And I sure don't like the idea of going out and shoveling slush, but I have to do it. It's 34, light rain, and I played it perfect I think. It's going to be warm for 2 days, warm enough that if I clear the pavement now, I won't have a sheet of ice to contend with.
The birds and squirrels have been fighting over the food on the deck since I put it out a couple of hours ago. I sure do love them. They are the best part of this drafty old dump. When I was a kid my grandmother loved this yellow shafted flicker that came to our yard at the cottage up north, I hadn't seen one since until I got a regular coming to the deck, he likes corn.
As usual, I have no family to spend holidays with, but that's ok, my family was kind of dysfunctional anyhow. If the weather was better I'd go down to the cab company, but I think minimizing driving about now is the prudent course of action.
I had a passenger in my cab who was kind of interesting, said she has a PhD in Education? Over qualified to ever get a job now. Drag. If the first chapter I just finished doesn't fly with an agent, perhaps I'll ask her to help me polish it enough so it does fly.
Friend of mine in Canada (ooooooo there's the most beautiful cardinal perching in the big pine tree, he's getting ready to swoop down for his meal, he's much shyer than the jays, Mrs cardinal is on the seed bell, they came together............... such beauty) has a copy of the proposed first chapter, I'm anxiously awaiting her opinion. She seemed to be interested in the blog. We were at the online bridge club and she stopped playing bridge to read it. Clearly some of the entrys are better than others.
I predict that the winter cab season will be a good one. All this snow is going to make it a brutal winter. Driving in the snow is much more work than warmer weather, there are so many details that get added. For instance, all those snow piles in the middle of the street, you can't see through them, nor can the other guy. Every time it's warm and sunny, the minute the sun sets you have black ice everywhere. But those nasty sidewalks are hard on the girls wearing 3" heels, so they take a cab. Ever try to walk in 3" heels? It's a trip.
Dog just had to get out to tree a squirril, first time I've ever seen him chase one. Woodchucks are his specialty, he lives for hunting woodchucks. The yard woodchuck is snuggled safely in his burrow for the winter, sleeping until spring.
We finally got the credit card machine activated. It does a bunch more stuff, and it's not real good yet at that other stuff. Every time you cross a zone line it beeps, the display lights up, and it shows the new zone, only it gets some places wrong. It's going to take a while. From the looks of it, eventually, we will be a metered zone cab.
Merry Christmas Fast Eddie, Jeff & Christopher, the King and Gene in NYC, the girl at Ian's, and Laurie in NB. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
The right stuff
Passengers some times ask what it takes to get into my blog. The ones who really want to get in never do. Last night I had not 1 but 2 who are getting in. They are examples of the extremes you run into in a space of less than an hour.
I went to the Rustic to get a guy going to a bar on Winnebago st. Guy was super drunk. Every other sentence he said he was all pissed off. He had a bag with him, said it was the Christmas presents his regular customers gave him. Turns out he was one of the bar tenders at the bar he was going to. Said he'd forgotten to take his fanny pack with him when he left the bar and went to the Rustic (a bar close to his house), and in the fanny pack was his inhaler and a bunch of other stuff he needed. He's one of those people who should never let anyone else see him drunk, rather disgusting I'd say, and I see A LOT of drunks.
The other extreme was this real nice girl who works at Ian's on State st. We got on the subject of pizza shops and pizza delivery, and I gave her some of the history of the business. She thought this trivia was super cool and said she intended to tell her pizza co-workers about the trivia and me. Wow, I'm flattered. So, since she said she'd read me, I'll post some of that trivia here, and some of the stuff I perhaps left out.
Here goes, the pizza trivia. Back in my younger days I delivered a lot of pizza. Decent jobs were impossible to get in the Detroit area. The story of my life, it would seem, is I've lived in places where there are no jobs. Most people don't know that pizza was the first food ever delivered, and it was first delivered in Ypsilanti, Michigan to the campus area close to Eastern Michigan University. Domino's store number 1 is the Cross st. store in Ypsilanti. The east side of Ypsilanti is store number 2 and the guy who owned it's name was John. Store 3 was the west side of Ann Arbor, and for some reason I never delivered a pie out of store number 3. That store was a really well run store and they never desperately called all the other stores begging for a driver to borrow for the night. Store #4 is the U of M central campus, and was on South University, it had the coolest oven I've ever seen. Store #5 was the east side of Ann Arbor, I managed that store for a while, big mistake, the owner was a big hillbilly named Dean who is a complete loser. Store #6 is U of M north campus and north side of town. Back in those days, a 16" plain cost $1.70.
