Shift #1
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6 -– 5:52 a.m. -– Mission/Third Street to California/Kearny -- $4.90
I HAVE SPENT THE PAST HOUR inching my cab to the front of the cab line in front of the Westin-Market Street. For a while, I did some stretching out on the sidewalk, but it’s cold out there, so I’m behind the wheel, reading The Power of Now, and now my first fare of the year walks out of the hotel and says she’s going to 101 California Street, about ten blocks away.
She’s from Connecticut -- she’s in the insurance business -– she had good holidays -– she’s glad to see 2009 behind her, behind all of us. She loves coming to San Francisco, especially in the winter, because it’s so warm here compared to Connecticut… And barely three minutes later, here we are, pulling to the curb in front of 101 Cal.
“You are my first ride of the year,” I tell her, “and I’m going to start off my year with a free ride, if that’s all right with you -- and I hope it is.”
A smile creeps across her face. “Well,” she says. “That’s very sweet. Thank you.”
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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
AAA Membership
Shift #2
FRIDAY, JANUARY 8 -– 7:50 AM –- 24th / Mission to Van Ness / Fell
“DO YOU THINK we can get to 100 Van Ness by eight o’clock?” she asks me.
I glance down at the clock on the dash: 7:50. “Sure.”
She works for AAA of California, the automobile club, in the building where she’s headed.
Me: “You work for me then."
“Do you use your AAA card much?”
“Hardly at all. Only when I need a jump. Or a flat changed.”
“You know,” she says, “a lot of people aren’t aware of all the discounts you can get from using your card. Lots of restaurants and stores and hotels will give you five or ten or fifteen percent off your bill. I don’t work in that department, but the people there tell me that many people easily save $200-300 a year that way.”
I say, “More than the price of the membership...”
She ticks off a list of discount-giving stores and restaurants, none of which I use, except for Target, where once or twice a year I buy a dozen pairs of reading glasses at $4/pair.
Halfway through the ride I notice I’ve forgotten to turn on the meter. This is often a factor in my free ride decision –- if I don’t know how much a ride costs, and if I haven’t already given away that day's free ride, it makes it easy to just do it now. Plus, it’s still early in the shift, and often I find myself doing it early, while I’m fresh, getting the day off to a fun start and clearing it from my mind. Also, this fare is simply nice, a pleasant person. All these things add up.
It’s 7:57 AM when I drop her at her door.
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 8 -– 7:50 AM –- 24th / Mission to Van Ness / Fell
“DO YOU THINK we can get to 100 Van Ness by eight o’clock?” she asks me.
I glance down at the clock on the dash: 7:50. “Sure.”
She works for AAA of California, the automobile club, in the building where she’s headed.
Me: “You work for me then."
“Do you use your AAA card much?”
“Hardly at all. Only when I need a jump. Or a flat changed.”
“You know,” she says, “a lot of people aren’t aware of all the discounts you can get from using your card. Lots of restaurants and stores and hotels will give you five or ten or fifteen percent off your bill. I don’t work in that department, but the people there tell me that many people easily save $200-300 a year that way.”
I say, “More than the price of the membership...”
She ticks off a list of discount-giving stores and restaurants, none of which I use, except for Target, where once or twice a year I buy a dozen pairs of reading glasses at $4/pair.
Halfway through the ride I notice I’ve forgotten to turn on the meter. This is often a factor in my free ride decision –- if I don’t know how much a ride costs, and if I haven’t already given away that day's free ride, it makes it easy to just do it now. Plus, it’s still early in the shift, and often I find myself doing it early, while I’m fresh, getting the day off to a fun start and clearing it from my mind. Also, this fare is simply nice, a pleasant person. All these things add up.
It’s 7:57 AM when I drop her at her door.
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NEWLYWEDS
Shift #3
SUNDAY, JANUARY 10 -- 10:33 a.m. -– Sutter/Octovia (Queen Anne Hotel) to Bush/Powell -- $6.70
A COUPLE FROM ITALY, heading to pick up a rental car at 750 Bush Street. Today they’re driving to Death Valley -- they don’t have a place to stay yet, but they’re confident. Tomorrow they drive to Las Vegas, then in a few days they fly from LA to Hawaii. They are on a three-week honeymoon. Every detail of at their wedding (first marriage for either of them) came off perfectly, one week ago today, in their hometown, Genoa.
I tell them I remember Genoa very fondly.
“You have been?” They are surprised.
