to build on the furthest inaccessible end of the property, and if somebody wants to go all the way out there and look, let them, they only see weeds and potential anyhow, right?

I'm amazed

2010-09-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, there are 100's of page views a month. To hear me offer my opinion about the wrongs of society here in Dane County Wisconsin? Nah, couldn't be. Could it?

The scams thing, I could believe. Which made me say to myself I'll start a scams blog and for the first time ever put paying advertising on it. This means a bunch of little behind the scenes things need to be done to protect myself. Anyone who thinks the internet is a safe place has lead a sheltered life (IMHO). For instance, I looked at the stats and where page views came from, did any come from China? Nope. Did the kid do a year of exchange school in a Chinese speaking country? Yup. Did I get semi smart aleck comments in a combination of Chinese and English that I deleted, which were never posted? Yup. What do I think? It was the kid keeping tabs on me, unable to resist the temptation to taunt. Who won? Has the kid filed for that money portion of the suit that was dismissed twice in the replevin portion of the suit? Nope. So, first I prepare a destination for the penny or so that a page view will generate that is bullet proof safe, then I start with the blog. Yes folks, there will be a scams blog, it will be a collection, like the collection of cab stories that were the beginning of this blog.

The new blog will start with the kids scam. By the way, for those of you who didn't figure out the scam, consider the following reasoning....... A guy gets himself 2 companies, one that collects surplus produce to be distributed to charity, one that sells designer produce to restaurants. He buys himself a few bedding plants at WalMart and expenses them to both companies. Then he collects the unsold produce at the end of the farmers market supposedly for charity in the name of company A and turns around and sells it to upscale restaurants in the name and bank account of company B. If he pays his income tax, who cares what he's doing right? Only, the people who "donate" their surplus are being cheated because he's directly competing with them, further devaluing their produce because there will be less potential buyers.

Meanwhile, the kid laughs all the way to the bank. His companies aren't about work, they're about friendship and fun, right? Go and visit his gardens. They don't exist.

Anyhow, the blog for scams is on the back burner, I'll offer a redirect to it when it's up and running. Right now I'll offer a disclaimer for it too. It's a collection, like a stamp collection, not intended to be used by anyone for any particular purpose. Particularly not intended to be used by anyone for any less than honorable, ethical, or legal purposes. Perhaps writers might find it useful. For me, if that's the kind of stuff that people want to read about, so be it. Once it's up and running, the stats will tell all.

It's dismaying

2010-09-20T08:11:00.003-07:00

The next victim is beginning to move into the kid's house.

I can hear the line of BS, "The previous tenant was....." The people are looking at the house and saying to themselves, 'a house we can afford.....' Nope, by the time they pay all the little victim penalties, they can't afford that place. Garden? They grow a garden and the produce might simply vanish, after all who's going to care of a tomato or 2 walks away. They'll realize their mistake within 4 weeks but it's too late. They're hooked, some fish fight more than others but few get off the line.

A friend was helping me move a vehicle yesterday. He was also victimized by a landlord, so we looked her up, and sure enough, she's taking the same property tax credit the Chinaman took that got or is getting him audited. She never gives receipts, only takes green cash, and has a house that is designed to have paying 'room mates'. Well, her house isn't zoned for that to be legal, I don't even have to make a trip into town to check on the specifics of it. As far as zoning is concerned she's running a rooming house, and she's only zoned for residential. In order for the tax credit she's taking to be legal, she has to be living in the house, and she has to be a state resident, and it has to be a single family residence. Nope, rooming house. How can revenue determine that on casual inspection? Simple, how many non-related peoples tax returns show that address? For most years, if not all years, they're going to come up with 4. That's enough to make that tax credit invalid, the tax credit is enough for an audit, and from there..... I'm pretty sure my friend will tell them the amount is $1150/month that she brings in in rent. Revenue will say ok, 84 months X $1150 is close to $100,000, and they'll want the back tax's as well as the trifling sum of around $1000 for the back tax credit that wasn't legit, plus penalties and all. Then zoning gets into the act and says, get those people out of there. Then the house goes up for sale.

That woman will wail and cry to anyone who will listen that she's this big time victim, and the government has singled her out, and..... BALONEY! One of the reasons the government is broke is because she and a lot of other people like her should be paying their way, and they aren't. What will happen? I'm not sure, but I suspect that things called tax sales sometimes begin as some capricious, petty little hustler landlord, taking their bad day out on someone who has been paying them (like my friend), when they wish they had a hundred or 2 more in their pocket.

I do know this, that woman has no other major source of funds. She claims she's disabled. She moves around fine when she's painting the basement apartment to rent it out to the next person, but she's otherwise disabled. Now she's got real trouble. She thought she has privacy in the United States, well she sort of does, but there is also this thing called zoning. She wouldn't want a dog kennel with barking dogs next door, nor would she want an 8 unit apartment building, nor would she want an 800 square foot tiny house because zoning protects her from that. Well, zoning protects her neighbors from her. They didn't complain? Doesn't matter. My friend that you kicked out complains to me, and he or I take the complaint downtown. Zoning takes a look (and they can take a look inside with notice), says yes it's true, issues some kind of cease and desist order, and you don't victimize any more people. Zoning is also capable of looking up how many non related people have vehicles registered to the same address, that would do the trick all by itself. How is it the old line goes...... What a tangled web you weave, when first you practice to decieve.

Once you know the scam, it makes perfect sense!

2010-09-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

At the end of August of 2009, I moved into a house out in the country. It was run down, that was ok. The guy who showed the property lied about a few things, that wasn't ok. I was to supposedly be a "room mate" of a guy who I will refer to as "The Kid". He said he was going to get a $60,000 'first time farmer loan' from the USDA. He has 2 LLC's (limited liability company's). His 2 LLC's never made any sense to me until today. For things to work, he needs them both.

Check out his websites:

http://www.freshestfarms.com

http://pantrygarden.blogspot.com

and see it you can figure out what he's doing. You might also want to check out:

http://www.localdirt.com/freshestfarms

or just the local dirt site.

He mostly lived at his parents house in Sauk County. His dad is a nice guy, who works in the state capital, he's the number one assistant to the Assemblyman from his district. Thus his dad's job is political, and it's election time. His mom said she was a guidance councilor at the local high school, I don't know if that's true. She does show up on the internet doing business under her maiden name as a travel agent. The kid address's them as Tom & Jane, not mom and dad. Some day he'll realize why that's disrespectful perhaps, perhaps not.

My attorney said the lease was very preditory, I didn't understand that scam until May of this year. I'll go into that scam first. It's a rental scam. It goes like this...... Landlord rents you a place. In the lease he puts a clause in that says if you leave the place before the end of the lease he gets a 2 month penalty. So, if the lease ends at the end of August, if he can get you out at the end of June, he gets 14 months money for 10 months occupancy. Then he can use all of July to get the place ready for the next sucker, and rent the place out to said sucker in August. In May he started saying he wanted something from me in writing that said I'd be out at the end of June. Why I asked. He told me he always lived with friends, I wasn't his friend. Where in the lease does it say anything about friends? At the end of June he turned off the hot water, and all through June and July he and the Chinaman who actually owns the property would visit on weekends and badger me to get out. After I left the property he filed for eviction, I suppose thinking that when I didn't know anything about it, he's get a huge default judgement. Nope, you have to serve somebody, he didn't know that, but next time he'll factor that into the scam and hurt his next victim that way probably.

My attorney and I were in court for the second filing. First time was dismissed, lack of service, he refiled same day, I found out about it, showed up, judge dismissed it, and said he could file for the money part of the process. Now I show up in CCAP with an eviction action that was dismissed, twice.

I found the Freshest Farms website easily enough. It was only after I found the Pantry Garden stuff did the whole thing makes sense.

What's really pathetic is that nobody cares. Leave it there for the next victim to wander into, it's ok.

