MY MOST MEMORABLE RIDERS IN FEBRUARY

 

A CHANGED MAN

The best ride of the month turned out to be a welder/blacksmith in his mid thirties.  Living in Georgia in his late twenties he said, "I was a category five screw-up."  He was hanging around with the wrong crowd, hooked on meth and watching much older people around him barely surviving.  He explained, "No one thought I would make it to 30, I had to change my life." Quitting meth cold turkey, his plan was to walk for four days to Charleston, South Carolina and start over.

On the second day, he passed out and was taken to the hospital. When he was released he was able to somehow get to Charleston and eventually changed his life.  He has marketable skills now and he told me, "I'd like to start my own business one day and earn people's trust back." With a steady job and staying away from drugs he is on his way.  He inspired me and I'll be telling his story to others who need to hear it. I'm rooting for him.

JUST CALL HER O.G.

I had a delightful conversation with a woman who works in two different hotels as a manager and has her own catering business. We were talking about children and grandchildren and she told me, "My grandchildren can do whatever they want as long as they don't burn my house down."

She told me that her grandchildren don't call her grandma, but O.G. which means "original grannie." She is certainly an original and we had some good laughs together. She told me her sister was making a shirt for her that says, "O. G." and I suggested to her to create an online store with O. G. clothing.  She loved the idea and I'm pretty sure she's going to be thinking about that all day long.  So, if you see some clothing that says, "O. G.," it may not be for "Original Gangster" which is a thing, it may be my passenger using my idea.

TOURING THE USA

Two British guys who do "content" and put it on Tik Tok, had a great ride with me. They started filming in my car with one of them saying, "We're in the coolest Uber ever!" They loved the fact that my favorite bill was from the UK with Queen Elizabeth in the middle of my car, with 46 other bills displayed.  They have visited "The States" four times and have been to twenty-six different states filming content and traveling in an RV. 

Their names are Josh & Jase and I looked them up on Tik Tok.  They have a very big following and are very successful.  We had a relatively short ride.  I would have liked to get some of their stories from them, but I did share some of  my British stories with them. My wife and I watched them on Tik Tok and she said, "They are very funny."  No sign yet of the video they took in my car, but I think they got another follower.

HE PLAYED WITH PATRICK EWING

He may have had the funniest entrance to my car ever.  As he got in I was telling him about my mannequin head and that he needed to give the door a push.  It was early in the morning and he thought I said, "Push the mannequin head." He gave a big push to Lily's face and after I started laughing he said, "I thought if I pushed it something would happen." 

We had the best ride of the day when he told me that he was a very good basketball player in high school growing up in New York.  "In the offseason I played with Patrick Ewing, John Starks and Anthony Mason." (Who played for my team, The New York Knicks) He became good friends with them and when he moved to the South to help his sick mom, they used to leave tickets for him when they played in Charlotte.

"I had a great vertical leap and dunked a lot. Ewing dunked a lot, but he didn't do it much in the pros and I asked him why. He said he was saving his knees because he wanted a long career." He got his long career and my passenger has some great memories of playing with professional athletes when he was still in high school.

GOING ON A FIRST DATE

I picked him up and we took an hour ride to pick up his friend. When I asked them how long they had been dating, she said, "Oh, we're not together, this isn't a date." He said, "We're not yet, but this is a date." They got along very well and talked like they were together.  I think he was 21 and she may have been a couple years younger.  The movie they were going to see was 40 minutes away, so I spent a good period of time with them. She seemed to agree that it was their first date and he seemed a little nervous. She asked me for advice on being married forty years and they both liked my answers.  I think they are a good match and they may be dating for awhile, it was fun driving them.

THE YOUNG REALTOR

I had a great conversation with him about his first sale.  The house cost $350,000 and he was happy when he sold it. When he got the $10,000 check, that's when he really got excited.  "I like to live in the moment and so I sat in the house and let it all sink in."  I enjoyed his excitement and enthusiasm about his sale and I'm sure he's going to be soaking up many more moments in the future as he sells more houses.