“In 1974, when I was 22, and my hair was down to here…” -- I torque my right arm around to touch a spot on my back, just a few inches above my waist -- “I was driving a Volkswagen bus from Morocco to Greece when, just outside Genoa, the motor started to skip. I was scared because I had so little money and I’d heard so much about how Italians can be… well, you know, Mafia…”
They laugh. “Yes, yes, we know…”
"But in Genoa I pulled in to the first garage and the owner came out and looked at us -- I was with two friends who were just as hairy as I was -- and he called all of the mechanics to come out and look. They laughed and laughed and laughed and asked how long did it take to grow our hair that long and they said they wished they could be hippies, too, and they wished they could go to Greece with us and chase Greek women around on the beaches and then they fixed our engine in about ten minutes and I can’t remember if they actually charged us anything or not -- if they did, it was very very little -- and then they pumped our hands and took our photos and they laughed and laughed and laughed some more... So,” I tell my fares, “I have a warm memory of Genoa.”
Their English isn’t perfect, and they undoubtedly have had a little trouble understanding my story, but they've caught the gist and seem to have liked it very much. I unload their luggage, and we’re standing beside my cab when I ask them, “Een Italian-o, how do you say ‘free ride?’”
Both their heads tip back. The man has pulled his wallet from a back pocket, but now he smiles and tucks it away again. “San Francisco,” he says. “Our honeymoon. Always we will remember this.”
The woman slides up beside me, and her smiling new husband snaps a photo of his smiling new wife and the smiling San Francisco cab driver with their arms slipped around each other’s waists.
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 10 -- 10:33 a.m. -– Sutter/Octovia (Queen Anne Hotel) to Bush/Powell -- $6.70
A COUPLE FROM ITALY, heading to pick up a rental car at 750 Bush Street. Today they’re driving to Death Valley -- they don’t have a place to stay yet, but they’re confident. Tomorrow they drive to Las Vegas, then in a few days they fly from LA to Hawaii. They are on a three-week honeymoon. Every detail of at their wedding (first marriage for either of them) came off perfectly, one week ago today, in their hometown, Genoa.
I tell them I remember Genoa very fondly.
“You have been?” They are surprised.
“In 1974, when I was 22, and my hair was down to here…” -- I torque my right arm around to touch a spot on my back, just a few inches above my waist -- “I was driving a Volkswagen bus from Morocco to Greece when, just outside Genoa, the motor started to skip. I was scared because I had so little money and I’d heard so much about how Italians can be… well, you know, Mafia…”
They laugh. “Yes, yes, we know…”
"But in Genoa I pulled in to the first garage and the owner came out and looked at us -- I was with two friends who were just as hairy as I was -- and he called all of the mechanics to come out and look. They laughed and laughed and laughed and asked how long did it take to grow our hair that long and they said they wished they could be hippies, too, and they wished they could go to Greece with us and chase Greek women around on the beaches and then they fixed our engine in about ten minutes and I can’t remember if they actually charged us anything or not -- if they did, it was very very little -- and then they pumped our hands and took our photos and they laughed and laughed and laughed some more... So,” I tell my fares, “I have a warm memory of Genoa.”
Their English isn’t perfect, and they undoubtedly have had a little trouble understanding my story, but they've caught the gist and seem to have liked it very much. I unload their luggage, and we’re standing beside my cab when I ask them, “Een Italian-o, how do you say ‘free ride?’”
Both their heads tip back. The man has pulled his wallet from a back pocket, but now he smiles and tucks it away again. “San Francisco,” he says. “Our honeymoon. Always we will remember this.”
The woman slides up beside me, and her smiling new husband snaps a photo of his smiling new wife and the smiling San Francisco cab driver with their arms slipped around each other’s waists.
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It's their anniversary
Shift #4
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13 -- Mid-morning -- Octavia and Lombard, to 24th/Guerrero -- $13.00
EVERY DAY has its theme, it seems. It could be that four people pay with $50 bills. Or three different people need a ride to St. Mary’s Hospital. Or three people are carrying cats in small cages home from the vet.
But it also seems that weeks can have themes, or months can have themes, etc. And while it's way too early in the year to make any sort of definitive projection, who knows, maybe I have spotted an emerging theme of honeymooners and newlyweds?