The Chinaman who actually owns the property is getting audited. How I know the Chinaman is getting audited by the tax people is his property tax is an open record, anybody can see it. In answering this eviction action may lawyer said get everything you can get on the actual owner of the property as well as the kid. So, I'm in the city/county building looking up the tax records and the lady who's helping me with the database says casually, "He's taking the lottery credit. He can't do that on rental property." He can't eh? Sure enough, across the hall, I find out that his claim that he'd lived there for a couple of years was a lie. The phone install guy told me about his first tenants who had quite the moving out celebration, VERY destructive. His second tenants left a business card in a drawer in the kitchen, I contacted them. The kid was the 3rd and the kid and the Chinaman claimed that they loved each other. But it was no sweat to get revenue to want this guys records, so if the kid would have left me alone, the Chinaman wouldn't be in the hot water he's in or will be in.

Now for the kid. I'll go into revenue and tell the lady to go to the first 2 websites listed, and I'll present my theory of what's going on. I'll offer to provide her with photo copies of my rent checks. Did the kid include the schedule 'what ever' in his income tax filing that landlords need to file? They won't tell me but they'll start digging. If he's accepted a check for any of the produce that he claims on a website that he sells or has for sale, there will be a paper trail. Kid, you should have left well enough alone.

And knowing who your friends aren't

2010-09-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

Years ago one of the original Union people, a fellow named Jack S. told me that because of Max Factor (nickname of a former Union driver), I would never drive at Union. I believed him. He's an honest fellow, nice guy, and I'm told a really good pool player. So when I applied at Union I asked if it was true. I know a large number of people in Union, have known them for years, and if it was true I could take it. You can't fight reality, so there's no use in trying. Both the HR director and top manager told me it wasn't the case. I've known that top manager for many years. I took him at his word.

Then they said I lied on my application so I could never be hired and never reapply. No, I didn't. I pointed out that my answer was correct, in the context of the wording on the application. That resulted in the unpulling of my application and an interview. I absolutely told the truth in the interview. I had yet to see all the Union employee materials, so didn't know what my "rights" were, but according to the published policies of Union, that was the way to go. Then I started encountering all this "dark" business. The top manager and a fellow named Jason interviewed me and the top manager told me that Jason thought I was too "dark" to hire, but he'd stuck up for me and I was hired. He then went through a litany of if you do this that or the next thing in your probationary 6 months, "I'll fire you." I sat there wondering if it was worth wasting my time, and said to myself I can behave perfectly for 6 months, is it really possible they'll treat me fairly. No, they weren't going to treat me fairly.

What I believe went on is Jason and the manager discussed being fair. Jason's position was that fair would be to not jerk me around. The manager's position was that I needed to be fired so I could never come back, and they'd find a way to do that. Thus, I was hired. Now, will the cops issue me a permit? They did. On to the next phase of the game, train the new hire, then fire the new hire at the earliest opportunity. I was to get 3 training shifts, 2 if I was good enough at it. I opted for 3 because they have equipment that is different, you mostly bid on calls by using a button on a meter like thing rather than by voice. The trainers from the first 2 days thought I was good. The trainer on the second day would have signed off on me. Then came the 3rd day.

The 3rd and to be last of the training shifts was with the guy referenced in the post 'why the guy doesn't like me'. I'm not sure if it matters all that much, the manager would have probably waited longer to make everything look good, but on that Friday afternoon I knew that fellow had it in for me. The manager said he'd think it through over the weekend, so he called me on Monday and said that it stood, that a fellow who'd held a grudge for 25 years since he was 19 over something silly was allowed to discriminate against me, I was fired.

I need to seek out legal advice on this. If it wasn't legally such a dicey thing, that manager wouldn't have been so guarded about the whole thing. He wouldn't have gone to such lengths to try to convince me it was a fair process. He wouldn't have made the cab driver wisecrack that I wasn't railroaded because railroading required a committee, I was assassinated.

Would I want to drive there? Well, for a 20 year driver, it's a good place to drive. Insurance and all, it's good. You won't get rich. Why didn't I go there years ago? 20 years ago, I could have gotten in, but in more recent times I knew this would happen. Would anybody stick up for me? NO. Why? They don't want to get fired, and objecting on the basis of fundamental right and wrong would be risking getting fired, even if you've got years of clean driving there. I found out that they canned the manager of the garage not too long ago, and I'll bet that stinks too, but it flew.

Bottom line, that manager could have said to me Jack was telling me the truth as he saw it. Then he could have said something like Jack is a real smart guy, and I'd have said ok, thanks for being up front, and I would have let it go. He didn't do that. He saw it as protecting the interests of the company to do what he did. Ok. Since this is a game of chess I should make each move be the best move on the board. Any truly good chess player knows that trappy play assumes your opponent is going to blunder, and that ultimately, if your opponent doesn't blunder will compromise your position. But I doubt that manager plays chess, he plays bridge, and in a bridge game the hand lasts for 3 or 4 minutes, is gone and forgotten, and the next hand is played. When my next move is ready, I'll touch the piece that I will move and place it in it's new square.

Knowing who your friends are

2010-09-13T07:26:00.000-07:00

I want to thank an old friend who guided me in the direction of the opening chapter of the book. With the opening chapter to build on I think the material in this blog will be enough for a book. My initial thought was to make it the armed robbery, but thats dark material as they would say at Union Cab. The armed robbery is exciting, or at least I thought it was, but it's hard to build on, and I found that out when I started writing the book with that as a beginning.

I think I'm going to go for the happiest cab story. After all, few people realize that I pioneered cruising State Street and that plus the actual happiest cab story will fill out a first chapter nicely. Pioneered cruising? Yep, it were me. How did that go? I guess I can share that, I've got 15 minutes to spare.

When I first started driving nights, the dominant voices on the radio were The Hog, and Curley. Curley wanted to be everything The Hog was and more, and this particularly meant being rude, crude, and abusive over the radio, to the drivers. I resisted, and the usual retaliation came back. I'm the dispatcher, I control your income, you won't make any money, you'll quit! They were really proud of all the little tactics they employed in being unfair. Holding calls until some driver was on top of it or someone was past it for instance. Holding calls? Yes, refusing to put the call on the radio right away. Refusing to hear your bid was another favorite. What to do, I had to make some money.

It was always taken as illegal to drive up and down State Street looking for customers. In the old days nobody did it. I decided, what the hell, I'll do it until I get a ticket. In the beginning it was really great being the only cab on State Street around 10:00 pm. I well remember The Wombat once getting in my face for doing it. I also well remember keying the mike one night when it was slow, and telling Curley I'd booked $100.00 between 9:30 and 11:30 pm., when there was NOTHING on the board.

Now, many people cruise State Street. I've never heard of anybody getting a ticket for doing it. Technically there are ordinances that cover it and the cops could probably write a bunch of tickets, but they've never seemed inclined to start doing that.

Thanks David for influencing the start of the book. One of the best friends I or any other real cab driver will ever have, no matter how anything ever plays out. See, you never realize who your best friends really are.

Why the guy doesn't like me

2010-09-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Back in the '80's, I briefly delivered a few pizzas. Pizza delivery is NEVER worth the wear and tear that it does to the cars, and it is for this reason that pizza shops are always looking for drivers with their own cars. One night between delivery runs, the kid who was making pizzas offered the opinion that pizza makers ought to make as much money as skilled trades, iron workers or electricians for instance. I said that was nonsense, and that kid hence forth made it plain that he thought I was a real jerk. I promptly forgot about it until this morning.

Why did I dredge that up from my memory, and why am I including it here? I'm not sure I will ever share that in print. It depends on circumstances that have yet to unfold. This entry will most likely get deleted, and I will try to again forget about it.

Speaking of that guy, I did actually refuse to do something he tried to get me to do. I had this handicapped fellow in the front seat who wanted to go someplace specific that wasn't the destination on the slip. He started trying to tell me that since it was a charge to an account, the destination HAD TO BE the destination on the slip. I took the handicapped man to his destination, and there was no further discussion of it. When we got there, I parked just exactly like the passenger wanted, got his walker out of the trunk, helped him exactly as much (not more either) as he wished, made sure he was comfortable, he thanked me, and we pulled away. To have left that fellow 3 blocks away, on the other side of East Washington would have been almost criminal. And I don't have to offer to put it in writing, it is in writing, right here.

Hell

2010-09-06T18:30:00.001-07:00

I rented a room in a place that I will call hell. Only the moron who runs the place made the mistake of bragging about being a mormon. Fool!!