She said a 20" pepperoni at Ian's is $9.00 these days, which sounds like a real bargain. I have some weird pizza delivery stories, I don't remember the nice stories, there must have been some. It was a long time ago however. One that I will always remember is the 3 cops who ordered a pizza. One of the drivers took the call and they refused to give their phone number, so when fuck up (we called Gene who was making pizza's fuck up) got to that slip he crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash. When they didn't get their pizza they called and Gene told them no phone number, no pizza, so the lady said something like, "Ok dingbat, here's the phone number", and fuck up hung up on them. So they started calling back, and calling back, and calling back, and every time Gene would pick up the phone and hang up on them. I walked into the store and answered the phone and the lady started screaming at me, so I told her to calm down and tell me what happened. Fuck up told me he would not make a pie for them so I made it my self and took it down to their house, it was a house on easy st.
When I knocked on the door it opened and this woman with a shoulder holster with a huge gun in it opened the door and grabbed me by the front of the shirt and dragged me into the house. In the living room there were 2 more guys, so 3 people total, all wearing a bunch of guns, 5 guns total if memory serves, and dressed like they were in the Soprano's and were going to a funeral. Way over dressed for an evening at home and armed to the teeth! One of the guys snarled, "Do you know who I am?" And I said, "I don't care who you are, you can be anybody you want." What are you supposed to say to some big ass hole with a gun anyway? So he says, "My name is Under Sheriff Owings! Now what's this shit about you wouldn't bring us a pizza?" Nice guy, I take the lady's shit on the phone, bring them the pie, and now I'm supposed to be scared shitless of the guy.
The way scared shitless works for me is if you suprise me I won't be scared right then, I'll be scared after it's over. Right then I will be at a loss for words, but I usually don't satisfy people with being terrified. It turns out that if you're really in great danger, you rarely have the luxury of being able to shit your pants right then, you just have to hold it for later.
I stammered out that I was the person who'd actually took the order and made the pizza and he shouldn't be mad at me, he should be mad at fuck up. So they thanked me, like nothing had happened, gave a little better than average tip, and told me I could leave. That address became another on my list of places I wouldn't deliver to, and luckilly they didn't order more pizzas because I would have told the big hillbilly who owned the store do go down there and deliver it himself, and he would have canned me.
Something else she'll probably think is neat, is the history of keeping a pizza hot while taking it to the customer. Back in the day, we drove company cars, and used hot box's that were first kept warm with a little propane heater. The trouble with this was that you'd open the door and the wind would snuff the burner, then 20 minutes later with the car doors shut, windows rolled up, cause it was cold outside, you'd light a cigarette, and the accumulated propane in the hotbox would blow the door off the car. This wasn't real great for the driver either, but they mostly cared about the damage it did to the car. So most stores started using these little cans of jellied alcohol, but one store started using blankets, that was store number 6. One if the guys who worked there was an engineering student named Dick who only worked on Sunday nights when I first met him. Dick ended up with the franchise for Pittsfield Township, the area between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, which it is my understanding he swapped Domino's for the franchise rights to Columbus, Ohio. If he owns all the stores in Columbus, Ohio, he must be filthy rich these days. My guess is he also holds a basic patent for the zipper hot bags that many stores use today to keep pies warm.
There was a burnout who worked for store 6 named Bill Rue, who'd given up on an engineering degree, to be a 6 day a week pizza man. What a waste. Bill had been robbed 3 times when I met him. For some reason, I never got robbed, and to this day have never been robbed, though people have tried a few times. Becky Belknap told me Bill was murdered making a night deposit in Columbus, Ohio. Dick took him with him to open his first store.
Another memory, the first guy I ever fired was Tim Heller, a guy I'd known since 7th grade. In a snow storm he took the company red white and blue Domino's Javelin and ran over the stop sign 60 feet from the store and pulled the car right up in front. The ONLY tire tracks. He thought it was funny. Looking back on it I should have called the cops and let them handle it.
There was a bar next store to the Packard store, I'm told Tuck Banfield own's it now, back then it was The Fireside Lounge. There are a couple of noteworthy drunk stories, who got 86'd from there. One was a guy who was surrounded by 6 cops when I pulled up to the store. The owners son Warren was outside watching, he was 12 at the time. The cops prodded the guy until he made a mistake that they used as provication pound the crap out of him. I tried real hard to get Warren into the store before he saw all this, I recall saying, "Come on Warren, you don't need to see this", and pushing him into the door. They made a deliberate effort to seperate both of the drunk man's shoulders, I used to wrestle and I know just how to do it. After they'd beaten him unconscious they tossed him in the squad and 4 of them left. The other 2 came in the store for the 2 pies they'd ordered, which we never charged them for. I asked the cop what happened and he said, "That guy tried to hit me and", and I stopped him in midsentence.
I said, "You know, I saw you hit him, but I never saw him hit you."
He replied that he wasn't going to let the guy hit him either. So I asked what they were going to do with him, and he said they'd probably let him go after he slept it off. I probably saved that guy's ass. I handed the cop the pies, said no charge and life went on.
