[HN Gopher] A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
___________________________________________________________________
A cab ride I'll never forget (1999)
Author : fileeditview
Score : 979 points
Date : 2023-01-16 08:44 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kentnerburn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kentnerburn.com)
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Such a nice and touching story... now excuse me while I go and
| clean something that got into my eye.
| ElfinTrousers wrote:
| Hey, me too, must be some smoke or fumes or something in the
| air.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Very nice and interesting read.
| ilamont wrote:
| I drove cabs PT in college. Usually the night shift on weekdays,
| which none of the FT drivers liked because demand was light.
|
| One night, I got a call to a suburban address, a little white
| Cape-style house. It was a guy in his 30s, glasses and a
| mustache. He seemed a little anxious, and explained that he was
| visiting his mother at the hospital - St. Elizabeths in Boston.
| Something serious. It was just him and his mom living in the
| little Cape.
|
| About a month later, the dispatcher sent me to the same address,
| again at night. It was him. His mother had died and he was
| absolutely shattered. Utter despair as I had never witnessed
| close up in my young life. I can't remember where he wanted to
| go. Honestly, I think he just wanted someone to talk with. And I
| did, as best I could.
| taxicabjesus wrote:
| I drove a taxi for about 3.5 years. Mostly it was random people
| going places. Taxi driving is not the most intellectually
| stimulating job, so I amused myself by talking to my passengers
| to figure out if they had anything to teach me. After a few
| shifts I became aware of a _Metaphysical Matching Algorithm,_
| where I was being sent specific passengers for reasons more than
| just 'transportation'.
|
| I'm still in contact with a woman I met on my 8th shift. She
| txt'd me for a ride ~4 days after her taxi ride. I remembered
| her, but couldn't figure out why she'd decided to call me back:
| 'I talk to everyone, but I didn't talk to _them_ '. On her follow
| up ride she reminded me of the little informative txt message I'd
| sent them after I'd driven away, and how that little act
| motivated her to reach out to _me_ when she needed to go to the
| store for a suitcase. She eventually made a short film that was
| inspired by how we met. The specific details are all wrong, which
| is why it 's only "inspired by a true story", lol. The series of
| passengers that led me to my future-friend was 1. passenger going
| home from the hospital in central Phoenix [delay], 2. lady going
| home to Mesa [transfer fare - 15 miles], 3. Grandma going to the
| pharmacy [delay], then I got my 'appointment' to meet my future-
| friend in the metropolitan area's far southeast corner.
|
| Sometimes my random questions revealed that my passenger had
| interesting experiences, such as the fellow who'd spent a lot of
| time on the secret bases in Nevada:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33640535 (My username was
| inspired by K5 user "Zombie Jesus Christ", whom I eventually
| visited in jail in California. Followup comment in this thread
| tells of my username's origin story.)
|
| I've commented before about the passenger I bailed out of jail. I
| distinctly remember the night I met him at the convenience store
| at Cave Creek & Bell Rd: "Are you available?" "Sure, hop in."
| He'd come to Arizona on a technology contract with a big bank,
| but the contract was canceled. Then his van and everything he
| owned got stolen. I don't remember the series of fares that led
| me to be in exactly his location that night...
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34157865
|
| Lots of stories like this. One passenger leads to the next. When
| I was between passengers sometimes I followed my intuitions
| trying to figure out where I'd find my next passenger. I tried to
| talk to everyone: everyone has a story & I tried to figure out if
| they had something I thought interesting. Sometimes I had the
| sense that I had 'appointments', othertimes I had the sense that
| there was no one else to meet that day.
|
| One of my standard lines of inquiry for couples, or people who
| mentioned their relationship, was 'how did you meet?' Sometimes
| it was a boring story ("met in elementary school"), sometimes
| _intuition_ made their improbable connection possible.
|
| (Intuition is when we do things that turn out well, without
| having a well-formed logical reason for doing so:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/well/intuition-gut-instin... )
|
| One of my better stories was "Passenger Rescue" and "Passenger
| Rescue, Pt 2": http://www.taxiwars.org/2012/07/passenger-
| rescue.html / http://www.taxiwars.org/2012/08/passenger-rescue-
| pt-2.html (originally these were diaries on Kuro5hin.org [RIP]):
| When we got back to his father's apartment complex my
| passenger asked, "What's the fare?" "This one's
| on me."
