Another True Story
Since I lived outside of my grade school's bus route, the school paid for a taxi to take me and several other kids to and from our homes.
Our regular taxi driver, Sam, was the coolest adult I had yet met. He told great dirty jokes. He could walk a coin across his knuckles - something I never managed, no matter how hard I practiced. He would stop at the deli en route to school and let us buy soda and SlimJims. He was a Marine combat veteran of the Korean War. He had a treasury of magnificent, stoic he-man sayings like, "Never throw the first punch, but always throw the last" and "The most dangerous enemy you'll ever face is yourself."
He was a 2% whistler. (Of all the people who like to whistle, only 2% of them can actually do it melodically and pleasantly. Sam was one.)
If Sam sounds like the Cool Uncle You Never Had, well, he was.
One day, when Sam dropped me off at my house, something was wrong with his taxi. After he radioed in for a towtruck, the two of us sat on the hood of the car and Sam tried to explain to me that STAR WARS, which I was mad for, was a rip-off of the westerns and cliff-hanger serials he had seen as a kid.
Unbeknownst to us, my Aunt Pat was in the house and witnessed our camraderie. She, like the Queen she so closely resembled, was not amused. No sooner had Sam left with the towtruck operator, cab in tow, then she came stamping down the driveway, scolding me in an icy voice for associating with "that kind of person." She proceeded to tell me everything that was wrong with Sam and "his kind."
I had been looking at my feet throughout all of this, until I finally couldn't stand it anymore, and my gaze snapped up to meet her eyes.
It must have been quite a look coming from me, because Pat actually took a step back. (And if looks could kill, Pat would have been dead before her body hit the ground.)
Aunt Pat finished her tirade and stalked back to the house, emptily threatening to tell my folks about my horrible social transgression. I knew Mom wouldn't really care, and Dad would laugh in her face, so I wasn't worried about it.
I remained Sam's cab fare, and friend, until he died a year later from cancer.
Looking back on it, I feel more sorrow than anger towards Aunt Pat. In her own way, she was broken; poisoned by the crap poured into her mind when she was young.
And I like to imagine Sam in heaven, embarassing the other angels with his Pope jokes, whistling like a songbird and rolling that damn coin across his knuckles.
Since I lived outside of my grade school's bus route, the school paid for a taxi to take me and several other kids to and from our homes.
Our regular taxi driver, Sam, was the coolest adult I had yet met. He told great dirty jokes. He could walk a coin across his knuckles - something I never managed, no matter how hard I practiced. He would stop at the deli en route to school and let us buy soda and SlimJims. He was a Marine combat veteran of the Korean War. He had a treasury of magnificent, stoic he-man sayings like, "Never throw the first punch, but always throw the last" and "The most dangerous enemy you'll ever face is yourself."
He was a 2% whistler. (Of all the people who like to whistle, only 2% of them can actually do it melodically and pleasantly. Sam was one.)
If Sam sounds like the Cool Uncle You Never Had, well, he was.
One day, when Sam dropped me off at my house, something was wrong with his taxi. After he radioed in for a towtruck, the two of us sat on the hood of the car and Sam tried to explain to me that STAR WARS, which I was mad for, was a rip-off of the westerns and cliff-hanger serials he had seen as a kid.
Unbeknownst to us, my Aunt Pat was in the house and witnessed our camraderie. She, like the Queen she so closely resembled, was not amused. No sooner had Sam left with the towtruck operator, cab in tow, then she came stamping down the driveway, scolding me in an icy voice for associating with "that kind of person." She proceeded to tell me everything that was wrong with Sam and "his kind."
I had been looking at my feet throughout all of this, until I finally couldn't stand it anymore, and my gaze snapped up to meet her eyes.
It must have been quite a look coming from me, because Pat actually took a step back. (And if looks could kill, Pat would have been dead before her body hit the ground.)
Aunt Pat finished her tirade and stalked back to the house, emptily threatening to tell my folks about my horrible social transgression. I knew Mom wouldn't really care, and Dad would laugh in her face, so I wasn't worried about it.
I remained Sam's cab fare, and friend, until he died a year later from cancer.
Looking back on it, I feel more sorrow than anger towards Aunt Pat. In her own way, she was broken; poisoned by the crap poured into her mind when she was young.
And I like to imagine Sam in heaven, embarassing the other angels with his Pope jokes, whistling like a songbird and rolling that damn coin across his knuckles.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
brainfromarous:
Be my guest. I just wish there were more good whistlers...
missnomer:
I made the mistake of explaining the 2% thing to my friend the physicist, and now he's trying to disprove the theory.