Another drunk I tried to spare Warren from dealing with was a guy who'd gotten kicked out and came in the employee's entrance and demanded to buy a burned pie for a buck. We didn't have a burned pie just then. I was moving him out but when we got to the door he grabbed my shirt and started shaking me back and forth while giving me the raspberries. I looked in at the man in charge, a fellow we called Fat Dan, and he was holding up a fist and making a jesture that I should slug the guy. When he let go of me I gave him a single uppercut right to the jaw. He rose up on tiptoes, turned about 180 degrees and fell in the snow. I looked at him for a moment and said to myself, if I let him get up I'll just have to hit him again, so I jumped on him and put him in a wrestling hold called a guillatine, which had him facing the stars unable to move either arm or his legs and I had my free hand in a fist right in front of his nose. I told him if he didn't get up and leave he was going to get hurt, and got my most important lesson in drunks of my entire life.
His reply was classic, he said, "Why am I going to get hurt? I'm going to kick your ass."
I could have caved his face in right then and there, and he wanted to know why? Well, that's what drunk men ALWAYS say, they're complete idiots. It took about 10 seconds to decide that if he needed it explained to him, I couldn't explain it. So I said I didn't want anybody to accuse me of taking advantage of a drunk and he should come back the next day when he was sober and kick my ass. I told him to ask for Morris Dean Jenkins. I would be off the following day, he would be asking for Warrens dad, the big hill billy. It worked, he left. The other drivers were amazed that I'd let him go and not put him in the hospital. What they didn't understand is that it is impossible for me to hit someone in anger, they trained that out of me in a gym when they were training me to be a complete heart attack.
A couple of other names that come to me, Mary Traumatine and Marty Brooks. I hope both of you have lived fine lives my friends, and I wish I still saw you frequently. Marty gave me my first ever doobie, Mary always wanted to ride around in the delivery car and I'm sure she wanted to do............ She was a nice kid, she didn't do it with me.
I went to the Rustic to get a guy going to a bar on Winnebago st. Guy was super drunk. Every other sentence he said he was all pissed off. He had a bag with him, said it was the Christmas presents his regular customers gave him. Turns out he was one of the bar tenders at the bar he was going to. Said he'd forgotten to take his fanny pack with him when he left the bar and went to the Rustic (a bar close to his house), and in the fanny pack was his inhaler and a bunch of other stuff he needed. He's one of those people who should never let anyone else see him drunk, rather disgusting I'd say, and I see A LOT of drunks.
The other extreme was this real nice girl who works at Ian's on State st. We got on the subject of pizza shops and pizza delivery, and I gave her some of the history of the business. She thought this trivia was super cool and said she intended to tell her pizza co-workers about the trivia and me. Wow, I'm flattered. So, since she said she'd read me, I'll post some of that trivia here, and some of the stuff I perhaps left out.
Here goes, the pizza trivia. Back in my younger days I delivered a lot of pizza. Decent jobs were impossible to get in the Detroit area. The story of my life, it would seem, is I've lived in places where there are no jobs. Most people don't know that pizza was the first food ever delivered, and it was first delivered in Ypsilanti, Michigan to the campus area close to Eastern Michigan University. Domino's store number 1 is the Cross st. store in Ypsilanti. The east side of Ypsilanti is store number 2 and the guy who owned it's name was John. Store 3 was the west side of Ann Arbor, and for some reason I never delivered a pie out of store number 3. That store was a really well run store and they never desperately called all the other stores begging for a driver to borrow for the night. Store #4 is the U of M central campus, and was on South University, it had the coolest oven I've ever seen. Store #5 was the east side of Ann Arbor, I managed that store for a while, big mistake, the owner was a big hillbilly named Dean who is a complete loser. Store #6 is U of M north campus and north side of town. Back in those days, a 16" plain cost $1.70.
She said a 20" pepperoni at Ian's is $9.00 these days, which sounds like a real bargain. I have some weird pizza delivery stories, I don't remember the nice stories, there must have been some. It was a long time ago however. One that I will always remember is the 3 cops who ordered a pizza. One of the drivers took the call and they refused to give their phone number, so when fuck up (we called Gene who was making pizza's fuck up) got to that slip he crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash. When they didn't get their pizza they called and Gene told them no phone number, no pizza, so the lady said something like, "Ok dingbat, here's the phone number", and fuck up hung up on them. So they started calling back, and calling back, and calling back, and every time Gene would pick up the phone and hang up on them. I walked into the store and answered the phone and the lady started screaming at me, so I told her to calm down and tell me what happened. Fuck up told me he would not make a pie for them so I made it my self and took it down to their house, it was a house on easy st.