AT THE MARINA INN, Just a few blocks from the Bay, I pick up a young couple -- neither of them can be more than 25 years old. They live in San Diego, where the guy was born, but the woman grew up on Guam. They met in San Deigo when she came to the States for college. “Guam is only 30 miles long, and five miles wide,” she says. “I had relatives in the States, and I’d visited as a kid, and I always knew I wanted to come to California to live.” We talk music much of the way, and we talk about the trip the two of them made to Guam a couple of years ago -- they told her family that he, the guy she’d brought home with her, was “just a friend” interested in seeing Guam. Today, which is their first wedding anniversary, I ask if they think anyone believed them, and they both laugh: Nah... Who would fall for something like that!
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13 -- Mid-morning -- Octavia and Lombard, to 24th/Guerrero -- $13.00
EVERY DAY has its theme, it seems. It could be that four people pay with $50 bills. Or three different people need a ride to St. Mary’s Hospital. Or three people are carrying cats in small cages home from the vet.
But it also seems that weeks can have themes, or months can have themes, etc. And while it's way too early in the year to make any sort of definitive projection, who knows, maybe I have spotted an emerging theme of honeymooners and newlyweds?
AT THE MARINA INN, Just a few blocks from the Bay, I pick up a young couple -- neither of them can be more than 25 years old. They live in San Diego, where the guy was born, but the woman grew up on Guam. They met in San Deigo when she came to the States for college. “Guam is only 30 miles long, and five miles wide,” she says. “I had relatives in the States, and I’d visited as a kid, and I always knew I wanted to come to California to live.” We talk music much of the way, and we talk about the trip the two of them made to Guam a couple of years ago -- they told her family that he, the guy she’d brought home with her, was “just a friend” interested in seeing Guam. Today, which is their first wedding anniversary, I ask if they think anyone believed them, and they both laugh: Nah... Who would fall for something like that!
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DRAWING A BLANK
Shift #5
FRIDAY, JANUARY 15 -- Third/Howard to California/Sansome -- $5.35
THIS POST UNDERSCORES THE IMPORTANCE of getting to my notebook (or computer) as quickly as possible. Sixty-some hours have passed since Friday’s shift, and now I’m staring at my waybill, which shows that on Friday I had a total of seven rides. Six of them went to or from San Francisco International Airport (my way bill is scattered with “SFO” notations). The other ride was my free ride, and for the life of me I can’t remember it. The waybill shows that at 7:50 AM I picked up a single passenger at the Hotel W and at 7:53 AM deposited him or her at the corner of California and Sansome. Next to my notation of the meter reading -- $5.35 -- I have scrawled “Free.” And other than that, I’m simply drawing a blank.
Like all of my thousands of “regular” rides, my free rides do tend to blur together in my mind. I’ve maintained this practice for more than fifteen years. At least one hundred free rides per year. Average fare of, let’s say, ten bucks... At those conservative figures, I’ve given away at least 1,500 rides, with an approximate value of at least $15,000. Cheap, considering all the fun I’ve had along the way, and also considering that the practice has given me a whole new way to relate to the biggest, baddest boogeyman in all of Boogeydom: Money...!
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 15 -- Third/Howard to California/Sansome -- $5.35
THIS POST UNDERSCORES THE IMPORTANCE of getting to my notebook (or computer) as quickly as possible. Sixty-some hours have passed since Friday’s shift, and now I’m staring at my waybill, which shows that on Friday I had a total of seven rides. Six of them went to or from San Francisco International Airport (my way bill is scattered with “SFO” notations). The other ride was my free ride, and for the life of me I can’t remember it. The waybill shows that at 7:50 AM I picked up a single passenger at the Hotel W and at 7:53 AM deposited him or her at the corner of California and Sansome. Next to my notation of the meter reading -- $5.35 -- I have scrawled “Free.” And other than that, I’m simply drawing a blank.
Like all of my thousands of “regular” rides, my free rides do tend to blur together in my mind. I’ve maintained this practice for more than fifteen years. At least one hundred free rides per year. Average fare of, let’s say, ten bucks... At those conservative figures, I’ve given away at least 1,500 rides, with an approximate value of at least $15,000. Cheap, considering all the fun I’ve had along the way, and also considering that the practice has given me a whole new way to relate to the biggest, baddest boogeyman in all of Boogeydom: Money...!
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“Smells nice...”
Shift #6
SUNDAY, JANUARY 16 -- 8:39 a.m. -- Eddy/Van Ness to 18th/Castro -- (Forgot meter)
IT’S PARTICULARLY SLOW this drizzly morning. I stamp my waybill in the time clock at 6:11 A.M., but it isn’t until 8:21 A.M. that I find my first ride, a radio call, a young man from Presidio Heights going to meet a friend at Four-Barrel Coffee, the hot new roastery over on Valencia Street -- $11.65, plus a nice $3.35 tip. But just five minutes later, here’s my second ride -- two young guys flagging me at Eddy and Van Ness. As they settle in, I’m hit by a big reek of strong pot.