HE NEEDS SOME HELP

Sometimes I really feel badly for my passenger and this young man definitely got my sympathy.  Living with his girlfriend and her parents, he is overwhelmed.  Heading home from work at the very beginning of his work day, he was stressed out and exhausted from being at home.  All three of the adults in the house are under medication for mental health issues. He's running the house and trying to help a teenager cope in the house and he takes care of thirty pets in the house. 

He's mature for his age, about 21, but said he has no one to help him or talk to. There was only so much I could do or say, since it was a short ride and he was physically and mentally wiped out. I'm hoping he can figure out a solution to his problem.

Are You Saving Money on Gas?

 I've been on the road for work most of my life. One of the things I am always aware of is how much gas costs at different stations. After awhile, you get to learn which stations regularly have the best prices and which ones have the worst prices.

Since moving to South Carolina, the gas prices here have been puzzling.  It's not unusual for prices to jump 20-25 cents in a single day. The most puzzling thing for me is seeing gas stations across the street from each other that are 15, 20, 25 cents apart.

Last week I saw something that is really difficult to understand.  As I drove up Rt. 17 the main highway in Myrtle Beach, I looked over and saw a Murphy's gas station.  They do a great job in keeping prices low, but I was surprised to see their at $2.71, pictured below.

There were only a couple gas stations in the low 2.70's, but they weren't in this area. Exactly .2 tenths of a mile was a 7-11.  I haven't found them to be that great with prices, but I wasn't expecting  a price of $3.09.  Unfortunately the picture did not come out as good, but it really is $3.09. The $3.71 diesel price came out well below it.  How could they sell gas for 38 cents more than Murphy's?

I did fill up at Murphy's, but I never have seen anything like that.  Pay attention to the gas stations in your area or the ones you usually go past.  If you drive a lot you can save some money by paying attention.

Interesting and Unusual Things About Our Presidents

It is President's Day which we celebrate every third Monday in February.  As a political science major, I have loved reading about presidents and I've always been fascinated by their lives.  Here are some things you probably did not know about the men who have served us as President of the United States.

1. Gerald Ford was a model who appeared in Cosmopolitan Magazine.  His birth name was Leslie.

2. Theodore Roosevelt had the most pets as president with 48 including a black bear, a hyena, a badger, and a one legged rooster.

3. Herbert Hoover was a humanitarian before he was president. He's responsible for helping millions of Europeans survive after World War 1 by supplying a couple million tons of food through our government. There are streets and squares in Poland and Belgium that are named "Hoover" in his honor.

4. Ulysses S. Grant was pulled over for speeding and fined $20 for speeding on a horse while he was president.

5. Bill Clinton's cat had a video game named after it: "Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill."

6. Richard Nixon proposed to his wife the first day they met and it took her two years to say, "Yes." During those two years he drove her to go on dates with other guys.

7. Warren Harding bet White House china in a poker game and he lost.

8. George H. Bush considered naming actor Clint Eastwood  his running mate.

9. Martin Van Buren wrote his autobiography without mentioning his wife who had six children with him.

10. Lyndon Johnson issued the first medicare card to former President Harry Truman.

11. Before he was president Grover Cleveland was a hangman. As sheriff he hung two people.

12. In his two presidential elections, Ronald Reagan won the electoral vote by a combined 1,014 to 62.

13. Ronald Reagan was offered a part in Back to the Future 3, but he turned it down.

14.Soccer great David Beckham gave Barack Obama fifty pairs of boxer briefs as a gift.

15. Jimmy Carter wrote a children's book- "The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer."

16. Bill Clinton's first job was selling comic books.

17. Andrew Johnson was a tailor and he used to make his suits while he was President.

MY "LIFE WITH YOU"

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.  