When I knocked on the door it opened and this woman with a shoulder holster with a huge gun in it opened the door and grabbed me by the front of the shirt and dragged me into the house. In the living room there were 2 more guys, so 3 people total, all wearing a bunch of guns, 5 guns total if memory serves, and dressed like they were in the Soprano's and were going to a funeral. Way over dressed for an evening at home and armed to the teeth! One of the guys snarled, "Do you know who I am?" And I said, "I don't care who you are, you can be anybody you want." What are you supposed to say to some big ass hole with a gun anyway? So he says, "My name is Under Sheriff Owings! Now what's this shit about you wouldn't bring us a pizza?" Nice guy, I take the lady's shit on the phone, bring them the pie, and now I'm supposed to be scared shitless of the guy.
The way scared shitless works for me is if you suprise me I won't be scared right then, I'll be scared after it's over. Right then I will be at a loss for words, but I usually don't satisfy people with being terrified. It turns out that if you're really in great danger, you rarely have the luxury of being able to shit your pants right then, you just have to hold it for later.
I stammered out that I was the person who'd actually took the order and made the pizza and he shouldn't be mad at me, he should be mad at fuck up. So they thanked me, like nothing had happened, gave a little better than average tip, and told me I could leave. That address became another on my list of places I wouldn't deliver to, and luckilly they didn't order more pizzas because I would have told the big hillbilly who owned the store do go down there and deliver it himself, and he would have canned me.
Something else she'll probably think is neat, is the history of keeping a pizza hot while taking it to the customer. Back in the day, we drove company cars, and used hot box's that were first kept warm with a little propane heater. The trouble with this was that you'd open the door and the wind would snuff the burner, then 20 minutes later with the car doors shut, windows rolled up, cause it was cold outside, you'd light a cigarette, and the accumulated propane in the hotbox would blow the door off the car. This wasn't real great for the driver either, but they mostly cared about the damage it did to the car. So most stores started using these little cans of jellied alcohol, but one store started using blankets, that was store number 6. One if the guys who worked there was an engineering student named Dick who only worked on Sunday nights when I first met him. Dick ended up with the franchise for Pittsfield Township, the area between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, which it is my understanding he swapped Domino's for the franchise rights to Columbus, Ohio. If he owns all the stores in Columbus, Ohio, he must be filthy rich these days. My guess is he also holds a basic patent for the zipper hot bags that many stores use today to keep pies warm.
There was a burnout who worked for store 6 named Bill Rue, who'd given up on an engineering degree, to be a 6 day a week pizza man. What a waste. Bill had been robbed 3 times when I met him. For some reason, I never got robbed, and to this day have never been robbed, though people have tried a few times. Becky Belknap told me Bill was murdered making a night deposit in Columbus, Ohio. Dick took him with him to open his first store.
Another memory, the first guy I ever fired was Tim Heller, a guy I'd known since 7th grade. In a snow storm he took the company red white and blue Domino's Javelin and ran over the stop sign 60 feet from the store and pulled the car right up in front. The ONLY tire tracks. He thought it was funny. Looking back on it I should have called the cops and let them handle it.
There was a bar next store to the Packard store, I'm told Tuck Banfield own's it now, back then it was The Fireside Lounge. There are a couple of noteworthy drunk stories, who got 86'd from there. One was a guy who was surrounded by 6 cops when I pulled up to the store. The owners son Warren was outside watching, he was 12 at the time. The cops prodded the guy until he made a mistake that they used as provication pound the crap out of him. I tried real hard to get Warren into the store before he saw all this, I recall saying, "Come on Warren, you don't need to see this", and pushing him into the door. They made a deliberate effort to seperate both of the drunk man's shoulders, I used to wrestle and I know just how to do it. After they'd beaten him unconscious they tossed him in the squad and 4 of them left. The other 2 came in the store for the 2 pies they'd ordered, which we never charged them for. I asked the cop what happened and he said, "That guy tried to hit me and", and I stopped him in midsentence.
I said, "You know, I saw you hit him, but I never saw him hit you."
He replied that he wasn't going to let the guy hit him either. So I asked what they were going to do with him, and he said they'd probably let him go after he slept it off. I probably saved that guy's ass. I handed the cop the pies, said no charge and life went on.
Another drunk I tried to spare Warren from dealing with was a guy who'd gotten kicked out and came in the employee's entrance and demanded to buy a burned pie for a buck. We didn't have a burned pie just then. I was moving him out but when we got to the door he grabbed my shirt and started shaking me back and forth while giving me the raspberries. I looked in at the man in charge, a fellow we called Fat Dan, and he was holding up a fist and making a jesture that I should slug the guy. When he let go of me I gave him a single uppercut right to the jaw. He rose up on tiptoes, turned about 180 degrees and fell in the snow. I looked at him for a moment and said to myself, if I let him get up I'll just have to hit him again, so I jumped on him and put him in a wrestling hold called a guillatine, which had him facing the stars unable to move either arm or his legs and I had my free hand in a fist right in front of his nose. I told him if he didn't get up and leave he was going to get hurt, and got my most important lesson in drunks of my entire life.
His reply was classic, he said, "Why am I going to get hurt? I'm going to kick your ass."