I think: When I was twenty-three, there were mornings I smelled that very same way at 8:39 A.M. I say: “Smells nice...”
They both chuckle. They tell me they’re heading over to the Castro District.
I ask, “So what does the rest of your day hold?”
One of them is a bit older than the other, maybe thirty, and he says, “Oh, a little of this, a little of that.”
The younger one: “Mostly that.”
The younger one, I soon learn, is twenty-three. He arrived here as a refugee from Russia when he was just five years old. He’s never been back, but he remembers lots of things about Russia. He tells the story of how his father, a doctor, managed to scrape together the money and arrange the visas to allow the family to leave Russia, and he perks up when I tell him I rode the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Beijing to Berlin a couple of years before he was born...
“You like to travel?” he asks.
At least once a day in my cab I find myself boasting that, “I have visited all fifty of the United States, and have circled the world with my backpack four times...”
He whistles. “I want to do that. I want to go EVV-er-ee-where...”
As we’re rolling up Market Street, and just as we’ve come within sight of the enormous Castro District rainbow flag (it’s limp this morning, perhaps exhausted by an over-exuberant Saturday night), I notice that I have forgotten to turn on the meter. In a perfect world there would be no meters. We would each simply do whatever it is we do to benefit the human race and/or the planet. We would not look for a return, for a reward, for payment. I like to imagine a Man 100 Miles Up, looking down on all of us, just observing. From that distance he couldn’t see money. He would merely discern people moving around, doing stuff to help others.
I scan my body, and Body issues a quick verdict: Free Ride.
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 16 -- 8:39 a.m. -- Eddy/Van Ness to 18th/Castro -- (Forgot meter)
IT’S PARTICULARLY SLOW this drizzly morning. I stamp my waybill in the time clock at 6:11 A.M., but it isn’t until 8:21 A.M. that I find my first ride, a radio call, a young man from Presidio Heights going to meet a friend at Four-Barrel Coffee, the hot new roastery over on Valencia Street -- $11.65, plus a nice $3.35 tip. But just five minutes later, here’s my second ride -- two young guys flagging me at Eddy and Van Ness. As they settle in, I’m hit by a big reek of strong pot.
I think: When I was twenty-three, there were mornings I smelled that very same way at 8:39 A.M. I say: “Smells nice...”
They both chuckle. They tell me they’re heading over to the Castro District.
I ask, “So what does the rest of your day hold?”
One of them is a bit older than the other, maybe thirty, and he says, “Oh, a little of this, a little of that.”
The younger one: “Mostly that.”
The younger one, I soon learn, is twenty-three. He arrived here as a refugee from Russia when he was just five years old. He’s never been back, but he remembers lots of things about Russia. He tells the story of how his father, a doctor, managed to scrape together the money and arrange the visas to allow the family to leave Russia, and he perks up when I tell him I rode the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Beijing to Berlin a couple of years before he was born...
“You like to travel?” he asks.
At least once a day in my cab I find myself boasting that, “I have visited all fifty of the United States, and have circled the world with my backpack four times...”
He whistles. “I want to do that. I want to go EVV-er-ee-where...”
As we’re rolling up Market Street, and just as we’ve come within sight of the enormous Castro District rainbow flag (it’s limp this morning, perhaps exhausted by an over-exuberant Saturday night), I notice that I have forgotten to turn on the meter. In a perfect world there would be no meters. We would each simply do whatever it is we do to benefit the human race and/or the planet. We would not look for a return, for a reward, for payment. I like to imagine a Man 100 Miles Up, looking down on all of us, just observing. From that distance he couldn’t see money. He would merely discern people moving around, doing stuff to help others.
I scan my body, and Body issues a quick verdict: Free Ride.
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* * “I'M NOT GIVING UP MY I-PHONE” * *
Shift #7
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20 -- 2:30 p.m. -- (Bus zone)
IF IT’S GETTING LATE in the shift and if I haven’t yet given away a free ride, I sometimes have to take matters into my own hands. I don’t actually have to -- no one’s keeping score, this practice is entirely my own creation -- but if I’m going to say I give away a free ride every day, well, hey, shouldn’t I actually do it?