Over the years there have been thousands of love songs, but I was wondering on this Valentine's Day, what are the top ten love songs of all-time? As you can imagine there is no consensus and after looking at five different lists, here are 12 songs that were mentioned most, not in any order:

"Unchained Melody"  The Righteous Brothers       "Can't Help Falling In Love" Elvis Presley

"Something" The Beatles                                         "God Only Knows" The Beach Boys"

"Endless Love" Diana Ross and Lionel Richie      "I Will Always Love You" Whitney Houston

"At Last" Etta James                                   "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" The Righteous Brothers

"When A Man Loves A Woman" Percy Sledge       "My Heart Will Go On" Celine Dion

"All Of Me" John Legend                                    "How Deep Is Your Love" The Bee Gees

This picture is of my wife, Monika and I on our second date at Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey in May of 1980.  I don't remember why we were sitting in the trunk, but we were a really good fit for the car and for each other. (I may have been trying to get out of the sun?)

During Christmas week I was Ubering early in the morning and I happened to hear a country song I had never heard before. I thought it was perfect and I immediately thought of my wife of 40 years.  She's been the best thing that's ever happened to me and I wanted to wish her a Happy Valentine's Day.  

The words to this song are great, but the music is worth hearing.  Copy the below link and put it in your browser and listen to this song by Kelsey Hart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfbIWWZdtoE

Life With You

by Kelsey Hart

If you're on a porch screen baby, I'm on it 

If you want a night out, baby, I'm all in

If you want a coin flip, road trip, anywhere you want to go

Baby, just call it

If you're on a dancefloor movin' a mountain

Wanna find some laid back and let down your brown hair

You call the shots, whether I'm ready or not

And, I don't care

Baby, I love doing life with you.

You're everything I wanna to wake up to

Give you all my heart, the moon, and the stars

'Til my time here on earth is through

'Cause I just love, baby, I love doing life with you.

I ain't gonna be there just for the sunshine

I'll hold your hand while we stand in the rain

I'll be your forever, and not just your sometimes

I'll be your calm in your hurricane

Baby, I love doing life with you.

You're everything I wanna to wake up to

Give you all my heart, the moon, and the stars

'Til my time here on earth is through

'Cause I just love, baby, I love doing life with you, yeah

Thought I was good on my own

Takin' life on a loan

But that was before my heart had a home

'Cause baby, I love doing life with you.

You're everything I wanna to wake up to

Give you all my heart, the moon, and the stars

'Til my time here on earth is through

'Cause I just love, baby, I love doing life with you

Doin' life with you

Songwriters Kelsey Hart/Kyle Schlienger/Scott Stepakoff

Life With You lyrics  Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

Some Super, Super Bowl Stories

Today is the day, another Super Bowl Sunday.  This is the 58th time that the two best teams in the NFC and the AFC get together to determine the National Football League Championship.  The winning team  gets the Lombardi Trophy named after the legendary coach, Vince Lombardi.  His Green Bay Packer teams won the first two Super Bowl games in 1967 and 1968. Players and staffs get a miniature Lombardi trophy and a Super Bowl Ring.  

Last year's game was watched by 113 million people, about 77% of the households in this country and it was the second largest audience for a Super Bowl game.  The game is the biggest yearly event which results in parties all day Sunday and more people calling out of work on Monday than any other day of the year.

We all have different memories of specific games or places we were watching the game. Below is some random and unusual facts about the big game and what happens on Super Bowl Sunday:

1. Over 100 million people will throw or attend a party and another 18 million will watch the game from a bar of restaurant.

2. Purchases of food, beverages, decorations and other things for the day exceed $16 billion. Over $1.3 billion of that will be spent on beer in the USA.

3. In 1970, Carol Channing was the first singer to perform at The Super Bowl.

4. The first Super Bowl ticket in 1967 cost $12. The average ticket for this game in 2024 cost $9,850.  Yes, $9,850.  A front row seat for the Kansas City Chiefs will cost $34,862. Yes, $34,862.

5. In Super Bowl V1, President Richard Nixon made a suggestion for a play to Coach Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins, but it did not work out when the play was run.

6. In Super Bowl 1X, actress Mary Tyler Moore apologized to Pittsburgh Steeler fans at the end of her television show because in the show it had the Minnesota Vikings winning the Super Bowl over the Steelers. In the real game the Steelers won it.