I could have caved his face in right then and there, and he wanted to know why? Well, that's what drunk men ALWAYS say, they're complete idiots. It took about 10 seconds to decide that if he needed it explained to him, I couldn't explain it. So I said I didn't want anybody to accuse me of taking advantage of a drunk and he should come back the next day when he was sober and kick my ass. I told him to ask for Morris Dean Jenkins. I would be off the following day, he would be asking for Warrens dad, the big hill billy. It worked, he left. The other drivers were amazed that I'd let him go and not put him in the hospital. What they didn't understand is that it is impossible for me to hit someone in anger, they trained that out of me in a gym when they were training me to be a complete heart attack.
A couple of other names that come to me, Mary Traumatine and Marty Brooks. I hope both of you have lived fine lives my friends, and I wish I still saw you frequently. Marty gave me my first ever doobie, Mary always wanted to ride around in the delivery car and I'm sure she wanted to do............ She was a nice kid, she didn't do it with me.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Hookers and dancers
I often tell people that when I get off work the only people out are the cab drivers, cops, and the people your parents told you to stay away from when you were a kid. Only some of those people your parents told you to avoid are actually pretty nice.
At the moment, we have 2 dancers, and one prostitute who are regular customers. Dancers? Yeah, as in exotic dancers, strippers. All 3 of these ladies are pretty nice.
The first of the 3 that I met is a college student who dances. She's nice looking, around 22, and nice to talk to. I kind of wonder if people will look at her weird because she was a dancer after she graduates. I really hope she is able to get what we refer to as a real job, and doesn't wind up dancing after she graduates. I never intended to drive a cab for over 20 years, yet here I am, and I want to do it until I'm too old to drive, yeah I really really hope she gets herself a real job.
The second of the 3 is the other dancer. She lives out on the north side, is 30ish, and smokes. Of the 3 she tips the least, though they all tip well. She's slim. I'll bet she puts on a good show. She can and will tell you about the business of stripping, so she can be quite informative. For instance, I never realized that the up north girls come down to Madison a few nights a year to basically horn in on the local girls money. I did know that the bars up north get extra talent in for deer season, but it never occurred to me that the girls who work in those bars simply get ripped off for those sets that ought to belong to them. You'd think that they'd look forward to deer season, but they probably don't because instead of making extra money as you'd think, they probably make less. Summer time works like that for us, you'd think we could make more money because the roads are good, but summer is a good time to find something else to do besides drive a cab. Hopefully I have my summer in 2010 set up to do other work, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing screws up.
The prostitute I met just recently. I've heard her ride go out a number of times and because of where she lives it's a hard ride to move. I made a point of talking to a couple of the dispatchers about it, and I think they'll move her rides easier from now on. She usually tips an amount about equal to the fare. Very gregarious, terribly attractive, I'm sure she makes pretty good money. I always wondered about the place she works, it's been there for over 25 years. I always figured that if you went there you'd have to be a regular customer, someone they pretty well knew, if you were going to get some. Not so, she says. She described the screening process that they use to avoid servicing cops, and she says that they certainly come in the place and try to get some. So, now when guys ask me to take them to a cat house, instead of saying none exist, I'll take them there. I'll have to tell them that they can't get any there and wink or something, but I'm sure it'll come to me when it comes up.
I like all 3, great regular customers.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The Younger
Fast Eddie's little brother used to drive, we called him Junior. Dispatcher would be saying you're where Junior? Where now Senior? Junior? And give out the call.
Until about a week ago, we had 2 guys with the exact same name, and they got called Elder and Younger. The Elder is one of my favorite people, has been for a while. He's obnoxious as all get out, but that's part of his charm. How did he come to drive a Badger cab? He had (had?/has?) a little rage issue, and it's said the ticket was for 120 in a 55, but it's only hearsay, no one will confirm it, he was in a yellow cab when he did it.
The Younger was still in intensive care on Monday, probably still is. He finished a dispatching shift on Friday night, got on his bike, and started riding home. At around midnight, I gave up on getting a fare out to the east side to get fuel. Like it or not, I'd have to go out there empty. I headed out the Jennifer st. bus route, but when I got to Rodgers and Rutledge the whole block was closed off to Thornton, so I had to go around. I got to the other corner, and before I turned back on Rutledge to go over the bridge I saw a bike lying on the street near the 2nd driveway easement. Ah, that's it, some drunk sneaking through the neighborhoods clipped a bike, and sure enough there was a crime investigation vehicle pulling up just then. Off to the office I went, got my fuel, went inside and told Bam Bam that the cops were investigating a bike getting clipped at Rutledge and the river. It would be about 20-30 minutes before the cops informed the office it was The Younger.