He's a convert, a bible thumping idiot who needs to thump a bible to keep from thinking about how he lives his life, day to day. Well, he doesn't realize that the temple has elders and a system of justice, and that system of justice protects everyone, mormons and the rest of us too. The owner of the property is a mormon too. So he uses a shill, an idiot tough guy convert, to do his dirty work. Both of them will be in mormon court, and perhaps local circuit court, and the health department will be here, as will be the fire department, inspecting. It's casual inspection that the plumbing has been done by a non licensed plumber. They're toast.

By the way, I was orientated by Union Cab today. Until I get fired, I'm a driver. Back in the saddle!!!!!!!

Yellow cabs

2010-09-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

For many years, I felt that the company with the yellow cabs was the best place to drive. The only problem was I didn't think I could get in, or I was already driving a red and white one, depending on when it was. I kind of envied our drivers who got fired and ended up driving yellow cabs. So, I went and applied in June, I think.

First they said they couldn't have me because I'd concealed my criminal past. Criminal past? The application specifically said felony's and misdemeanor's, I pointed that out and admitted I was in the data base, but for what's called an ordinance violation. A lesser thing. Ok, so they had to interview me. I kept going back each time expecting them to say, 'Well, we can't have you because..........' Only, that didn't happen. The final time, yesterday, after that interview I was told that I was hired, and they gave me all the caveats, you can be fired for this that and the next thing.

What does it really mean? I'm not sure. I do know this, if March 15th rolls around next year and I'm still driving a yellow cab I'll think real seriously about throwing a big cab drivers party. I haven't been to one since Jack Jensen died, no, check that, we had one for Duane, and we had one for Club, but both of them were somber events, both were about to die. I think the last great cab drivers party, one where everyone was happy, was at Jensen's house, before he was diagnosed with cancer.

I won't give any excuses. I will take any and all abuse from the public, do anything the dispatcher asks of me, and do all the other things. Other things? Yes, check the tire pressure, wear the seat belt, fill out the paperwork correctly and put in the full amount of money. If I can't say something nice to another yellow cab person, say nothing at all. I don't have to attend the meetings though. How's that? Well, I'm not a member of the coop until I've been there 6 months, so I can't participate until I'm a member. Going to meetings is a responsibility of members, and if and when I'm a member I'll go to them, but until I'm a member, I won't take the risk that some member won't like me. Low profile, that's how I'm going to be for the first 6 months.

Wish me luck!!

Small town cops

2010-08-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

A small town cop just came on private property to tell me I could get a ticket for my dog being off leash. My dog can be off leash on private property. The way he said South Beloit, made it sound like South Beloit is someplace special. South Beloit is special, in 2o days I've had 2 contacts with the police, they can go to hell. I'll leave here and never come back to this bull shit community again. I normally go YEARS without contacts with police, I'm not a criminal, I don't cause trouble, I'll never spend a cent here again.

I'm sure that asshole missed the ordinance that prohibits working on your car in your driveway. If they don't have such an ordinance then the city fathers have missed a shot, they have such an ordinance in Madison. It is illegal to fix your car in your own driveway in Madison.

Chinese, and brunch at Charlie Browns.

2010-08-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

Charlie Brown's isn't there any more. It's called Mary's now. It's a bacon and eggs joint in South Beloit. Years ago, I had this personal named Larry who had me drive him to Charlie Brown's so he could have breakfast here at 1:00 am. They say Larry is still around, I haven't seen him in at least 10 years. The service here is good, and I'm the only customer who isn't a local. I have to love joints like this.

I continue to attract comments in Chinese. I delete them all.

My PC died again last night, sigh..... I guess I'm stuck with replacing it. I'll take it to DO-IT and have it reformatted, AGAIN, but I'll take it to storage after I get it back. It's officially become an emergency spare computer, and I guess I'll have to buy a new one. It's actually pretty amazing how nice a computer you can get for 5-6 hundred bucks. I'm doing this post on my Apple, it's as slow as a 1990 vintage machine, but I guess I'll have to get used to it for a while.

Yesterday I bought a work truck. Today I will print out a few more business cards, the ones I have are buried in storage someplace. Print out copies of this agreement, both as a barn demolition agreement and as a welding agreement. Cover letter, and resume, which (thank god) are saved in an email I sent someone when they asked me to apply for a pipe welding job.

Resume for a welding job? How pretentious, but that's the modern norm. I guess.... I listed 9 previous employers and my own current LLC, and initially thought I'd left 3 off. I was wrong. I left at least 7 off. 16 previous employers? Yes, perhaps I've forgotten even more. Let's see, Wisconsin Steel Erectors, Speedway, Johnson, Victory,S&E....... Who are the other 2? It's bad when you can't even remember who you've worked for. Worse is when you look back on your career and none of them are still in business.

If it's steel and it's broken, I can probably fix it.

A brief explanation of steel welding repairs:

Most modern steel is cold rolled and has tinsel strength of 35 kips. In English this means it takes 35,000 pounds pull to snap a 1 square inch cross section of steel. The first 2 numbers of a welding rod description are the tinsel strength of the welding rod, so an E7018 welding rod is depositing steel that is twice as strong as the piece being repaired. The second 2 numbers describe the coating. The 18 in 7018 tells you the rod is low hydrogen, the coating and slag absorb hydrogen. When hydrogen from the air is incorporated in steel it makes the steel more brittle which is undesirable. Most repairs should be done with 7018.

Why do repairs break at the weld? Properly done repairs don't. Poorly done repairs often have a groove between the weld and the base metal, this is called undercut. It has the same effect as cutting a grove in a chain link, that's where it's going to break, and it accumulates stress. The other primary cause of welds breaking is inclusions. Failure to clean the weld between multiple pass's leads to inclusions, which look a lot like cavities in a dentist's X-ray. When welds are X-rayed, it is to discover these flaws. I've never had an X-rayed weld rejected, but I have repaired a large number of them. Most of the ones I repaired live in the Point Beach nuclear power plant.

The key to a high quality repair is to begin with the best fit possible. This is the first step. Achieving the best fit possible sometimes takes a little longer, but it is always time well spent. The best fit retains the original dimensions the manufacturer used, which means it will work like it did when it was new. Changing the dimensions can cause further breakage in other places, it should never be acceptable.

On site fabrication is also available. Need a gate, fuel tank, or custom trailer? I can make these things for you and give you exactly what you want instead of the closest thing available at the store. It may even be cheaper than the store, depending on what it is, and who buys the materials, you or me.

I hereby release, waive, discharge and covenant not to sue and hold harmless from any and all liability, claims, costs and expenses whatsoever arising out of or related to any loss, damage, or injury, that may be sustained in the dismantling process of the barn or removal of that barn located on the property of ______________________________________,

at or near _______________________________________.

________________________________

date

________________________________

date

I agree to pay the hourly fee for welding and repairs done by Randall Portable Welding on this and subsequent dates.

I further hereby release, waive, discharge and covenant not to sue and hold harmless from any and all liability, claims, costs and expenses whatsoever arising out of or related to any loss, damage, or injury, that may be sustained in the process of doing this work. The welding contractor mutually agrees to hold the customer harmless.

________________________________

date

________________________________

date

Buying a new vehicle

2010-08-10T08:00:00.001-07:00

The first one I called back for a second look, the guy said he sold yesterday. So, I guess it was priced right. That one created a slight problem anyhow, I like my little S10, ratty as it is. As Jerry at the cab garage said, I know what I've got. It's on it's last legs, the mechanical part of it is ok, but the body was shot 3 years ago. I shouldn't say that, it needs a brake pad at the moment.

Disk brakes have a little metal scraper that makes a squeaking sound when the pad gets worn down. It's telling you something. Ignore that squeaking sound, and you will be getting towed and replacing that disk. Since that guy sold that nice little Sonoma, I can get Dave to put brake pads on it. The mechanic sees it as throwing money out the window, but I don't know how long I'm keeping it at this point. So, it's not throwing money out the window, I might still have it on Christmas.

Shopping for a new pickup truck.

2010-08-08T21:23:00.001-07:00

I forgot how big a pain in the ass it is to shop for a vehicle. It takes at least 90 minutes per vehicle by the time you call the people and drive there. Then you get there and find out that the picture on Craigs List was taken 10 years ago. But I did see one I will look at tomorrow that was just sitting out on the street in Janesville.