At 2:10 PM I drop a passenger at SFO and head back to town. Today I have to pick my daughter up at the Rockbridge BART station in Oakland at 4:15 PM, so quitting time for me is around 3:45. Before I clock out, I have to gas up and vacuum out the cab for the next driver, so I’ve got about an hour left.
Returning from the airport I can sometimes catch a lucky radio order out near the city limits, but today’s dispatcher, David, is absolutely silent. I take the Army Street exit and thread my way over to Potrero Avenue. I scan the bus zone at 24th Street, but it’s crowded. I have found that it’s awkward to slide into a crowded bus zone and single out one or two people for a free ride (my pretty little Prius holds a maximum of four). A person considering a weird proposal from a cabdriver doesn’t really need the added complication of an eavesdropping crowd around him or her.
At the 21st Street bus stop I see two young men talking. They have happy expressions on their faces and I’m just about to swing over when they both raise lit cigarettes to their mouths…
But at the 16th Street bus stop, there he is, my free ride for the day, standing all by himself. “Well, sure,” he says. “Thank you very much.” He’s headed over to Market and Church. He works for the federal Food and Drug Administration. His job is to determine the “admissibility” of foreign container shipments coming into the Port of Oakland. “This time of year most everything comes from Asia. It’s like a fast-flowing river -- lots of things get in that probably shouldn’t, but you can’t catch everything.”
He does not own a car. Mostly he takes the bus, but every now and then he finds himself in a cab. “I love riding cabs, but they are an indulgence. I prefer to save my money for my only real vices, my television and my iPhone. I have a 40-inch HDTV.”
Me: “My family has a small, 20-year-old television at home, but when we visit friends, we see some jaw-dropping setups.”
“Mine is so worth it to me,” he says. “Once you get used to this new world, you just can’t go back. My cable/internet bill every month is $160, but it’s worth it to me. And my iPhone -- that’s a whole new world, too. I pay $130 a month for that, and it’s so worth it. Altogether I’m paying $290 a month for communications and entertainment. If I don’t go out to dinner ever again, that’s fine with me, but I’m not giving up my TV or my iPhone.”
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20 -- 2:30 p.m. -- (Bus zone)
IF IT’S GETTING LATE in the shift and if I haven’t yet given away a free ride, I sometimes have to take matters into my own hands. I don’t actually have to -- no one’s keeping score, this practice is entirely my own creation -- but if I’m going to say I give away a free ride every day, well, hey, shouldn’t I actually do it?
At 2:10 PM I drop a passenger at SFO and head back to town. Today I have to pick my daughter up at the Rockbridge BART station in Oakland at 4:15 PM, so quitting time for me is around 3:45. Before I clock out, I have to gas up and vacuum out the cab for the next driver, so I’ve got about an hour left.
Returning from the airport I can sometimes catch a lucky radio order out near the city limits, but today’s dispatcher, David, is absolutely silent. I take the Army Street exit and thread my way over to Potrero Avenue. I scan the bus zone at 24th Street, but it’s crowded. I have found that it’s awkward to slide into a crowded bus zone and single out one or two people for a free ride (my pretty little Prius holds a maximum of four). A person considering a weird proposal from a cabdriver doesn’t really need the added complication of an eavesdropping crowd around him or her.
At the 21st Street bus stop I see two young men talking. They have happy expressions on their faces and I’m just about to swing over when they both raise lit cigarettes to their mouths…
But at the 16th Street bus stop, there he is, my free ride for the day, standing all by himself. “Well, sure,” he says. “Thank you very much.” He’s headed over to Market and Church. He works for the federal Food and Drug Administration. His job is to determine the “admissibility” of foreign container shipments coming into the Port of Oakland. “This time of year most everything comes from Asia. It’s like a fast-flowing river -- lots of things get in that probably shouldn’t, but you can’t catch everything.”
He does not own a car. Mostly he takes the bus, but every now and then he finds himself in a cab. “I love riding cabs, but they are an indulgence. I prefer to save my money for my only real vices, my television and my iPhone. I have a 40-inch HDTV.”
Me: “My family has a small, 20-year-old television at home, but when we visit friends, we see some jaw-dropping setups.”
“Mine is so worth it to me,” he says. “Once you get used to this new world, you just can’t go back. My cable/internet bill every month is $160, but it’s worth it to me. And my iPhone -- that’s a whole new world, too. I pay $130 a month for that, and it’s so worth it. Altogether I’m paying $290 a month for communications and entertainment. If I don’t go out to dinner ever again, that’s fine with me, but I’m not giving up my TV or my iPhone.”
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