When I checked in I told Bam Bam that I figgured The Younger would get his drivers license lifted on medical grounds for 6 months. Bam Bam said no way, wanna bet? We ended up betting 25 bucks on it. Given that The Younger had brain surgery this week, I expect to win the bet. For some reason, nobody has started passing the hat for him yet. I'll donate that 25 bucks to The Younger Christmas fund, and if I have to get the card to start it, I'll buy that too.
Until about a week ago, we had 2 guys with the exact same name, and they got called Elder and Younger. The Elder is one of my favorite people, has been for a while. He's obnoxious as all get out, but that's part of his charm. How did he come to drive a Badger cab? He had (had?/has?) a little rage issue, and it's said the ticket was for 120 in a 55, but it's only hearsay, no one will confirm it, he was in a yellow cab when he did it.
The Younger was still in intensive care on Monday, probably still is. He finished a dispatching shift on Friday night, got on his bike, and started riding home. At around midnight, I gave up on getting a fare out to the east side to get fuel. Like it or not, I'd have to go out there empty. I headed out the Jennifer st. bus route, but when I got to Rodgers and Rutledge the whole block was closed off to Thornton, so I had to go around. I got to the other corner, and before I turned back on Rutledge to go over the bridge I saw a bike lying on the street near the 2nd driveway easement. Ah, that's it, some drunk sneaking through the neighborhoods clipped a bike, and sure enough there was a crime investigation vehicle pulling up just then. Off to the office I went, got my fuel, went inside and told Bam Bam that the cops were investigating a bike getting clipped at Rutledge and the river. It would be about 20-30 minutes before the cops informed the office it was The Younger.
When I checked in I told Bam Bam that I figgured The Younger would get his drivers license lifted on medical grounds for 6 months. Bam Bam said no way, wanna bet? We ended up betting 25 bucks on it. Given that The Younger had brain surgery this week, I expect to win the bet. For some reason, nobody has started passing the hat for him yet. I'll donate that 25 bucks to The Younger Christmas fund, and if I have to get the card to start it, I'll buy that too.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The pool players
When Bobby trained me, he spoke of the ball players. Back then, there was a soft ball team. I was never invited to play on that team, in spite of the fact that I was a day driver and a pretty good player back then. He told me that the ball players favored each other, which amounted to cheating. If they'd been favoring him, it would have been ok, of course.
Bobby was in a click of his own of course. He in 2 clicks. He was a pool player and one of the PSHA crowd. If you wanted to be really picky, you could argue there were 2 pool playing clicks, the Wilson's crowd, and the Que-Nique crowd. There is no Dick and Dave's crowd, all the cab drivers in town who drink in a bar, frequent the green and white awning from time to time. In all fairness to Bobby, he was one of the best dispatchers who ever sat behind the mike and nobody ever accused him of not being absolutely fair.
I was probably never asked to be a ball player because the fat man in the office was one of the central ball players was the fat man in the office was one of the central figgures in the management of the team. He didn't like me then, doesn't like me now, and having a winning team was never as important as the drinking and dope smoking comradery after the game.
If I were to rank the pool players in terms of skill, I'd have to put Crawdaddy and Tony V. at the top of the list. Bobby used to be up there, but I don't think he plays anymore. It makes me wonder what happened to Tony V., he hasn't been around for a while. Where do I rank? I usually tell people I don't play. When people lose to me, I hear a lot of, 'well, I don't play 8 ball, or I don't play 9 ball, or I don't practice trick shots, or.....' This isn't a problem since I almost never play. I don't know where I rank, I'm not as good as Bob or Tony.
Bobby was in a click of his own of course. He in 2 clicks. He was a pool player and one of the PSHA crowd. If you wanted to be really picky, you could argue there were 2 pool playing clicks, the Wilson's crowd, and the Que-Nique crowd. There is no Dick and Dave's crowd, all the cab drivers in town who drink in a bar, frequent the green and white awning from time to time. In all fairness to Bobby, he was one of the best dispatchers who ever sat behind the mike and nobody ever accused him of not being absolutely fair.
I was probably never asked to be a ball player because the fat man in the office was one of the central ball players was the fat man in the office was one of the central figgures in the management of the team. He didn't like me then, doesn't like me now, and having a winning team was never as important as the drinking and dope smoking comradery after the game.
If I were to rank the pool players in terms of skill, I'd have to put Crawdaddy and Tony V. at the top of the list. Bobby used to be up there, but I don't think he plays anymore. It makes me wonder what happened to Tony V., he hasn't been around for a while. Where do I rank? I usually tell people I don't play. When people lose to me, I hear a lot of, 'well, I don't play 8 ball, or I don't play 9 ball, or I don't practice trick shots, or.....' This isn't a problem since I almost never play. I don't know where I rank, I'm not as good as Bob or Tony.
The Hog fancied himself a pool player. He hung out in the pool hall a lot. I guess he was a player, just not a good one. Dickdro plays a lot, or did, he reminds me of myself as a chess player. He got about so good, and never improved from that point, which isn't all that good.
