No U-Turn

I have a habit of talking to taxi drivers. It’s so “typically American” of me, to talk to total strangers. Sometimes they don’t go for it. Other times, they do. In the case of some taxi drivers, with all those hours of isolation, they end up being kind of wacko, and then you wish you haven’t opened the Pandora’s Box in the first place.

But it’s something I enjoy doing, because with just a few minutes with another person you’ll probably never see again, you may learn something you’ll remember for a long time.

Recently I got into the taxi of an elderly man who looked to be in his seventies. Before I knew it, he was telling me that he never meant to be a taxista. “I’m really a locksmith. I started working as a locksmith when I was 13 years old. I wanted to start my own locksmith business, once I had the money saved up. But the business I worked for went under, and I couldn’t find another job as a locksmith. Times were tougher in those days. We had a dictator, people had no money, sometimes there wasn’t enough food… I found out I could get a job quick, driving a cab. I’ve driven cabs ever since.”

I asked him my favorite question to ask older people. Which did he think were better: the olden days, or now? They don’t always give the same answer.

“It’s irrelevant which time I liked better,” said the cab driver. “It is what it is, and that’s what you have.” Then, through the rear-view mirror, he looked straight into my eyes. “I’d take it any way, if only I could be 22 again.”