I did see something that was exceptional while I was driving around though. A pair of turkeys, with 8 baby turkeys. The baby's were about 1/2 as tall as the adults, they might have weighed a pound each. It was cool.

I got a ticket today

2010-08-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

The local cops like writing harmless tickets, eg. not wearing your seatbelt. So, I got such a ticket. In some ways a very good thing to happen. The cop told me I'd surrendered my CDL. OMG!!!!!! I never did such a thing, how did that get into the computer? Turns out that I surrendered my hazmat. What's a hazmat? Hazardous materials endorsement. I never used it anyhow, and in this modern age of homeland security who wants to comply with all the BS to keep this endorsement? Not me, so I dropped it. So I can't haul loads of paint thinner, big deal. But I need to know a cop sees this on the computer. So if another cop in timbuctoo says I don't have a license to drive the truck I'm driving I know what she sees and what to say, look closer and you'll see I'm ok. Only cost me $55.00. A decent investment I guess.

Today is Friday

2010-07-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

I've been in a motel for 5 days now, I checked in on Monday. It took until 4:30 am to finish moving out of that rat trap, and then I wasn't sure what to do. So I got this place. It's not the greatest motel, the air conditioning is weak, the little refrigerator only works good because I keep a box of ice in it, some of the cable TV channels don't work, and there is no high speed WI-FI. On the other hand, the dog loves the place, there is a place for him to go swimming within walking distance and it's safe. What more could you want?

I got the most amazing lesson in driving a couple of days ago. And after all these years, driving, lessons are rare. My pickup had been pulling to the right, and the front end had been shimmying, and with increased driving it was getting worse. I had visions of a tie rod end or a ball joint failing, and I was worried about it. The day was hot, and I went on a trip that was about an hour drive, one way. I was about 10 miles from being back to the motel when this noise like a blow out happened with a brief flapping sound. But I wasn't riding on the rim? Curious. So I got out and looked at it, and about 1/4 of the tread was missing. I was looking right at the steel belt. Tire was intact, just missing some parts. Wow. I slowly pulled down to the exit ramp, and drove into a tire store. $85 later I had a new tire, and my front end was 'fixed'. The guy at the tire store said they didn't see that very often. I've never seen it before, short of the whole tire coming apart. When the tread started coming off, it made the tire bigger around, which is why it pulled to the right, and the wobble was also caused by the odd shaped piece getting ready to break loose. I'm getting much better gas mileage now, 2 days later. So, in increased mileage I'll get the price of the tire back fairly quick.

I went over to Union Cab to get Rod's phone number, and I should know the guys name, but I'm guessing it's George. Anyhow, I got Rod's number so I can get my rototiller back from him, he's had it for around 15 years. Since I'm leaving town, it's time. Rod's a good guy, even though a lot of people don't like him. So George is planting a few flowers by the street and I stopped to chat. The subject of armed robberies came up. George said he'd been in 2, one in Palm Springs, California, and one here last year. He sort of laughed about the one last year. Said the guy only got $24 and described him being chased by a police dog. In the other one he got beaten so bad the drivers who found him thought he was dead. Everybody takes it differently I guess. I won't share the details he gave of the one in California because I wouldn't want to give anybody bad ideas. It was the kind of crime that would be profitable and re doable.

Most people don't take it as good as George. I certainly didn't. I might have won, but that's the luck of the draw. It makes me think of LeRoy, Mudpie, and Kate. LeRoy won a fist fight with some guys who tried to rob him and he laughs about it. Mudpie had $10,000 worth of damage done to his face by Hoser's criminal brother who is in prison in California these days. The guy was drunk, and I never heard what the provocation was, but I'll bet it was nothing. Kate had her arm in a cast for a long time. Radial fracture's take a long time to heal. Passenger twisted her arm.

The more I think about Roy Boy firing me, well, he's lucky he's about social security age. And I wouldn't have the stomach to be him these days. Union did more rides than Badger in 2009, for the first ever time. Green Cab is starting, and they're going to directly compete with Badger, doing a zone fare business. THM doesn't give a damn about the drivers, and that's huge. One day everyone will come to Badger and they'll see an out of business sign, and it'll be a total shock. No warning. The accounts are going away, does THM send out a salesman? No, that would cost money. Does THM send his daughter to golf camp at St. Andrews golf course in Scotland? Yes. Fewer rides than Union! The hand writing is on the wall. Will I be there to be among those hurt? No.

My DOT physical is in a couple of hours. Then I can get back in a truck. I passed.

Back in WI

2010-07-16T06:28:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, I arrived home last night. The young slumlord served me with a notice to pay what he claims I owe him or move out. I asked for a complete accounting, he didn't provide it. He provided an accounting of the gas bill only, and that was in type 1/4 the size or normal type. He did that just to be an asshole, the reducing it to the smallest possible size. Today is the day that I either have to pay or else. Well, he's not a judge, nor is he a cop, so I will do neither and see him in court. In this state you need that paper of his to file for a court date, which he'll do, file for an eviction hearing. Now of course he didn't date it properly, and he didn't have what it took to hand it to me. It was sitting on the floor outside the door to my room. He did have what it took to get up at 5:00am to look outside to see if one of my vehicles was here, which it was.

Now we get in front of a judge! I can just picture a judge saying, "Let me get this straight. The defendant is supposed to pay for gas, and there has been no hot water for 4 or 5 or how ever many weeks now?" And, I have a witness who clearly heard him say that I have to give him money so he has incentive to fix the hot water at the 13 day point. The judge will say what I said, and what my friend said, which is, "You have to fix it sooner or later, you might as well fix it sooner."

This last trip is the first time ever that I didn't want to come back here. I actually sat on the curb where the bus into town let me off and felt noticeably crappy waiting for my friend to pick me up. Then I got over to said friends house and my pickup wouldn't start, what fun. So finally around 10:30 I made it into this place, and sure enough, kid is here. Sunday night, he told me he was moving out first day or 2 of the week. Ah, yet another lie. I wonder what he was hoping for with that one? What fun, eh?

We came to an agreement

2010-07-14T16:22:00.000-07:00

I got a better deal than I would have asked for. So, what do I do? I ask for more yet. My stepmother is being as cheap as she figures she can be, and that's her job, my dad would say she's doing it just right. My dad would also say I was remiss if I didn't ask for as much as I could get. So, I ask, but deal isn't bad.

Deal is: I get the free house, some money, and health care paid. I'm looking into the driving issues. Hmmmm, the ad in the paper said Chauffeur's or CDL. I read the requirements as Chauffeur's but if CDL will do the trick, I have one of those. 2 days went real fast. I can say that I should have gotten out earlier in the mornings, but a lot of what you do depends on what just happened. Like spending most of Monday talking to insurance guys because all of a sudden I'm supposed to have a locally licensed vehicle, and this guy at AAA says that if I buy insurance and don't have a local license to show him within a month AAA will cancel me. Hmmm, I guess I could have a series of 1 month deals maybe. Perhaps I can get insurance at home that will cover a vehicle here, I'll check. Either way, I'm headed home, I'll find a way to do it.

Home

2010-07-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday, I arrived here Sunday afternoon, I'm home. The trust got me a rental car and motel room, and told me to go play. That alone is around $150/day. Cheap by vacation standards, I guess, but if I come back to do this again, I'm going to have a tent and buy a car to come in.

Car insurance salesman says I have to have a Michigan license before I can have Michigan insurance on a Michigan licensed car. Guess I'm going to look into having Wisconsin insurance on a Michigan licensed car, wonder if I can do that.

Ongoing slumlords

2010-07-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

I had to leave town for a few days, and had no idea what to expect. I'm sure the kid or the oriental disabled the hot water, and I've been heating water in pots on the stove for 2 weeks to bathe. It's looking like I'll need to leave my vehicle parked there, unattended while I'm gone.

When I return, will I find my vehicle vandalized? Will I be locked out of the house? If I'm locked out of the house, will I lose anything I haven't moved to storage? This is a hell of a way to live, all my stuff in storage. It's bullshit in fact.