Pool and cab drivers have definately made Wilson a lot of money. His place is fun, you see all the other drivers who drink, and his tournaments must be fun they're well attended.
The Pinkney Street Hide Away (PSHA) got the wreaking ball many years ago. Delmonico's is there now. When I first moved to Madison I used to go in there and drink. I never noticed the cab drivers who hung out there. There was defiantly an in crowd who knew each other, I wasn't part of it. Powers was another PSHA type. He was quite a character, big, strong silent type, one day he went in to the VA hospital complaining of a headache, and he was dead within 36 hours.
I'm sure that in any city, if there are cab drivers, a bunch of them will play pool.
Monday, November 9, 2009
People from the past
I ran into a few people from the past over the weekend.
To the best of my knowledge Butch and I are the only 2 drivers who have really escaped robbers. They say that Useless One escaped, but he did he? The bad guys got his cell phone which they used to call a cab from a different company, and they put the driver from that company in the hospital.
Many years ago, there was a string of robberies which happened about once a month. It was always the same story. 3 guys, black, about 18 years old, a dark one who looked about like so, and a light one who looked about like so. I figured it was a gang initiation, but the company was always very adamant that I was wrong. That makes me believe I was right, of course. The way it always went down was the guy sitting behind the driver would throw something over the drivers head, draw it tight around their neck so they were strangling, and the other 2 would pound the crap out of the driver. After the driver was beaten up pretty bad, they'd ask for the money. No opportunity was given to simply give up the money.
When these guys tried to rob Butch, he won the fight. He laughed about it, and would say, "They was just flappin", to describe the fight. Butch must have had a bit of practice, when they try that on someone with no experience, the element of surprise is probably enough to win, all by itself.
Back in those days, another driver was said to have won, but that kind of depends on what you call winning. When they started beating the crap out of him his foot came off the brake peddle. His cab was in reverse and he was on a grade that went down to his rear, so the cab took off backward and wasn't going real fast, but was gaining speed. One or more of the kids pounding on him decided to exit the cab before the cab wreaked and didn't quite make it, his arm got pinned between the open cab door and a tree, so he got caught, and hurt pretty bad.
The white chick Butch was with was pretty skanky. He didn't remember me. He's been gone from our company for close to 20 years, and out of the cab business for around 5. Almost no one remembered him.
I had Mona and Stella in the cab. Mona has been Mona since before I started driving. She's never been all there, but age hasn't been kind to her. I really wondered why someone would take a ride a single block on Williamson st. When she got in the cab, I greeted her by her name and asked where she wanted to go, she gave an address a block and a half up the street. When she got out, I saw why she took the ride. The skirt she was wearing was mostly gone in the back all the way up to the waste band, which revealed the diaper she was wearing. At least the seat was in the same condition when she got out as it was when she got in, whew!
Stella was at the grocery store on Broadway. I guess most of the drivers know that ride and won't take her. She's also been riding since before I started driving and she always talks non stop a mile a minute the whole way. Most of what she says is a complaint, one after another, and she's always got 3 complaints about the driver before you even get the cab in gear. Her groceries MUST be in the back seat. Bull shit, groceries go in the trunk, but all the other drivers....... All the other drivers don't know who you are Stella, and don't know that it won't shut you up, and since you won't shut up, why should you get special treatment? Answer: You should never get special treatment. But once in a while I will take her because I need the good will it generates with the dispatcher.
I took The Cookie Lady to the same grocery, she'd gotten out of a week in the hospital. She too, figured she'd gotten crappy service. I started work at 3 and she was bitching that she'd called for a cab at 2. I drove out there from downtown to do that ride too, again to make points with the dispatcher. Ah, let no good deed go unpunished, right?
And finally, drum roll perhaps, the final ride of the weekend I did was positively creepy. A couple of guys, 25 - 35 years old perhaps, got in to take a ride to a small club to hear the metal band playing there. When the subject of smoking came up, the guy on the passenger side commented that he'd quit smoking once for 2 years, but started up again. The guy sitting behind me commented, "Yeah, but that was when you were in prison."
"You were in prison for 2 years? What did you do, if you don't mind my asking", I asked.
"Robbed a bank. Actually robbed a few banks", he replied.
"Really!?"
I asked him a little about it. He said that the papers in the community where he was at the time gave him a nick name.
Then the guy behind me commented that they had a buddy who'd killed a cab driver. Really!? Here in Wisconsin? He said yeah, here in Wisconsin, and went on to say the guy would get out of prison in 4 more years. If he killed the cab driver around 20 years ago, the guy he killed was my best friend. The guy said that his friend was 16 when he killed the cab driver, so sure enough, their good friend Peter had killed Jim Bob. It was awkward to say the very least. They said nice things about their friend, and I said to not worry about it, it was a long time ago. What a blast from the past.........