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I've read your HN comments before and replied to one within the
| last month. Glad you're here, Jesus.
| 88stacks wrote:
| Loved the idea of "zombie jesus christ". Ask and you shall
| receive: https://app.88stacks.com/c/zombie-jesus-christ
| gizajob wrote:
| Beautiful story
| Murfalo wrote:
| End of life is terrifying... Especially the idea of facing it
| alone, with all your friends and family long gone (or, worse yet,
| having been abandoned), is heartbreaking.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Prepare for it now and everyday. Maybe it won't be as
| terrifying when it comes.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| We have to reckon with the fact that even surrounded by
| friends and family, at the moment our life finally ends we
| are alone inside our own mind. Even if it is scary, we can
| take solace in the fact that it is a fleeting moment.
|
| Buddhism helps us learn healthy detachment. This can be
| detachment from things, people and even ourselves; the
| healthy part being the balance that still allows us to
| appreciate and love them, even knowing one day we must lose
| them. Pushing those things away to protect ourselves from the
| pain of loss is unhealthy. Remember the middle way.
|
| In _The Book of Joy_ the Dalai Lama states that he approaches
| meditation as a preparation to die well. I don't know if
| that's what you meant by "prepare for it every day" but what
| you said reminded me of all this.
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| Momento Mori
| bufordtwain wrote:
| Very moving, thanks for posting this.
| thesaintlives wrote:
| Bravo!
| MobileVet wrote:
| Clicks on link with bold thoughts of 'I can handle anything'
|
| Nope. The tears came for sure.
| zahrc wrote:
| Small acts of kindness are more than enough to make someone
| else's day. They sometimes even change lives. I hope this story
| reminds people that this is not just an empty platitude.
| bithead wrote:
| In a sense, there are no small acts of kindness. They are all
| great.
| butterfi wrote:
| That was beautiful.
| justusthane wrote:
| Kent Nerburn is an excellent writer. Highly recommend "Neither
| Dog Nor Wolf".
| tootie wrote:
| Thought of this gem:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/28qem...
| Lich wrote:
| A few days in on my first trip to New York City, I had decided to
| visit Central Park. On the subway there, I (Korean-American)
| noticed out of the corner of my eye an elderly Asian woman who
| was sitting right next to me, keep staring at me then looking
| away multiple times. After a few minutes of this, I stared right
| back at her and she asked me, "Ni zhong guo ren?" (are you
| Chinese)? Luckily, I was almost done graduating from college and
| in my last few semesters took Chinese as an elective. I said to
| her in my crappy Chinese "Bu. Wo shi han guo ren. Ke shi, wo zhi
| dao zhong wen yi dian dian." (No, I'm Korean, but I know a little
| Chinese.) She said something I couldn't understand, and was
| pointing to some paper with an address on it. I asked her in
| Chinese where she was going and she kept pointing to the paper
| and I realized it was the bus terminal. She looked deathly scared
| and afraid as if she was going to get lost, so I quickly looked
| up the stop for the bus terminal and I told her to follow me.
| She's got two heavy pieces of luggage, and I'm carrying it for
| her all the way to the terminal, to ticketing. I do my best to
| translate for her, get her the tickets to her destination of
| Flushing, New York. I guide her to the right gate and as I'm
| about to leave, she stops me, thanks me, and hands me some
| ginseng drink and a Christian tract. I take the drink, and I hand
| her back the tract. She's like, "no, take it." I say to her, "No,
| it's ok. Ssang-di (God), I believe. I believe in Jesus." There's
| a bit of a glad shock on her face and says, "Ohhhhh." We part
| ways. The fear on her face disappeared and I could see she felt
| comfortable and relaxed as she waited at the gate.
|
| It was just an awkward, but fun and memorable experience I'll
| never forget. I was a little annoyed early on cause there was
| only a few hours of daylight left and I wanted to spend as much
| time at Central Park, but it was just nice to help someone who
| seemed in desperate need of help. The funny thing is, this delay
| to Central Park actually timed it so that I got into a nice
| conversation with an older woman who sat on a bench next to me in
| the park.
| busterarm wrote:
| I didn't expect to be haulin' buckets to HN today.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| Word. I cannot remember the last HN article that had me in
| tears.
| metadat wrote:
| I remember the last one for me, it might've also been the
| first. It's longer than this but had me tearing up
| intermittently for at least 6 weeks.
|
| _What Happened to Lee_
|
| April 2020
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22878136
| golem14 wrote:
| You may like to read "the invention of curry sausage" by Uwe
| Timm.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Reading 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.
| mynameishere wrote:
| 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."