The trip out of town is to take a look at a housing option. I'll take it, looking at it at this point is a formality. So I write this on a train heading into Battle Creek about 3 hours from home. Real home, where I'm from. I stayed at a friends house last night and he took me to catch the bus this morning. He's taking care of the dog, and it turned out he could let me keep my vehicle at his house after all. I got just about everything out of the house, just a few odds and ends, some food, and some furniture remain.

My lawyer said, he can't lock you out. "Ah, yeah, but what do I do if he does?" He can't. Well JJ was around last night and said he was sure he could fix the hot water heater with a small part he got at the hard ware store. The hard ware store couldn't recommend such a thing to me, and JJ is a mechanical moron. But he's sure it'll work. He Jimmied the hot water heater, and he's going to unJimmy it. It didn't work. And he's giving me 5 days to pay up what HE figures I owe him on utilities or he's shutting off the gas. Fine, on gas, no heat or hot water. I'm used to that by now. Question is, will he shut off the electricity? If he does that, there is no water, no light, no stove to heat water for a bath, and the place should be easily condemnable.

Next move of course is JJ will try to rent the dump to the next victim(s). As an absentee landlord. Ain't happening. Even if there is no electric, I'll be around, and any body that rents will have been lied to, and I'll tell them because I'll be there to do it. What a mess.

Slumlords

2010-07-09T19:26:00.001-07:00

My landlord is this 23 year old kid who just (he claims anyhow) graduated from the Univ with a degree in Business. His landlord is an oriental who will remain nameless, and they claim to be buddies. The kid started asking for something in writing that said I'd be gone by July 1, back in May. Excuse me? Turns out the lease had a clause that said that if I left before the end, I owed 2 extra months rent, so that would have been 10 months housing for 14 months rent. No wonder he wanted it, only an extra $1400.00 for nothing.

So, June 15th rolls around, and now the oriental and the kid are showing up on the weekends and leaning on me to leave. The oriental is getting rather ugly about the whole thing. I'm telling them I'm going to get this place condemned, and I do believe I have the way to do it all worked out. The kid laughs and says I can't get it condemned. It's amazing, I'd forgotten how childish children are. The kid goes through this big taunting routine, like he's going to piss me off bad enough that I'd take a swing at him. Yeah, right, no way. I've seen this played before, and I guess there are people in prison who are dumb and impulsive enough to do it.

June 26, and the hot water magically stops working. Kid had made a glib comment about hot water heater thermocouples in the past. So I'm thinking, kid disabled the hot water heater, and I tell him my thoughts. He laughs, he's so arrogant. It's just a little too close to July first for me to believe otherwise. China man is back, screaming for me to get off his property in 24 hours. Excuse me? I have a lease, Asshole. Now you get off my property, no he doesn't have to, he's the kids room mate all of a sudden. Ah................... But I found out why he's so buddy buddy with the kid all of a sudden and why the pressure. The weed police!

Kid has idiot China man convinced he'll make the property a garden. Not!! Kid is going around trying to convince everyone he's ever met that gardening is such fun, come and do his gardening for him, he'll supervise. Cute twist to free labor, I've never seen that one before, are there really chumps out there who would go for that? China man knows that he can be cited for having noxious weeds on this property any day after June 15 that they're not cut, and if he is, they'll contract with a 3rd party to cut the weeds and send him the bill. Kid doesn't know this I don't think, and thinks his daddy's job in the state Assembly will protect him. NOT!!

So, I don't nibble on any of the bait. What bait? Well, last time China man is here I tell him I want hot water fixed. He wants to know why he should fix it, I'm not his friend, and he'd only fix it for a friend. Ok pal, I'm your friend, now how about fixing it? Oh, I've hurt poor Chen Su, I insulted him, he'll be scarred for life. I called him a slum lord. Well, gentle reader, what would you call this ass hole? He won't fix the hot water heater unless I'm his friend, GET OUT he says, I think he qualifies as a slum lord. So, following day, Sunday, he shows up again, and I say, I'll try being nice, I'm your friend, I tell kid I'll be nice to him.

So............ the bait: He says, ok, we should be friends, he wants to take me into town to buy me a drink. A soda. I say no thank you. And truthfully, I don't drink soda, haven't for many years. He goes into a minor rage, that I'm not his friend because he can't buy me a soda. Both he and kid are NOT smiling. I'll bet he had 3 or 4 friends staged at someplace like Culver's, and had it all staged for a public confrontation that could get me tossed into jail because his witness's all knew what to say. Geeee, too bad, I wasn't enough of a chump to take the bait.

Now, the political issue.......... Well audience, should I go to my democrat Assemblyman with all this? Kid's mother was pretty arrogant when I asked her what he and did for a living and she said I should ask him. So I did. He says he's the first assistant to a republican state Assemblyman, the one from their district, which is where the kid really lives, at mommy and daddy's house. They have hot water. Man is a terribly nice fellow, I like the guy. He's telling me that because it's an election year, he has to get his guy re-elected to keep his job intact.

Fast forward to Thursday, July 8th. A friend is helping me move some stuff, futon, futon frame, and so on, big stuff. Why? Well, if I get this place condemned, they will give me until midnight to be out, and anything left is lost. Kid shows up and says he has this lease termination agreement he wants me to sign, and if I sign it he'll fix the hot water. He says this in front of a witness, my helper. According to my attorney, this is extortion. Normally we think of extortion as a thug saying he'll let you go for a price, well the law doesn't read that way, this is extortion too.

I will be mostly out of here by Sunday night (7/11/10). The only valuable things that won't be out will be the washer/dryer, and freezer. They go next weekend I think.

After thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that no matter how nice a guy the fellow is, I have no choice but to go to my Assemblyman, and the media. The media guy I went to is Bill Lueders of Isthmus magazine, in Madison, Wisconsin. Hope to hear from you sir. Any of you readers want to ask him to stick his nose in it, leuders@isthmus.com and thanks everyone for caring about me, and caring about right and wrong.

A train ticket home

2010-07-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

I bought one today. I'll get reimbursed for it. Is this how my sister lived all her life?

Roy Boy replied to an email, said he'd speak well of me. Cool.

Back in the day, Spooner used to sit on the Diag (Univ of Mich people will know what that is) and crochet halter tops. They were a fad. He had a sign next to him that said, "I can alter a halter, to fit your tit." I want to twist chain mail head covers in that spot. It'll never happen, but it's a nice fantasy.

Truely Amazing!!

2010-07-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

My step mother just told me that if I move back home, the family trust will give me free rent in a house the trust owns, and provide me with a free pickup truck to drive, they pay the insurance.

Wow! My first reaction was to say yeah, sure, then my lawyer said, wait a minute how much cash can you get instead. She said she wanted me to make up my mind, and I'd already told her what I wanted to do, so I made the rounds of my friends and said, what should I do? Fast Eddie said go and look at it, Lynetto said jump on it, Heidi said Jump on it, Dickie said Jump on it, Jay said be true to yourself, and Jeff said he'd probably take it. That's 1/2 in favor of jump on it. They have cab companies in Ann Arbor.

But I can't drive cab there with a Wisconsin license. I'm not giving up my Wi. license right away, so I don't have an occupation, do I? Well, I have to go there and visit. Next week for 2 or 3 days. I finally got a friend to agree to watch the dog for me. Same friend might let me stay in his basement on and off if life got grim, but why would it? Sigh...... This has just been the year from hell. Dave has the option of renting the house for $800/month, maybe he'll do that and save me making the choice of moving there. Then I'd get the $800 for rent here.

Back in the saddle, I think.

2010-06-30T20:22:00.000-07:00

I think I will have a silver cab to drive soon. Not a moment too soon, I'm going crazy with boredom. Joe invited me into his office and asked what happened, so I told him and he asked if the management of the red and whites are crazy, letting someone go after all those years for such petty BS. Well they did. Red and white used to be THE color cab to drive, but I don't think that's been true since they stopped being Dodge Diplomats.

Anyhow, I've always liked Joe, and all the people I've ever talked to who drive those silver cabs tell me they like it just fine, make decent money, and are treated well.

On some other fronts, my life is really turning for the better. My housing troubles are going to clear up in a few days. I won't have to abandon the dream of being in the portable welding business after all. And I actually feel like restarting work on that book I was trying to write. AND... After stepping back from it, I'll bet starting over will work out real well. Anybody out there got suggestions as to were to keep it on the web, let me know in a comment. I wouldn't keep it on a machine after going through all the hair pulling when this very machine had to be reformatted low level and I lost EVERYTHING. Life is improving, I want to write again!

