Taxi Stories
I drove a Charlie's Taxi for the company in 1974 and 1975, usually from 6 at night to 6 in the morning. I liked driving at night as it was cooler, there was more business, and it was more exciting. When you picked up your cab, you never knew where you were going to go, who you were going to meet, and what kind of adventures you might have. Most of the fares either came from Waikiki, or downtown Honolulu (mostly Hotel Street). Most of the time, I made pretty good money. During the gas crisis, I was able to fill up my personal Ford van at the cab drivers union gas pump whenever I wanted. Everyone ese was on odd/even tag# days. By the end of 1975, there were too many cabs (there was no limit on the number of licensed cabs) and not enough fares, so I quit and started working as a driver and cook for Aikane Catering. Charlies was owned by Helen Morita and her son, Charlie. When I began working for them, Helen told me to cut my hair, which I did. The girl who cut it, styled it in a weird way. I don't know if she was weird or was trying to mess with me. I combed it out and got it cut again in a few weeks. The Charlies supervisor told me if I worked as a company driver for one year, then I could rent out a cab for a flat rate from another driver and work more flexible hours. The company paid for gas, and we split the fares. When my year was up, Charlie told me I had to keep working for the company on 12 hour shifts. This prevented me from making more money and also attending classes at my martial arts school, Karate Association of Hawaii. I could have quit and worked for another cab company, but I didn't want to learn another company's protocols, and get to know their drivers. These are stories of some of my fares.
The Projects: I picked up a man one night from downtown and took him to a subsidized high rise apartment building with a reputation for being a rough place. He was about my age and build and I asked him how he got along in such a place. He told me that when he first moved in, he found out who the toughest guy in the place was. He rang his doorbell and challenged him to a fight. He said he got beat up, but he never had to fight anyone else there again. For young males, particularly, there was a pecking order and violence was a valid form of communication.
Some of us are shaped by our parents, our teachers, and our culture as we grow up , and emerge as a finished product at 18 or so. Some of us are a work in progress for the duration. Some of us fall in between, shaken out of our deeply held beliefs by an event, an encounter, an accident. I realized early on that I was destined to be a seeker, a malcontent, even a troublemaker. I have always wanted to know the truth, about myself, my culture, life and death. It is a great burden to bear.
I was a card carrying hippie, back in the day, although I always worked and took baths. I knew there was more to life than a career and a house in the suburbs, and I knew for sure I didn’t want to go to Viet Nam and die. I was driving a taxi cab in Honolulu in 1974, when a fellow driver loaned me a copy of Journey to Ixtlan, by Carlos Castaneda. There are many lessons to be learned from this book, but the big one that I took away immediately was that you didn’t have to be the person you were raised to be. I was 27 at the time and had been on my own for a few years. I began a program of self development that I have continued to this day. There have been milestones, leaps forward, and setbacks, and sometimes I wish I would have had a more stable life. It hasn’t been dull, though.
David Stearns
8/3/2020
I picked up a large Hawaiian man one evening. He said, "You don't mind if I make a hit out of your cab, do you?" It freaked me out, but I decided I would act crazier than him. I carried on about being a Christian and Jesus looked out for me, and so on. We got to where he was going somewhere near downtown Honolulu, and he said, "How about if I don't pay you?" By now I was pretty amped up and I replied, "How about if you do?" He fished out $6 or so, partly with, as I remember, a couple of silver dollars. He said he wanted them back and asked for my card, which I gave him. Thankfully, I never heard from him or saw him again.
Then there was the guy I picked up in the hills above downtown, and when we got to Hotel Street, he told me he wasn't going to pay me. I accelerated and drove like a madman back to where I picked him up. I never slowed down enough for him to get out. I told him to get out, which he did while cursing me mightily.
I picked up a young local fellow late one afternoon carrying a brown paper grocery bag. We hadn't gone too far when he sprayed paint into the bag and huffed it. I told him to knock it off. When he did it again, I pulled over and told him to get out. He complied and I remember there being people around who laughed at him as he stumbled out of the cab.
My first fare was a young woman who I picked up at University of Hawaii campus and drove to an apartment in Manoa, not too far away. When I turned the arm on the meter, I was so nervous, I flipped it all the way off. She was very nice and told me the fare was usually @ $1.50, which she paid me with a 50¢ tip.
I picked up two sailors one night who were laughing hilariously and continually. I asked them what was so funny. They burst out laughing again, and managed to blurt out, "We're getting out of the Navy tomorrow". Another time I picked up two sailors who were going back to Pearl Harbor. They asked me if I minded if they smoked a joint on the way. I said I didn't mind if they didn't mind sharing. Harry Chapin's song about flying high in my taxi was popular then, and I embraced it.