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| From the previous thread on the same story:
| https://www.truthorfiction.com/cabbie/
|
| TLDR: "He told TruthOrFiction.com that the story is true and
| happened to him in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the early 1980's.
| At the time he was working as a driver for the Yellow Cab
| company and worked what he called "the dog shift" overnight."
| linuxftw wrote:
| Fictionalized doesn't mean the entire story is fake, it's
| that fictional elements were added to it.
|
| While I believe he was a cabbie, and took someone to hospice
| at some point, I think that's as far as the truth goes. For
| starters, little old ladies don't call cabs at 2:30AM to go
| to a hospice facility.
| kurisufag wrote:
| I'm glad someone shares the sentiment.
|
| "Facebook chain letter" is a good descriptor -- I was thinking
| "college application essay".
| linuxftw wrote:
| College application essay is equally good!
| philk10 wrote:
| Previous discussion -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3918783
| fileeditview wrote:
| Thanks. I searched HN for the link and nothing turned up.
| Should have searched for the title I guess. But the good thing
| is there are always some who missed it.. including me.
| philk10 wrote:
| It was such a good story I was sure I'd read it before on
| here and well worth another read
| rzzzt wrote:
| Is there a movie about a similar story? We've talked about
| something vaguely resembling Kent's post with my mom last
| week and I don't think she has seen this in writing
| (certainly not on HN, ha).
| dang wrote:
| Reposts are fine after a year or so, and this was a great
| one. Thanks!
| dang wrote:
| Ah thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _The Cab Ride I 'll Never Forget_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3918783 - May 2012 (188
| comments)
|
| The URL of that one (http://www.zenmoments.org/the-cab-ride-
| ill-never-forget/) includes more background info, including the
| book this piece was published in.
| gigantaure wrote:
| today 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.
| metadat wrote:
| Sometimes people really are the best, and for a moment I get to
| feel immensely grateful and proud to be part of humanity.
| hacym wrote:
| Great story, this got me in the feels. A wonderful message.
| butterfi wrote:
| This hit me right in the feels. Decades ago I was a paperboy
| whose route included an old age home. I'll never forget that
| place - it was a soul-less 50's 4-story building that stank of
| strong disinfectant. It was unnerving, even for a somewhat
| clueless kid. I was very into WWII airplanes and struck up a
| friendship with a former pilot who shared his stories and gave me
| a few photos. He was a very nice man and I remember thinking how
| sad I was he was alone. I'm a lot closer to that age now and it
| still breaks my heart.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| My grandfather was a taxi cab driver in New York City during the
| 60s and 70s. After his third mugging, he changed jobs. I guess we
| each get different experiences.
| gk1 wrote:
| Nearly 20 years ago my friend and I returned to his dorm building
| after a long long night out, only to discover we were locked out.
| With nothing better to do, we sat outside on the stoop and
| planned to chat the hours away until 6am when the doors would
| reopen.
|
| Before the dawn came, a man in his 80s almost walked past us. He
| stopped to ask for directions somewhere, maybe to a church. After
| our half-hearted attempt at giving him directions, he asked us a
| question. Small talk. And then another. And then the questions
| turned into statements ("my daughter also went to art school"),
| and then into short stories, then long stories. My friend and I
| -- having nothing better to do at this early hour, and each
| recognizing this man wasn't looking for a sermon but an audience
| -- kept listening.
|
| The old man's long stories turned into deeply personal stories;
| of hunting deer with his father, of losing friends in the war...
| He went on and on, pausing occasionally to stare a thousand yards
| past us and let a patient tear make room for another.
|
| An hour later, in a click, the man wished us a good day and went
| about his way. And with a click, the lobby door behind us
| unlocked, and we went on our way. We slept until noon and I
| mostly forgot what else happened the previous night, but I never
| forgot that early morning moment.
|
| Those of us who are lucky to reach that age will surely have
| endless tales and thoughts to tell, and I hope we're all lucky to
| find an attentive ear, whether from a stoop-sitting stranger or a
| taxi driver.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| This sounds almost like the basis for the Strangler's (80s)
| song "Midnight Summer Dream".
|
| https://genius.com/The-stranglers-midnight-summer-dream-lyri...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI7CB2UwSj4
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I might be building a mental image that was not your
| experience, but I'm getting a real "My Diner with Andre" feel
| to your story. Just... nothing going on. One location. A lot of
| anecdotes and stories that add up to both nothing and
| everything, and then it's over and life unpauses.