My right hand has improved enough that I can touch type with both hands again. Again? Yeah. Funny story coming up here. I was trying to catch this cow, and I had her cornered, and I was trying to grab her halter. Say what? Really was, but don't laugh yet, it gets better. Little brown cow, not one of the huge black and white ones, jersey I think. She didn't want to get caught so she kicked me in the knee. I impulsively slammed my fist down on her rump and shattered the bone between the little finger and wrist of my right hand near the base at the wrist. Damn, did that hurt, and I mean immediately!! Fortunately for me, my health insurance was current, so following day I went and got it treated. They put on this removable 1/2 cast made out of plastic that attaches with velcro. And that was 25 days ago. It took about 10 days to basically knit back together, and I've been able to use that finger to type with for around 24 hours now. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to wipe yourself in the john with the wrong hand? Nightmare!!) I see a doctor or somebody for final time in 3 weeks, then I'm ok to return to work, if I had a job. I will though. I'll load trucks.

Load trucks? Yeah. I used to load moving trucks for a living. I'm not in that great a shape, so it will be like going to the gym and getting paid for it. I was stacking stuff in my storage unit this afternoon, and it wasn't that easy with that cast on, but it was do-able. I can still do it just fine. Loading trucks is kind of like a 3 dimensional tetris game, there's a learning curve to it. And there's a busy season to it too. God, was today (Wed 6/30) a good day.

While I'm rambling about random stuff, I've been looking at chain mail again and thinking to myself, everyone needs a hobby. My dad didn't like me sitting and knitting with my mother when I was 7. Well making one of those chain mail head covers that drapes over over somebody's shoulders looks like a cool similar thing. Only instead of yarn and knitting needles it's wire and pliers, why not, great way to kill time at the airport waiting for a plane to come down, right?

Paper shuffling

2010-04-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

Most people think the company is in business to provide rides. I don't think that's been the case for quite a while. It's true that you can get a ride, but the money is in the administrative charge for filling out a charge slip. I'm not sure how much it is these days, but it's non trivial.

When I started driving, a delivery cost a buck more than a passenger for the same ride. I really liked deliveries, and I think all drivers did. Over time, the administrative charge for processing that slip increased. They say that the reason deliveries have declined is because of the color fax, and digital photography. Perhaps. Was any effort made to find anything to fill that void? I sure didn't see it. Did that processing charge deter people? I think so, but they'll argue it didn't.

The charge rides for people, used to be competitive, then it wasn't, now it is again. The issue is mostly drug testing. In order to get the BIG contract, you have to drug test. I always said I'd never pee in a cup unless it was to drive a big truck. So, I drove big trucks, acquiesced to drug testing, and started doing it at the cab company. I prostituted myself, and I should not have done it. It was never worth it, which is why the other cab companies in town don't.

Poor post............... Really poor quality, oh well. Sorry bout that.

this is a really great quote

2010-04-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

I share a great quote:

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
Ben Franklin

My new career, unsuccessful writer, heh heh.

2010-04-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

I've been writing, I just haven't been writing much here. So.......... What I'm going to do is post some of the things that I've written elsewhere, and see if y'all like them. This is mostly cab stuff, only perhaps fictionalized or polished or what ever.

This first one is about what is sometimes called, 'A heavy load'

Eleven (Former title - A Few - )

Last modified: Thursday 4/22/10

I pulled up to the green awning at The Essen Haus and counted eleven. They'd had a great time, were going to continue whooping it up at the next bar, and weren't going to be separated. Only got one cab? We'll all squeeze into it, unless you don't want to take us. All or none.

If it hadn't been so slow. The money had been terrible that night. "Ok, guys, I'll take all of you, but here are the rules: Rule one, you have to promise me that when I stop, you'll get out of the cab fast. Rule two, you have to pay me in advance. If a cop sees eleven clowns rolling out of a cab, that's six bozo's too many. The ticket for extra clowns is a hundred a head. It's $4.00 for the ride, plus ten extra passengers at a buck a head. Plus tip! A big one! Who's paying?"

A tall fellow with a southern accent handed me a couple of twenties and said keep it. Then he quickly announced "Shoddie!"

I had to smile. Where did this guy learn how to speak Wisconsin English? He sure did say 'shottie', funny. The woman behind him immediately complained that he wasn't entitled to shotgun simply because he paid, but it was already too late. A lady around thirty jumped in the front seat first. The fellow who paid next, then the woman who had been hanging on him sat on his lap, draped her arms around him, and went back to what she'd been doing.

Both rear doors opened up, and the other 8 people started piling in. I was standing outside the cab supervising. I would compare it to telling cord wood where to stack itself. A small woman hopped on the two people sitting in the center of the back seat. A sixth pushed and squeezed in directly next to the driver side door, then one of the two remaining people slammed and jammed that door into their friends. The final two people headed in through the my door. They were pulled over the seat into the back. They laid across everybody and hung their feet out the open drivers side window.

It was funny to look at. The cab was filled to the ceiling and hanging out the window, the bottom pair of shoes were on the outside and pointed up, the top pair of shoes were on the inside pointing down. I stood back and admired the load for a moment. The car was all the way down on the springs. They were all laughing and giggling. I never have a camera when I need one.

I was almost to The Plaza when we passed a cop going in the opposite direction on State. He turned his head looking at the feet hanging out the window, and I knew I had trouble. I looked in the mirror, and could see him pulling up to make a U turn by Paul's Club. Luck was with me, I got the light at State and Frances.

I whipped around the corner, pulled up in front of The Plaza, leaped out, and ran around the cab pulling open the doors, and pulling people out. Just as the last one of them was going through the door into The Plaza, the squad car pulled up behind me with the cherries going.

I reached into my pocket for my license, and held it out for the officer. Normally, they'll tell you to get back in the car, he didn't. He snatched the license out of my fingers and demanded, "How many people did you have in that cab?"

"Ah, a few", I answered sheepishly.

"How many is a few?", he demanded?

"Well a few."

"There were more than five people in that cab, now how many were there?", he again demanded.

He was pissed! For some reason, he needed me to tell him how many. I stuck with a few, thinking I'd get as small a ticket as possible that way. Each time I told him a few in some small varied way, his face got a little redder, but it wasn't going anywhere. Finally he told me to get in the car and wait.

Usually it takes at least 10 minutes for them to come and either hand you a ticket or tell you how lucky you are that they're not handing you a ticket. He as at my window in less than ninety seconds.

"Don't ever let me catch you doing this again.", he said, "Now, get out of my sight!"

I put my turn signal on, dropped it into drive, and pulled up to the stop sign at Gorham. I couldn't believe my luck! I couldn't believe that guy didn't give me a ticket. I guess he needed a number he didn't have.

Change of scenery

2010-04-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I need a new permit. I think I'll apply for 2, both the other cab companies in town. They didn't like what I said, but nobody called me a liar. So how does that work? My intention was to return to driving days and they said I couldn't.

Andre, you're right!

Comments......... And other low lifes

2010-02-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

It was my intention to never moderate comments. So I never learned how. Regrettably, I've had to learn how. To the Chinese guy who placed comments I had to remove on my blog, I say, stop coming here. If I have to learn how to exclude you from coming here, I guess I'll have to do that too. What a waste of my time.

Last night I had these 2 lowlifes who came out of Taco Bell on State just as I was going to pull away. I tell the woman that she should call a cab when she's ready to go, not when she gets in line to buy food. She immediately goes off on me that I have an attitude, and she'll get another cab driver, and she'll call the company and complain. She wasn't waiting in line for food, she was standing inside by the TV. Watching TV instead of watching for the cab. She insists she was watching for the cab and again goes into this litany of what she's going to do to me.

Ok, out of the cab. What???? You heard me, out of the cab. I'm going to go and do something else and you're going to get another driver. When they're out, I key the mike on channel 2 and tell the phone guy about it. And guess what? Did they get a red and white to take their sorry drunk ass's home? I doubt it. If they did, they did it as flags because no call was accepted over the phone.

Sunday night

2010-02-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

Weird weekend. And it finished weird too.

