didn't expect to be this moved today, on HN.
this reminded me of The Egg, and decided to reread it.
A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
121–130 of 174 posts
Re: A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had some miraculous wizard encounters too, with Jesus Mouse! There was a nice bohemian coffee shop on Haight Street in San Francisco that I used to hang out at in the early 90's, and one of the regulars who called himself "Jesus Mouse" was an old freaky looking hippie dude in a costume of a Mickey Mouse hat, and long tail, and Jesus-like long beard and hair. He also carried a wizardly walking stick topped with an o…
I think Jesus Mouse was onto something. I've been to the Vatican. I don't think Jesus would have been impressed.
[dead]
Re: A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
#123today I'm with my father, he we scheduled for angioplasty which was unsuccessful as he will need heart surgery. His heart is to clogged up. We are now waiting to see the doctor for the next steps. As I'm seeing him age and become more fragile, I also don't think I've done anything more important that what I'm doing right now. thank you for sharing this story.
I helped guide my mother through a very rough patch of depression and suicidal ideation last year, no doubt exacerbated by her chronic health issues. It forced me to confront many of the issues we try to forget, not the least of which being that our parents are complicated people with their own lives, and that it's very hard to watch someone who has always been your 'rock' need you to do that for them.
As hard as it was, I'm glad I was able to be that for her. Love, it seems, is defined by the really hard times, not the easy, and sometimes, the most important thing is just being there when you're needed the most.
Re: A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
#124I have been fortunate enough (privileged enough?) to feel comfortable picking up hitchhikers (or simply people walking along the road) over the years, and while most aren't particularly noteworthy, a few have been rough. One teenage boy had just been thrown out of his house, with nothing other than a torn shirt and shorts, by his drunk father. I drove him to his girlfriend's place. One desperate father had taken a bu…
Are you not scared of picking people up? I would love to help others, but I've always been worried that it could go poorly.
I regularly pick people up, but wouldn’t recommend it unless you’ve really given it thought.
For me - I’m a 6’2” bearded dude. I drive a Jeep and almost never have the doors or top on it in the summer. I’m also armed and have had some training.
Being in an open vehicle means that anyone around me in traffic can see what’s going on, so I’m reasonably confident a hitchhiker isn’t going to try to take me hostage or directly threaten me with a weapon. It also couldn’t be any better ventilated, so I’m able to pick people up whose “odor” would others make it difficult to get a ride.
I’ve probably picked up 100 or more hitchhikers at this point. I’ve had a couple that were obviously unhinged, more than a few people who were drunk or stoned to the point they had no business in public, and a surprising number of people who I would have never expected to take me up on my offer of a ride.
One of my favorite memories of this is when I found myself in Charlottesville, VA at about 1am, wide awake, in a growing snowstorm with nothing to do. My Jeep didn’t have doors or a top even though it was ~10ºF out. There was a little over a foot of snow on the ground, and the city buses had stopped as a result. I ended up driving back and forth all over downtown as the bars closed, taking college kids back to their homes when I found them stumbling through the snow trying walk back.
I often wonder how many of them woke up the next day questioning their own sanity. “How did I get home last night? I remember walking, then got a ride in a Go-Kart… Wait a sec - was that Hagrid driving!?”
Re: A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
#125Reading this I got the impression that the person is a professional writer and fictionalized for emotional effect. Indeed, this is from an author. I'm all but immune to sentimentalism on the internet, and this story came across like a facebook chain letter.
Yeah, something about a person who can still haul around luggage going to a hospice doesn't work for me. Hospices are usually the last stop for the bedridden, not the doomed-but-ambulatory. I'm no expert, of course... Also, the "not taking a fare" aspect is just, eh. You're okay explaining the hours of mileage to your company? "She was a nice old lady... And she needs some spending money in the afterlife."
I don't know how cab fares & driver pay work now, but decades ago I was told that after the driver payed the "drop fee" (iirc), he just kept the rest of the fares for the shift. Also, the driver paid for all the gas - so cabs drivers frequently kept as little as possible in the gas tank, and just added what was needed if they got dispatched farther out.
This was west coast; please correct me if anyone has more information.
Also, until just now, I'd forgotten seeing 2-way radios when I got into cabs in the 70's. Wow, technology!
Re: A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
#126I love a rare inspirational story in this age of negativity! I realize that the subject is mortality, but all of us have to die sometime and some of us will have fortune or misfortune to outlive others in our immediate orbit and then we can still hope for kindness of strangers until the end.
For those of us with non-people facing jobs, it helps to remember that our products too play a lot of positive role in lives of our users, even if we are not there to see that in person. E-mail carries love letters, phone camera captures first baby photos, video consumption apps and device play romantic movies for couples. And to try a little harder to make sure these magic moments happen smoothly.
Re: A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
#127I didn't expect to be haulin' buckets to HN today.
Word. I cannot remember the last HN article that had me in tears.
This one was brutal as well
Re: A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't post flamewar provocations to HN and please avoid generational flamewar here in particular. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. Hi dang, sorry I'm not trying to flame anyone. I'm just questioning a cultural norm that is far from universal in a story that is highly relevant.
I believe you! but we need you to understand how such a comment comes across that way anyway. Basically, we have to go not by intent but by effects. Here are some links to past explanations on this point which may (or not) be helpful:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Re: A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
#129Holy crap, that was a moving article.
On a lighter note…
If you drive for Uber or Lyft aren’t thrilled with it, this quote from the article shows how to reframe your job. Some people might think, “am I going to pick up yet another sorority girl who barfs in the backseat tonight?“ But instead, you could look at it like this:
> There was a time in my life twenty years ago when I was driving a cab for a living. It was a cowboy’s life, a gambler’s life, a life for someone who wanted no boss, constant movement and the thrill of a dice roll every time a new passenger got into the cab.
Re: A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had two fairly magical musical experiences with old guys during my college days. One happened during my junior year. I lived in a house with two other guys, who were out of town for the night, so I was home alone. I was short on cash so decided to just stay home, and I was playing guitar out on the stoop of my house drinking from a bottle of cheap wine that was left over in the fridge. I was pretty delighted when t…
Lesson: People should hang out on stoops more often.
After 50 years of wanting a house with a stoop I finally bought one, but my house is hundreds of feet off the street :(