|
| I'm not sure exactly how I feel, other than I'm tremendously
| moved and I think hopeful to have many experiences where I get
| to be both sides of that conversation. Thanks for sharing.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| Life can be full of 'magical moments' if we just look for them.
| Often we don't even have to seek them out, just don't ignore
| them when they come calling...
| me_smith wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your story.
|
| When I was in college, I joined a community service fraternity.
| One of the most memorable and heartwarming event was our visit
| to a retirement home. We were there to help the staff, but the
| best part was sitting with the residents and listening to their
| stories. Stories of war, stories of love, stories of
| friendship. Stories waiting for an attentive and friendly ear.
| Sometimes, all you need to do is just listen.
|
| I look back at that day with fond memories.
| nus07 wrote:
| This is another thing which cell phones have killed. Today odds
| are you would be trying to call or text to get in or just
| browsing on your phone with no time to listen to some old man's
| stories .
| jll29 wrote:
| Perhaps, once a year, there ought to be an "Official offline
| day", where all cellular networks are down, so humans can
| have such moments of serendipity again.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I would vote for more cellphone free areas. But I would be
| totally in for the offline day everywhere (minus real
| emergencies).
| gk1 wrote:
| Glad folks liked the story I tapped out with my thumbs while
| waiting for my coffee order. I added it to my journal in case
| someone wants to share it 24 years from now:
| https://www.gregkogan.com/journal/stoop/
| agentwiggles wrote:
| 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 two drunk guys threw a fiver on my porch
| as they passed by - I was definitely not playing to any level
| that deserved money, but it felt pretty awesome.
|
| An older hippie looking guy came stumbling down the walk. He
| stopped and asked me if he could play something on my guitar. I
| was immediately nervous that the guy might run off with the
| guitar, but I hesitantly handed it over to him, and he strummed
| out a song which I had never heard before (Bob Dylan's She
| Belongs to Me). He was no rock star - his chord changes were
| sloppy, his voice was raspy and maybe a little off key. But he
| shared a wonderful song that I love to this day, then thanked
| me for letting him play and continued on his way. What a cool
| little moment, to meet this random stranger and be able to
| share that music.
|
| The other moment was even more strange and magical, and
| happened about a year before. A buddy and I had been holed up
| in the house watching TV and smoking pot for a while, and we
| stepped out onto the stoop to have a cigarette. It was a
| beautiful spring afternoon, and we were just chatting, goofing
| around with accents and silly jokes, enjoying the fresh air and
| the leftovers of our weed high. All of sudden we heard this
| strange, ethereal music coming from down the street, and went
| silent as we strained to hear the sound. From the street corner
| emerged a man in a forest green suit, with a long white beard,
| carrying some sort of harp, and playing it beautifully as he
| walked by. The guy didn't acknowledge us in any way, and we
| were far too shocked to think of anything to say as he passed.
| We watched him walk away, still playing this almost angelic
| music, and the music faded as he got out of hearing distance.
| My friend and I stood there in stunned silence, until one of us
| asked, unbelievingly "did you see that too?" I never saw this
| guy on campus again after that day, but my friend and I still
| joke about the time we saw an actual wizard on campus. If I
| hadn't had a friend with me, I'm not sure I would believe that
| it was real, I'd chalk it up to some vivid dream or
| hallucination or something. But again, what a magical thing to
| have happen.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| 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
| ornate purple court jester's head with a curling tongue
| sticking out with a small key at the tip, and a thick worn
| spell book covered in fabric and sequins and runes that he'd
| sit and write in all the time.
|
| (He made such an strong impression both visually and
| mentally, that I remember him in high definition!)
|
| Occasionally tourists would walk in, look at him, do a double
| take, chat him up, and ask to take selfies with him, for
| which he would charge $5 a shot.
|
| We talked occasionally, and over time he told me his
| backstory about how he represented the combination of the
| most prominent icons of American mythology, and he just
| happened to know how to pass the official test that the
| Vatican used to determine whether or not somebody who thought
| he was Jesus actually WAS the Second Coming of Jesus H
| Christ, Our Lord.
|
| He never explicitly stated it, but it became evident that he
| wasn't a lunatic, he didn't actually BELIEVE he was Jesus, or
| believed IN Jesus, but he did believe the Catholic Church was
| totally full of shit, and he just somehow happened to know
| how to prove he was Jesus according to the Vatican's own
| rules.