There's this hotel on Hayes rd. that I've taken women to, who struck me as prostitutes. There's nothing wrong with being a prostitute, but usually they don't tip. You'd think they'd be smart enough to want to be on the right side of everybody in their little world. Nope.

Anyway, I get this girl, she's around 21 out of this hotel and she wants a round trip to Arby's. Ok. I've also got Red Robin going to 51 & 151 to get so I tell the girl, ok I'll do her round trip but how we do it is going to depend on what the other passenger is doing. Between the motel and Red Robin her phone rings and she starts talking to this john. The waitress from Red Robin gets in, she wants to go to Walgreen's.

So I tell the girl with the phone we'll drop the waitress off before we go to Arby's. The entire time the waitress is in the cab the girl with the phone is talking to 2 different john's. 'I get $200 for this, I get $150 for that. No, you can't sleep in bed with me all night, but we can sort of work out what you want for $250.', and so on.

Waitress gets out, and I ask the kid where bozo's like the one she just finished talking to get her number from. 'Oh, places.............' I tell the kid that the cab is a public place and if I was her, I'd turn that cell phone off when I got in the cab. I also made a loud comment about a waitress not tipping, kid apparently got that, she tipped $2.00. First time any of the prostitutes tipped.

Then the guy calls back and wants directions to where she is. So I ask her where he is, she tells me HWY 14 coming into the south side of town. Ok, tell the guy to take the beltline east to I90, get off at East Washington, get on the frontage road on the north side of the street, go back toward the interstate and he'll see the place you say you want to meet him at. She had almost $35.00 in cab fare and Arby's, for a couple of combo's.

I then checked it in. Worst Sunday I've had in over a year.

Clueless people. Simply Clueless.

The rabbi and the preacher

2010-02-20T02:29:00.000-08:00

I had a Hasidic Rebbe in my cab Thursday night. Before he got in my cab he asked at least 10 drivers in the cab stand at the airport to high flag his ride to the park and ride for less than 20 bucks. He was very persistent. I must go and discuss this with the local guy. It's dismaying that such a pious fellow on the face of it would ask 10 guys to rip off their employers.

When he was putting his stuff in my trunk I said, "Erev tov." As we drove down the street he asked me if I was Jewish and I said, "ken." For those of you who haven't taken Hebrew, that was good evening and yes. We got as far as, "Koreemli hoffny", and I had to offer explanation in English, I guess my accent is as bad as his English accent was.

The preacher is a driver who's been driving about half as long as I have. He was telling me about doing stuff he did when he was a kid. Guess he was a banger in southern CA. Wild stories. He worries about people not understanding. Like the rebbe, he's got enough kids to put a football team on a field. I wonder what he's going to do when the first one of his kids bangs. He can say they won't all he wants, but they're kids, like he was.

I had to do this post on the sabbath, since the guy asking drivers to rip their boss's made a big deal out of did I observe the sabbath. I say, "Why is today different than any other day?" This is a classic Jewish question about the sabbath, it's supposed to be that you observe the desires of the Almighty every day, right? I need the money every day.

I've had too much weighing me down lately

2010-02-16T12:43:00.000-08:00

Before I forget, I don't speak to The Elder anymore. Seems there was a call at Majestic that went to Witte Saturday night, and he bid for it and got it. I pulled past Majestic and 4 girls wanted a ride to Landon so I took them. Elder watched me load the flags, and followed me up to the square, told the dispatcher that I'd stolen his call, pulled along side of me and screamed that I owed him an envelope. Now, while he's doing this, his people probably came out of Majestic and got into yet another cab and left. So Sunday night, JJ lets him accuse me of being a thief over the radio. And he won't let go of it. He loses a friend, he apparantly didn't get his $7 when it was super busy and he just should have moved on, what an idiot. He's not worth talking to.

I had an interesting conversation with Schnidley. He told me about an armed robbery/car jacking from years ago. So, Friday, I'm loading this guy with alzhimers from an adult day care, and I said to myself, "If anybody says to me they're going to blow my head off if I don't give them the money, I'm going to tell them to do it." I never intended to live to this age, I don't much care for being old, there's nobody to take care of me in my old age, I don't want to feel it, and I don't want to see it coming. So, I'll toss it into reverse and floor it, and take it from there. It always helps if you've thought of it in advance, and have a plan.

I visited another driver yesterday, and she told me I wasn't happy. She's right.

However, she had another guest who brought my spirits up a lot. The guest was a person named TJ that I know from the dog park. I also pretty much know Lynette from the dog park. So it was mostly a meeting of 3 dog park people. But I've known Lynette for many years, she drove a red and white before she drove a yellow cab. It was a really great, really informative discussion.

I was able to make a decision that would relive a lot of the discomfort I've had about my living situation. Lynette assures me that Smiley (my dog) can stay with her for a while if need be, and I trust her to be as good as her word on that. I can stay in a motel.

TJ was a cop for a number of years, so I asked TJ a question like, you've been in court more than most people, how does a judge react to a con artist? She said that judges don't like them, and that they can do what ever they want in their court room. So what I'm going to do with my con artist landlord/room mate is tape the rent check to his door, get a couple of friends to come over and put a dirty thumb print on the edge of the door and check, and come back in March and verify that it's still there. My room mate won't come and take the check, he's going to say I didn't pay the rent, when the issue will really be he didn't accept payment. Something else she said was, he won't get in front of a judge quickly. That's something I hadn't taken into account, but she made a big deal out of it. As soon as the snow is gone, I pretty much want to be gone from here too. So, by the time it gets to court, I might be gone anyway.

Something else that both of them told me that was fascinating was how contrived both police departments and schools are. When I was a kid, I didn't fit in well in school, and the older I get, the more I question if I ever had a chance. Both Lynette and TJ are former school teachers, and both say that the office politics of being a school teacher are intense. This says to me that if some of the teachers don't like your mother, you will will get bad grades, get behaviour evaluations saying you don't get along well, and so on. When I was a kid, my mother was disliked by the elementary school staff in general, and I can fully understand why. My mother and father were of the opinion that the school should pretty much raise their children, and the school didn't agree. By the time my brother and sister hit the schools my mother knew better than to push it that way, but it followed me all the way through.

This said, I also have to color it a bit with the change in society over the years. I wonder if policing was the cherry job then that it is today. Teaching certainly wasn't. Back then, a teacher didn't make a whole lot more than a guy in a car plant with 10 years on the job. Hard to say. All the people who could say are motly dead.

In my old age I've become something of an expert in not getting tickets. There's a technique to it, and even when I've deserved a ticket, they've let me off recently.

Poor quality rambling post isn't it? Oh well...............

Make my day

2010-02-15T20:55:00.000-08:00

I had some of the most obnoxious passengers I've ever had in my cab over the weekend.

Friday night these 2 sweet little faggots get in the cab going to Plan B. Actually, I shouldn't say that. One of them was rail thin, gestured with a limp wrist, and spoke that whiny nelly dialect of fag. The other was a tough guy, hair cut in a mohawk. They were young, and 2 other folks got in going to a different destination. Less than 2 blocks into the ride, the kid with the mohawk says, "I think it's really going to stink in here in a minute. I just farted, ha ha, about a week ago I emptied 12 guys out of the kitchen at a gay mens party, ha ha."

So I rolled down the windows, and it really did stink. The other passengers agreed it really stunk, and the guy said, he might have to fart again ha ha before we got to the bar. So I left the windows down. The whiny one complained that he was cold. I said something about the guy shitting himself in my cab so the windows would stay down. So the tough guy pulled out his cell phone and called (really foul mouth) and told the dispatcher to order me to roll up the windows. I pointed out that I'd turned the radio off at that point.

Just like so many obnoxious bastards before him, he was going to have me fired by 9 am Monday morning. Then when we got a block from the bar, he said he wasn't going to pay. I forgot that I have cop doors in the back seat, most cabs they turn that feature off in, but if I lock them, they can't unlock them. I went to do a fast Uturn through a gas station and he had the door open and was trying to leap. He did leap, and I grabbed the whiny ones coat. He's going to kick my ass. "I'm going to kick you ass old man."

"Son, you're not going to kick anybody's ass."

At moments like that it's real tempting to get out and show him how pathetic his skills are, but he'd keep getting up until I did something to keep him down, and for doing that the cops would take me to jail.

