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I’d like to ask you Dial-a-Cab guys a question at
the end of my story. Some years back, I was dispatched to a high-rise apartment house on Capitol Hill in the centre of Denver. I buzzed the apartment and the gentleman said he’d be right down. As he emerged from the lobby, his appearance was so impressive that almost 30 years on I vividly recall it. A man of medium height and slim figure wearing a black Homburg hat, black suit with a waistcoat. What brought my attention to the waistcoat was the old-fashioned chain suggesting a pocket watch on one side and the watch fob in a pocket on the other. Black leather shoes with such a high shine one might mistake them for patent leather, topped off with a gold-headed cane that he was using more as a ‘swagger stick’ rather than to assist his spry animated steps as he walked toward my cab. He told me to take him to Fitzsimons General Army Hospital, located on the eastern edge of Aurora, a Denver suburb. "Take me to the main hospital building," he said, "I have to have my annual physical as I am retired from the Army." During the rather long ride, we had a pleasant conversation. At Fitzsimons, as he paid the fare, he asked if I could pick him up to go home at three o'clock "...after I lunch at the Officers Club with some old friends." I agreed. When I picked him up for the return home, he was livid. "Those gosh-darned doctors," he blurted, "they come out of medical school and the Army |
Wendell White drives a taxi in Denver, Colorado. He is also a regular on-line reader and writes the occasional column for Call Sign… OUT AND ABOUT IN DENVER… |
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gives them Captain’s bars and they think they
know everything!" Then he went on to describe all the tests they had given him with a detailed explanation of each procedure. Finally he got around to the questions that riled him. "The Captain asked me if I smoked, so I said sometimes. ‘Whaddya mean sometimes’, he asked me? "Well," I said, "some days I enjoy a smoke and other days I don't smoke at all. Then that smart alec asked me how often that would be? So I told him I might not have a smoke for several days - and sometimes for several weeks - then at other times I might have several smokes in a day. "Then he asked what I smoked, so I told him tobacco." "Cigarettes, cigars or a pipe," the Captain asked and I replied just cigars. Then he asked me how many cigars I would smoke? "Depends," I said, "sometimes I might have one or two cigars in a month and sometimes I might smoke four or five cigars in a day..." "Then that punk said to me: |
‘General, you really shouldn't smoke.’" "Why not," I asked? "Because it will shorten your life-span," he answered. "Darn it," I told him, "I wish someone had told me that sixty-three years ago!" "How old are you, General," the doctor asked me? "Ninety-six," I said, "just like it tells you in those records, Doctor!" Comment: I love the interchange of conversation. Proponents and opponents in the USA are passionate in their arguments over the merits or disadvantages of safety shields in taxicabs. I remain one of the agnostics, undecided if it would help or hinder dialogue with my passengers as I’ve never had a shield / partition in my cab. Perhaps you guys at Dial-a-Cab in London could tell me if a conversation such as the above would be possible with a shield? Till next time… Wendell White |
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