HEY!  CABBIE! 

During my last year at Boston University (BU), my wife worked very hard as a waitress in order to pay for my tuition and books, and to qualify for a BU PhT.  (PhT was an honorary degree conferred by BU on wives who helped their student husbands finish their BU  education.  PhT stood for PUTTING HUBBY THROUGH.) Unfortunately the honorary degree was discontinued in the year that I graduated.

I was traveling by bus the 50 mile trip to Boston every day and that bus ride time was used for study and sleep. (Mostly sleep.)

I was home in the evenings and I decided to get a night job so that my wages could augment those of my wife... and we were kind of poor then and needed extra income.  

It might be fun to remember that night job.  Here goes!

WHAT  JOB  DID YOU HAVE?

Cab driver in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  Six nights a week from 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm (or much later), driving a bright yellow cab. Getting calls from a dispatcher or picking up folks yelling for a ride.

WHAT  WAS  YOUR  COMPENSATION?

Drivers got a very small percentage of the fare that people paid.  Tips were necessary in order to make any kind of a living  from driving a cab.

A "good" night for me was when I made $10. ($2.50 per hour.)  But it was better than nothing and did help pay our bills.

WHY DIDN'T YOU MAKE  MORE MONEY?

01.  I ferried a blind lady to her many evening Doctors' appointments.  She had no money, so I didn't charge her.

02.  Quite often, I received a call from a bartender asking me to pick up my alcoholic relative who was passed out.  I took him home and got him into his house.  No charge.

03.  Some people did not believe in "tipping."

04.  The two dispatchers received nightly gifts from a "cut-throat" driver and "good" jobs were usually sent his way, rather than to the other drivers.  A quart of booze for one dispatcher and a package of expensive cigars for the other were good "insurance" for this scumbag.

WHO WERE YOUR CO-WORKERS?

01. "Dirty Vaughan," a distant relative.  His cab was always dusty and dirty, as was he himself.  I was known as "Clean Vaughan." My cab was always cleaned after a job, especially after I drove "Fish Mary."  (More about her later.)

02.  Eddie M., another distant relative who had a special "claim to fame."  The trunk of his cab was filled with bottles of cheap whiskey, cheep beer, and items requested by "horny" customers.  He made quite a living selling his products to semi-drunk riders after all the bars had closed.  (For instance, he might sell a quart of "rotgut" that he had paid one dollar for, to a client for a ten dollar bill.)

03.  Manny 1, who always had his girlfriend in the cab with him as he went out on calls. After he dropped off each customer, he and his girlfriend would disappear for a half hour or more.  I think that he was the guy who told one dispatcher: "If my wife calls, tell her I'm busy on a job."

04.  Bill, who was a very pungent homeless guy. He lived and slept in one of the cabs.

05.  Clark, the skinny dispatcher who got a gift of booze each evening. He managed to get "stone-assed" drunk every night, but was there the next evening, shaking, but able to do his nefarious  job.

06.   Manny 2, the fat dispatcher who received his cigar gift each evening and proceeded to smoke one and stink up the station.  He sometimes would tell us how he had stolen his older brother's birth date and had fooled Social Security into giving him benefits even though he was actually years younger than required.

DID YOU EVER HAVE ANY INTERESTING EXPERIENCES WHILE DRIVING A CAB?

01.  I had lots of interesting experiences.  A medium-sized city like New Bedford appears to close down after eleven pm, but a whole new life opens up after that -- and I'll bet that most citizens have no idea  about what is happening while they sleep. 

02.  I drove lots of fishermen from bar to bar after they came in from a year stint of fishing in the prolific waters of George's Bank.  Usually they were happy drunks and good tippers.

However, one day I got a call to pick up a drunk Norwegian fisherman.  When I arrived, the fisherman decided that he didn't want to leave, so he yelled something in his native tongue and "sucker-punched" me in the solar plexus.  This caused me physical pain for years and made me be careful when I had to handle drunks.

03.  One of my customers was called "Fish Mary," a Portuguese-American "lumper."  In fact, I think she was the only female lumper on the East Coast. (A "lumper" is a person who jumps down into a fishing boat's hold and shovels out the writhing mass of slippery fish. Somebody has to do it.)

I was one of the few drivers who could understand enough of her Portuguese instructions to get her where she wanted to go.  She seemed to like me and always looked for my cab when she was done with her daily job.

Alas, there were no shower facilities on Pier Three, so she had to ride in my cab while wearing her work overalls and boots.   This meant that when she disembarked, I had the task of clearing out the fish smell as well as vacuuming up pieces of seaweed and fish bones.  This was why they called me "clean Vaughan," because extra cleaning was necessary on an almost daily basis.

Some times Mary would be accompanied by a pretty young granddaughter.  Years later I read that some people thought that she was involved in the famous "Big Dan" case.  That may or may not have been true, but it makes for interesting conjecture.

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Driving a cab in my hometown did not make me rich, but it gave me lots to think about.

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