I had these 2 slick little putz's from Long Island who said take us to Majestic, then when we got there, their friends weren't there so they started this, no we said Orphiem crap. It wasn't worth a confrontation, but I did tell the little putz that paid that he'd never get in my cab again, and I will call him a putz to his face if he ever tries. I took a long look at him before I gave change to memorize his pudgy face and dimensions.

And finally, drum roll please, I had the 2 pair from the tittie bar between Middleton and Cross Plains going to campus. 2 guys, and 2 girls, all 4 went to look at the girls. So the guy who's in the back seat, starts asking the woman in the middle for a blow job. Normally you hear something like shut the fuck up, or stone silence, but she was handling it. So I let her handle it. About 3 miles into the ride she's getting fed up with it, and I tell the guy to shut up, now he's going to kick my ass. So I lock the back seat doors. Lady in the middle seat says kick him out, I say I've got a better idea. My plan is to take him to State st., find a cop, and he can spend the weekend in jail for sexual assault, and disorderly. Ladies don't want to be in that police report, so they say they'll drop it if their cab fare is paid, so I make the guy who hasn't done anything pay for him and his room mates ride, and pay for the ladies ride. Expensive trip to the titty bar.

I take the ladies to close to where they live and they say let us out at Dayton and Mills, so I did. Mr. Mouth gets out too. Guy who paid says take me home. I get most of a single block and he says, "I have to get out. I have to make sure he doesn't do anything bad."

How did that turn out? Who knows, who cares. What fun, right?

Amazing weekend

2010-02-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

It was a simply amazing weekend. I had a journalist who told me what I needed to thread my blog stories together and make a book out of it. I had a couple of lawyers who told me how to deal with my landlord/roomate. Lynetto said I could stash some of my junk in her garage. And........

Drum roll.................................

I had that thread I needed walk into my life. How did that go????????????

Well, Eric was on the radio abusing a new driver, nothing new about that. It was Sunday night. I keyed the mike and said 72, and waited for him to get back to me. Eventually he did. But when this actually happened Eric was on phones and Brown was on the radio. The issue was a paper jam in the MDT units. I explained how to fix it, and Eric crossed over and went into a tirade about how I was wasting radio time. So, instead of working 2p-2a, I only worked 2a-10p to spite them. That put me in the office about 10:15pm.

This lady came in and she looked like she was ready to cry. I asked if she was the new kid and she said she was. Every time I'd been in the office earlier that night and she'd been trying to get help from dispatch, Eric had been laughing his ass off. I never realized what a pri#k Eric was before then, but he's a huge one. The 3 of them JJ, Bro*n, and Eric, all read this guys, you're evil. So, I agree to take this lady out for private lessons, and get in her cab as a rider.

TCR was NOT pleased. I realized that they'd done the same thing to me 21 years ago. Way it works is, trainer says to the office, 'This driver is not going to work out.' Office says ok, and the bums rush begins. Only a true glutton for punishment survives this, and I guess I'm a true glutton for punishment. So, now I'm making a driver who won't work out, work out. Yet another strike against me, but hey, they can only hate me so much so does it matter? Nope.

AND.......... Had a journalist in my cab who advised me on making this blog a book. He said I needed a common thread. Well that new driver is the thread. She's 35ish, just like I was. She will be a real cab driver too. I touched a life. People asked me if I touched lives, well I try not to, but yet again I touched one. I created a cab driver.

AND........ Had a couple of lawyers in the cab, they told me how to deal with my roomate/landlord, and the work begins to get out of this hole. Lynetto said I could stash some of my equipment at her place, now the work begins. I really will get this place comdemned, the county will do it, and the bugs and rodents will be the basis.

AND........ I even made money. Wow.

The happiest Badger cab.

2010-01-25T16:15:00.001-08:00

In the photo of me, you also see the happiest Badger cab. Why is it the happiest cab...........

I went combing through the blog looking for this story and couldn't find it. It's my next first chapter attempt. How could I have possibly left it out?

Goes like this:

I only ever got one brand new cab. It was 71 I think (171), and it was back in the Dodge Diplomat days. Some people like Mean Gene and Boom Town get a lot of new cabs but they whine for them. I don't. And the fact of the matter is, I like driving junk anyway. 72 these days has a maj0r dent in the right front fender that they say Gooooner left there for me. Thanks alot Rabbit. (yes the guy has 2 nicknames) Where was I..........

I was given this new cab, first ever shift driven in it to drive, back in the day. I think it was a Friday night, but it could have been Saturday. I'm trolling for drunks on State street around 10:00 pm and this couple wave at me. They want to go to Squaw Bay. Cool, hop in.

We get to about Southtown and the Belt and this lady asks if anybody's ever had sex in my cab. I say not so far. She asks if they can have sex in the back seat. What a way to christen a new cab right? "If you're willing to pay for it, I don't care what you do in the back seat."

She asks how we should do this thing and I suggest driving west on the belt line until the fellow is finished. She says do it, and we're off.

I got back on the belt line west bound and got all the way to Airport rd., before she said they were done. Then I turned around and went back to Southtowne. Very nice fare!!

I took them to their house, and she danced from the cab to the front door. The guy sat there in the back seat with that stupid shit eating look on him for a minute then he slowly plodded to the door. And I figured that any cab that was used for getting a piece on it's maiden cruise had to be the happiest cab in the fleet. What do you think?

And I think I'll do my next chapter one rewrite using this as the first story. I've tried a dry explanitory, and I didn't like it much. I've tried violence, and it's ok, but not really good enough, but this is kind of catchy. Many passengers ask if anybody's ever gotten a piece in the back seat, it's a sort of romantic idea, in a real coarse sort of way. Well.......... worst that can happen is it will become yet another first chapter that didn't work.

Next try

2010-01-25T15:45:00.000-08:00

My next try for rewriting this blog as a book is going to start with the happiest cab. Everybody likes sex, right?

Over the weekend I finally saw something I wondered why I'd never seen it before. Happened like this:

I get this guy in at the airport going to west HS. He's a nice guy and I have a dead fitter to bid on at Oscars going to the square, so I bid on it and get it, it's Sims going to Genna's. This guy get's in, I've seen him before.

We get to Genna's and he's fumbling for money for a LONG time, then he starts saying he already paid me. I've always wondered when somebody would claim they already paid. Well it finally happened. Cops eventually pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and I got paid. He was doing it on purpose, and I know how it goes, a couple of drivers know him to be a dirt bag so they make him pay up front, and the rest get pissed off at the stalling act and curse him out of the cab.

Well........ John of 22 Langdon, you never ride in my cab again, pay up front or no pay up front. I don't give a damn if you'll be late for work and it's a sober ride to work that you intend to pay for or not, you don't ride. PERIOD. Ever again. John rides from 22 Langdon to Oscars, and from Sims to Genna's and from Genna's and the Rustic to 22 Langdon. And I won't simply tell the man on the radio that I won't take you, I'll forget to tell him anything, so you will for sure be late.

And to the other drivers who take this ass hole and make him pay up front, you help him steal from other drivers, you should refuse to take him. He has his act down. You've helped him develope it.

After fucking around for almost 20 minutes with this asshole John in the parking ramp under the PMI I finally get back to the cab and the consultant who'd traveled for 30 hours was still in the back seat. He wasn't in a rage. Very nice fellow. He paid without complaint. I should have given him the ride for free, but couldn't afford to.

On a darker note, Hamdinger is gone. I stopped talking to him a month ago because he stepped on a call I was up for just because he was Hamdinger. He smiled in the lot and said hello and I walked past him without speaking, and he said, "I guess you're mad at me."

Well, I was. 6 bucks is 6 bucks, and he took it out of my pocket. I wouldn't have done that to him if I was in the wrong, or if I knew he was going to get canned. Only now he's gone, and until and if he gets hired on with Mad Taxi, he's gone for good and I'll never see him again. We worked together for almost 20 years. He's an idiot anyhow. The mamasita he married will probably dump him and his life will probably fall apart. Sorry Gruber, ah............ sorry is all I got to say, you're in a lot of shit now. It kind of reminds me of a guy I knew back in '84 who got himself murdered and how all that came about, sad stories, why...............