TAKING THE TAXI AT BOTH ENDS

Having written about yesterday's crazy taxi ride, I'd damn well better follow up with today's story:

If I think I'm going to be any more than 15 minutes late to the office in the mornings, I'll hail a cab. Well, this morning at about 8:30 a.m. I caught a ride from a graying Ossie Davis-looking oldster, who was pretty much the polar opposite of the aging skinhead nerd.

This cabbie I didn't mind talking to — this was his 54th year driving a cab here in his hometown. He recalled days of 30-cent per gallon gas and 5-cent hamburgers. He took a route into Rosslyn that I've never seen anyone take before: through quiet, tree-lined Georgetown. We passed his sister's house, where she still lived. He asked if I remembered the 14th Street Bridge plane crash. Well, I'd certainly heard of it, but I wasn't living here then. His niece had died in the accident. He was once a middle-weight boxer, at one time ranked 4th in the world (which I take to mean pretty much the U.S.). We passed the post office near M Street, and mentioned he earned his first pay there, shining shoes as a kid. I told him he could write a great book about the city. He agreed.

Every time I hear karma invoked, it's always the universe evening the score after you do something wrong. Well, let's say this time I evened the score with the taxi cabs of the Washington metro area.

Just to be safe, going home this afternoon I took the Metrorail.

---

posted by WWB at 10:35 PM |