|
| (However he never told me the actual secret answer to prove
| you're Jesus, so don't ask, since I would have long since
| proven I was Jesus had I known.)
|
| His lifelong mission was to prove to the Vatican on their own
| terms that he really was Jesus H Christ incarnate, and then
| once established, he would insist that they liquidate all of
| their hoards of precious artwork, and give away the money to
| the poor.
|
| He told me about how in his past glory days he'd led parades
| of hippies down Haight Street to Golden Gate Park, where he
| publicly declared himself Jesus and demanded the Catholic
| Church liquidate and distribute all of their treasures to the
| poor.
|
| And another story about how he had once ran into a
| sympathetic rich lady from a royal family in Europe who was
| intrigued by his story (by God, who wouldn't be???), and she
| had some connections who knew how to get him into the Vatican
| to meet the Pope and take the test.
|
| So she arranged to fly him out to Europe, and he got into the
| Vatican, then he told them his story and gave them his proof,
| and they beat the shit out of him and dumped him outside onto
| the street, so he never got to meet the Pope.
|
| He also related how he'd smuggled LSD into Europe by cutting
| blotter paper up into little colored pieces of paper and
| gluing them all over his scepter as decoration, and nobody in
| customs or airport security was remotely suspicious about it.
|
| So apparently this guy really did get around, possibly by
| using an Infinite Improbability Drive:
|
| The last time I saw him was when I was in Amsterdam for the
| InterCHI '93 conference, and a bunch of us went out to the
| Homegrown Fantasy Coffeeshop on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, and
| we're all sitting inside doing what you do inside a
| coffeeshop, and I happened to glance up and look out the
| window, and there was Jesus Mouse, ambling down the
| sidewalk!!!
|
| He's kind of hard not to miss, and easy to recognize, so I
| pointed and shouted "IT'S JESUS MOUSE!!!", ran outside,
| flagged him down, invited him in, and he joined us,
| introduced himself, hung out for a while, and told us his
| stories.
|
| I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't really been
| him, since the other people I was with might have thought I
| was crazy! Instead, it was one of those magical moments,
| seared into my memory.
|
| Later on I found out a lady friend of mine and he had been
| lovers, and she said he was a kind and interesting dude, he
| was pretty well known around the Haight/Ashbury scene, and
| did like to travel around the world, but that he'd since
| passed away.
| sparks1970 wrote:
| I think Jesus Mouse was onto something. I've been to the
| Vatican. I don't think Jesus would have been impressed.
| gk1 wrote:
| Lesson: People should hang out on stoops more often.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I think we had more of an actual civic life when they did.
| But two things changed: Television and air conditioning.
| Television meant that there was something to do inside. Air
| conditioning made it possible to _go_ inside, at least in
| the summer. Now nobody hangs out on stoops.
| wintogreen74 wrote:
| agreed, but the problem is only those in Brooklyn have
| stoops, the rest of us get by with porches and decks ;)
| don-code wrote:
| Back in high school, I fulfilled my community service
| requirement at a local nursing home. Several of the residents
| there had no local friends or family, and as a result, no
| visitors. I was tasked just with giving them someone to talk
| to.
|
| What surprised me is that most of the residents did not want to
| talk to someone - they wanted to be left alone. Many assumed
| they'd be going home, and didn't want to build any friendships.
| The one exception who stood out was a man in what I believe was
| his late 70s, functionally deaf but still able to speak. I'd
| communicate with him by writing on a whiteboard, and letting
| him speak in response.
|
| This man over the course of several weeks gave me his life's
| story - if I recall, he'd worked most of his life as a Boston
| firefighter. He had quite a bit to say, and I could tell that
| given the nature of interacting with him, no one else had
| really spent time talking with him since he'd become deaf. I
| don't know how long he had been deaf for, but I imagine this
| wasn't terribly different from being "locked in".
|
| My second to last week at the nursing home, he told me that
| he'd said everything there was to say - he didn't have any more
| stories, but was happy to have seen me come back.
|
| My last week there, I went to go see him anyway, only to find
| the bed clean and his things moved out. It turned out that he
| had passed away earlier in the week.
|
| I'm happy that I was able to give him those few hours.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| You're a top bloke.
| galgot wrote:
| Beautiful... Would fit well as a part of "Night on Earth".