Monday, November 2, 2009
Lucky
I haven't seen the guy for years. He was a dispatching groupie. Like most groupies he had a favorite. His favorite was Piggie. Piggie named him Lucky, short for Lucky Pierre.
Unfortunately for Lucky, he didn't have enough suck with the office to get a job IN the office when he lost his drivers license. I could be wrong, but I believe the number one reason the dispatchers in the office became dispatchers was loss of drivers license. It's usually bad luck, but when you drive more than 1,000 miles a week in city traffic, you're going to have a little bad luck, sooner or later.
If memory serves, the ticket that put Lucky over the edge and resulted in loss of license was for riding his moped on a county highway. I don't think you even need a drivers license to ride a moped, but you can get a real ticket with real points for riding one on a numbered or lettered highway. Same as you can get a drunk driving ticket for riding your bicycle drunk.
The thing that will make Lucky always stand out in my mind was a left handed compliment.
The most profitable calls when it's super busy at night are short rides that go from the State st. area to the stadium area, or vice verse. This is especially true during the bar rush. It is only human nature to want those quick profitable rides, the object of the game is to make as much money as possible in the hours you have the cab leased for. Over the years, the dispatchers have tried all manner of things to move the long rides. They don't try very hard any more. The reality is, if the drivers aren't allowed to run the rides they want to run, they'll refuse to pick up the rides they don't want to run, which basically hurts the cab riding community.
Those short rides, State st., to the stadium, are called "puff calls", which is short for cream puff calls. Piggie's answer was to only give out a puff call with a long call which took the driver out of downtown. If you didn't want the potatoes you couldn't have the gravy either. This was just plain stupid, of course. If you want me to take a ride to Middleton at bar time, and you're trying to move 2 singles and a pair, I want the 3 way split with the long fares, to package it so 3 cabs are going to Middleton in such a situation makes little sense. If I have a fare in going to Middleton or East Towne, a short fitter is not gravy, and I don't want it.
When I became a night driver, this conflict had been going on for years already. Piggie added cream puffing to our vocabulary unintentionally. He'd sit there, frustrated that he wasn't getting his way, and mutter, "Cream puffin faggots!" Sounds kind of similar to something the bad guys in a Tolken novel would say,doesn't it? Anyhow, that's where the term came from.
The left handed compliment Piggie gave me, came second hand via Lucky. He said that the Hog commented to him that I was a "real cream puffer", in other words, the best of the best. Thanks Piggie!! Piggies long dead, and I'm not that good any more, but 15 years ago, I was the best. Piggie said so, and Lucky told me, so it must have been true.
Unfortunately for Lucky, he didn't have enough suck with the office to get a job IN the office when he lost his drivers license. I could be wrong, but I believe the number one reason the dispatchers in the office became dispatchers was loss of drivers license. It's usually bad luck, but when you drive more than 1,000 miles a week in city traffic, you're going to have a little bad luck, sooner or later.
If memory serves, the ticket that put Lucky over the edge and resulted in loss of license was for riding his moped on a county highway. I don't think you even need a drivers license to ride a moped, but you can get a real ticket with real points for riding one on a numbered or lettered highway. Same as you can get a drunk driving ticket for riding your bicycle drunk.
The thing that will make Lucky always stand out in my mind was a left handed compliment.
The most profitable calls when it's super busy at night are short rides that go from the State st. area to the stadium area, or vice verse. This is especially true during the bar rush. It is only human nature to want those quick profitable rides, the object of the game is to make as much money as possible in the hours you have the cab leased for. Over the years, the dispatchers have tried all manner of things to move the long rides. They don't try very hard any more. The reality is, if the drivers aren't allowed to run the rides they want to run, they'll refuse to pick up the rides they don't want to run, which basically hurts the cab riding community.
Those short rides, State st., to the stadium, are called "puff calls", which is short for cream puff calls. Piggie's answer was to only give out a puff call with a long call which took the driver out of downtown. If you didn't want the potatoes you couldn't have the gravy either. This was just plain stupid, of course. If you want me to take a ride to Middleton at bar time, and you're trying to move 2 singles and a pair, I want the 3 way split with the long fares, to package it so 3 cabs are going to Middleton in such a situation makes little sense. If I have a fare in going to Middleton or East Towne, a short fitter is not gravy, and I don't want it.
When I became a night driver, this conflict had been going on for years already. Piggie added cream puffing to our vocabulary unintentionally. He'd sit there, frustrated that he wasn't getting his way, and mutter, "Cream puffin faggots!" Sounds kind of similar to something the bad guys in a Tolken novel would say,doesn't it? Anyhow, that's where the term came from.
The left handed compliment Piggie gave me, came second hand via Lucky. He said that the Hog commented to him that I was a "real cream puffer", in other words, the best of the best. Thanks Piggie!! Piggies long dead, and I'm not that good any more, but 15 years ago, I was the best. Piggie said so, and Lucky told me, so it must have been true.
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