| plumefar wrote:
| There are times when life gives us the opportunity to be that
| guy; just not exactly in the same way. Pay attention, it has and
| it will happen.
| HaZeust wrote:
| I take great care to stay vigilant for these opportunities.
| Recently, I found myself in a sadness for the lack of changes I
| was capable of making to our life's systemic dysfunctions - be
| it natural or artificial - and found my time was much better
| spent improving the lives around me directly, individually or
| in small groups.
|
| I've long had the philosophy that the world has enough problems
| and that it's not my place to add to them, but this philosophy
| also gave me a motivation to move mountains for solutions - and
| would be upset when I inevitably couldn't. I think this
| perspective has been the best middle ground between what I'm
| capable of, and what I want to accomplish.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| This comment got me thinking.
|
| One thing I enjoyed about early Covid was the 'blitz spirit'
| that occurred before it got all politicized.
|
| I'd like to recapture that without the doom.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Beautiful.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Call me cynical, but I hope never to age into such an oblivious
| and entitled state as to impose this way on other people. For
| every sympathetic cab driver there are 100 people who are not
| interested in the life stories of lonely elderly people, and
| resent being held as a captive audience.
|
| Imposing this way as a youth or adult is very rude - why is it
| acceptable for older people? No one wants to hear about the 10
| year old's Minecraft obsession, or the 20 year old's drinking
| stories. Why do we show this inexplicable, warm-hearted patience
| for old people basically doing the same thing? No one cares where
| you worked as an elevator operator, they're just listening to you
| out of a combination of politeness, sympathy, and pity. Anyone
| who realizes this should immediately fall silent and ashamed.
| colineartheta wrote:
| This is...a deeply disturbing take and outlook on life, and all
| I can hope for is that it was meant in some dark irony that is
| beyond me. The sheer arrogance of it has me floored.
|
| We are all human, and our lives are worth living and sharing.
| But yours? I can only imagine your existence is as lonely and
| angry as you wish upon others. Be well, friend, and may the sun
| shine on you, one day.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I'm afraid your characterization of me isn't accurate. I just
| like to think that we can all live our lives without imposing
| on other people. If the people you're listening to are
| resenting you for it, and are being too polite to tell you,
| you're doing something wrong. It's also not hard to tell when
| you're being resented as most people are not that good of
| actors. All I'm suggesting is that the elderly be as self-
| conscious as the rest of us are expected to be.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't cross into personal attack, no matter how wrong
| another comment is or you feel it is.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| danso wrote:
| > _"Oh, I don't mind," she said. "I'm in no hurry. I'm on my
| way to a hospice."_
|
| > _I looked in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were glistening.
| "I don't have any family left," she continued. "The doctor says
| I should go there. He says I don't have very long."_
|
| > _I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. "What route
| would you like me to go?" I asked._
|
| How is the elderly woman in this story _imposing_ on the
| narrator? He makes his own choice to give attention and
| patience to what he assumes is this woman's final taxi ride. He
| apparently sees it as a small privilege to get to hear about
| her life. Why do you act as if he's created a burden on you?
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _For every sympathetic cab driver there are 100 people who
| are not interested in the life stories of lonely elderly
| people_
|
| > _" I don't have any family left," she continued. "The
| doctor says I should go there. He says I don't have very
| long."_
|
| This is the imposition. From that point forward it's impolite
| to tell her you don't care, even if it's honest. Keep your
| personal life to yourself.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post flamewar provocations to HN and please avoid
| generational flamewar here in particular.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| thegrimmest wrote:
| > _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.
| par wrote:
| Ok I'll bite, you're cynical! :)
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I get that, but I've had a hard time finding an explanation
| of exactly why. It seems like this is something people feel,
| but don't do very well explaining.
| Aromasin wrote:
| A mastery in short story writing. I had to call my mum
| immediately after finishing it.
| yreg wrote:
| Well written, but it reads like a fiction based on a real
| story.
| 0wis wrote:
| Such a beautiful story in a few sentences. I think everyone can
| relate and simultaneously find how unique this experience was.
| Thanks for sharing, it adds life in the middle of arid subjects I
| can be caught into.
| macintux wrote:
| I 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 bus as far as he could, but
| still had miles to walk to get to his mother's place and back
| home before his kids would wake up in the morning.
|
| I wrote about those and my other recollections a while back[1],
| but none as memorable as this piece.
|
| [1]: https://opposite-lock.com/topic/45077/hitchhikers-over-
| the-y...
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| 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.
| kibwen wrote:
| While hitchhiking, I was once picked up by a mother with her
| young children in the backseat. It seemed odd even to me that
| she would take such a risk with a stranger, but in the course
| of the drive she explained that her eldest daughter was a
| serial hitchhiker and that it gave her peace of mind to
| provide the sort of positive encounters that she hoped her
| daughter would experience.
| wintogreen74 wrote:
| I've experienced both sides, and been more afraid as a
| hitchhiker than as the driver, mostly from terrible driving
| vs. any direct bodily threat. I'm a large male too, though
| maybe always-connected & cell phones would actually make this
| safer for women?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| A guy picked me up when I was hitchhiking out of
| Whitehorse, Yukon (or maybe it was Haines Junction?). I
| should have been suspicious since he had just left a bar
| (and for some reason had hundreds and hundreds of empty
| bottles in the back of his pickup truck -- for recycling?).
|
| Yeah, he's swerving on the highway. He even let me know the
| RCMP were very serious about drunk driving. I offered to
| drive but he declined my offer.
|
| It was the only time I saw the Northern Light in full
| spectacle -- he pulled over for that. Blew my mind
| (although, at the same time, I was running on very little
| sleep).
|
| This was back in the mid 1980's, I believe.
| smu wrote:
| I hitchhiked a bit during my college days, so I feel a moral
| obligation to pick up others if I can. Doesn't seem to happen
| as often as it used though.
|
| Worst that happened to me was a very smelly drunk..
| sequoia wrote:
| I've been a hitchhiker and I've picked up hitchhikers though
| not in years as they're less common today where I live and
| I've been a parent and I won't pick up hitchhikers with my
| kids in the car. So while I was going to say "I don't think
| there's much risk" I guess I must admit I do acknowledge some
| risk involved, given that I won't do it with my kids aboard.
|
| But overall hitchhikers are people just like you and me, the
| difference being they haven't got a car, obviously. I figure
| the worst that would happen is I'm robbed and my car stolen,
| which would stink but the risk is infinitesimal and the
| benefit I perceive in helping out my fellow human is worth it
| to me. Notably, I am male; my calculous would likely be
| different if I were female.
|
| There's also the typical caveat of minding one's common sense
| & gut. If someone looks like a basket case I'm unlikely to
| pick them up, or if it's an odd hour/past dark, the area is
| remote etc. But someone on an busy onramp to I-40 during
| daytime, why not?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yep. Hitchhiked from/to Alaska many decades ago. Trust me,
| the hitchhikers are nervous too.
| chasd00 wrote:
| years ago, i picked up a couple of very young and beautiful
| women in downtown Denver hitchhiking up to Winter Park. They
| were from Chile, barely spoke English, and worked at the resort
| for the season. I asked them to promise me they'd never
| hitchhike again from where i picked them up. I had no interest
| in seeing their photos/bodybags on the news.
| eezurr wrote:
| I did this once while returning from a road trip from Boston to
| the northern tip of New Hampshire and back. Younger and dumber?
|
| I picked up some 50+ year old man with very long brown hair
| (down to his butt). He was definitely an outsider. Told me
| stories, how the FBI interrogated him once for having a book (I
| forget which one). How he used to work as a guard at the local
| jail, then as a cook at a castle-like hotel (both in the area).
| How his stress free life and eating local herbs/forest plants
| has prevented his hair from graying. Talked about his tiny,
| simple house with two rooms. He told me about American ginseng
| (illegal to harvest btw), and we pulled off the side of the
| road to find some. The plant made part of my lips swell a bit.
| Had that "lots of enzymes" flavor (like how
| peaches/strawberries/etc can tickle the inside of your mouth,
| but much stronger).
|
| He said he had an wife in Kentucky that he hadn't finished
| divorcing, and then he asked me to drive him all the way back
| to Boston. He didn't even request to stop by his house. I let
| him out in downtown and he walked off into the night,
| presumably towards the airport.
|
| Edit: oh yeah, i forgot that craziest part. He said people have
| been lnyched during his time living there. (Sorry if this is
| too dark, but all things considered, its hard to believe
| everything he said)
| jahans wrote:
| Now that made me cry.
| lakeshastina wrote:
| Wonderful. Thank you for sharing. Such acts of selfless kindness
| are what make life beautiful. They enrich everyone - the giver,
| the receiver and all those who witness such acts.
| arnmac wrote:
| I am not sure there is anything else on the Internet worth
| reading today.
| canbus wrote:
| beautiful story
| neilv wrote:
| > _it was possible to believe that I had been placed on earth for
| the sole purpose of providing her with that last ride._
|
| I suspect that a lot of people have a "heroism gene". In
| situations in which they're doing something selfless, and nothing
| matters other than helping the person before them who really
| needs it, there's an implicit "this is my purpose" or "this is
| what we do".
|
| I've wondered where that comes from, nature or nurture. And how
| common it is.
|
| And also how that changes once they have family dependent on
| them, when helping someone else would threaten that.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > I've wondered where that comes from, nature or nurture. And
| how common it is.
|
| Altruism is deeply embedded in all men, because it raises our
| chances of securing a mate. Nurture probably has some degree of
| an effect, but it's one of the most basal instincts.
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| I have also come to believe this. It's something that emerges
| in the moment - the moment of crisis, or the moment of need.
| You don't see it day-to-day, usually.
|
| I suspect it's over-represented in populations like nurses and
| firefighters. It's sometimes easier to see who doesn't have it
| - the people who "stay out of it" - those bystander effect
| exemplars who nonetheless remain nearby recording on their
| phones.
| sb8244 wrote:
| > I do not think that I have ever done anything in my life that
| was any more important.
|
| My grandmother was in hospital on palatial care. We didn't know
| how long she would have, but it wasn't much.
|
| I look an awful lot like my uncle due to having curly hair. I sat
| with her holding her hand for hours, just being with her and
| making sure she wasn't alone. She thought I was my uncle most of
| the time, but it didn't matter. (Very confused nurses when she
| called me her son.)
|
| I still consider it one of the most important things I've done.
| Being there for someone in their final days is sad, but also a
| gift if they can be provided some comfort.
| rishabhd wrote:
| Poignant and heartfelt, I did cry a little.
| me_smith wrote:
| This is probably one of the best things I read on here. Thank you
| for sharing.
| jaredstein wrote:
| I enjoyed reading this. She was fortunate to have you in her
| life.
| Lisa_Novak wrote:
| [dead]
| phonescreen_man wrote:
| ChatGPT3 makes me no longer trust online writing. was that
| writing part of the simulation program, I'll never truly know.
| PuffinBlue wrote:
| I wonder if we don't all hope one day we have the privilege to be
| the Taxi Driver, and obtain such grace as the Old Lady.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Look after your parents, all. Given the state of the world and
| the intentional tearing down of health care and dignity, it's
| better if you can take care of them yourself.
|
| One of our pipe dreams is to save up enough money to buy a
| little homestead (take that phrase with a grain of salt)
| somewhere, still within our country but with the space and
| ability to build a cottage or two to house our parents, so they
| can live out their retirement somewhere nice and without
| relying on an overworked and underpaid system.
| roflyear wrote:
| Not long ago I drove my dad around his old neighborhood. Was very
| similarly touching.
| markstos wrote:
| One after a yoga class I got ride home with the teacher. I didn't
| know him well, but I knew he was also studying to be a chaplain.
| He seemed shaken.
|
| He shared that earlier that day he had visited a nursing home to
| hear the story of an older woman. Just listen. She told him her
| story and then, just died. He had this strong sense that she was
| just waiting to tell her story before she let go.
|
| I wasn't impacted like he was, but like the taxi ride this
| carpool created an intimate space to share a personal story. It's
| been a couple decades and I have not forgotten this one.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| My aunt and I sat on her bed in the nursing home, enjoyed the
| cannolis and milk I had brought, and spoke of all the good times
| we had together. That was the last time I saw her.
| arittr wrote:
| originally came for hacks and code tricks; stayed for the posts
| like this that make me actually feel and think. thanks hn.
| hypeatei wrote:
| I seriously just had a return to reality that I haven't felt in
| a while. It's putting a lot of things into perspective.
| mandeepj wrote:
| Wow! Really enjoyed reading it. From the title, I thought it'd be
| someone's Uber ride rant - overcharged etc. But, it turned out to
| be exact opposite - an emotional one. I also discovered the
| writer is an author and not just a blogger.
|
| So far, I've read only success stories. I think I can delve into
| reading similar stories. There a recommendation on this page -
| "Neither Dog Nor Wolf"; Maybe, I can start with that one.
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