7. Super Bowl XV11 started unlike any other when the referee misread the coin toss, calling it heads when it was tails.

8. Super Bowl XX had the awesome Chicago Bears putting out a rap song called, "The Super Bowl Shuffle" and it sold an impressive half a million copies.

9. Super Bowl XX111 had a 3-D halftime show that featured "Elvis Presto" and "The Bee Bop Bamboozled in 3-D". It did not go well.

10. Super Bowl XXXV111 was the scene of the now infamous wardrobe malfunction with half-time performers Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. Timberlake accidentally or purposely exposed her breast which led to a big controversy about decency on TV.

11. Super Bowl XL11: The New York Giants stunned the undefeated New England Patriots in the final minute of the game. One of the all-time greatest plays in NFL history was Eli Manning's scrambling pass to the leaping David Tyree, who trapped the ball with his helmet at the end of the game that the Giants would win 17-14. "The Helmet Catch" is still my favorite all-time play since I am a Giant fan.

12.Super Bowl XLV11: The lights went out in the stadium that caused a 34 minute delay and afterwards the San Francisco 49er's almost came all the way back to win the game.  The blackout is still a mystery.

13.Super Bowl LI: The immortal Tom Brady brings his team back with ten minutes left in the game after being down 19 points and wins the game in overtime.

14. Over 68 million bettors will bet on today's game which will total over $23 billion.

Enjoy Super Sunday!

Are You Too Old To Start A New Hobby?

A few years ago when I semi-retired I thought about some of the things I could do with my free time such as, could I learn to play the guitar? Could someone retire around sixty, start swimming and swim competitively into their 90's?  Ok, I didn't think up that one, but am I too late?

Canadian, Bettie Brussell, is 99 years old and she just broke three world records in her age group which is 100-104. (How many people could there be in her age group?)  Guess when she started swimming? Yes, she started after retiring around 60 years old as a seamstress. 

She grew up in the Netherlands as one of twelve children and never had time for hobbies. Her first swimming competition was when she was 66 years old. She explained, "The pool is my happy place. I always feel better when I get out of the pool than when I get in."

She broke the 400-meter freestyle, the 50-meter backstroke and the 50-meter breaststroke. In July, she will turn 100 and she's in good health. She takes no medication and on days she doesn't swim, she takes a 45-minute walk.

She believes that her good health is the result of her being very active.  So, if you're looking to start a new hobby, I would suggest one that makes you more active. Can you ride a stationary bike and play the guitar at the same time?

                                                                  

MY MOST MEMORABLE RIDER COMMENTS IN JANUARY

As I grabbed the large and heavy suitcase, I said, "You didn't take furniture from the hotel, did you?" Her friend answered, "It's a body," and she added, "It's just the pieces." 

"If it looks bad and smells bad and it doesn't belong to you, don't eat it."

"I know someone not from this country and her name is Angela Angela Angela."

He: "Has anything good come from boozing? It makes your brain retarded and some people like that."

Uber driver: "It takes some thought to be a good person, it takes no thought to be an a-hole."

As he got in the car very early in the morning after a late night, I said, "How are you today?" He replied, "To be honest with you, I'm a degenerate today."

In her first Uber ride in Charleston where she's lived for thirty years, "I should take Uber more often just to see the town."

The Canadian told me, "Life is full of adventure and fun. The world needs to be more friendly."

He: "My dad always told me to do things that other people don't want to do."

She: "You have to give 100% in what you do in life."

Visiting her sister in Charleston the woman from Utah, said, "It's perfect here."

"My uncle went goose hunting in Maryland and found Terry Bradshaw's Super Bowl Ring. He spoke to him and was told that he hadn't lost one of them. The ring was legit and a couple years later, Bradshaw was on The Tonight Show saying he lost a Super Bowl Ring. My uncle still has it."

Talking about southern hospitality with a guy from New York who lives in South Carolina he said, "Sometimes on the way home I drive another way through my neighborhood to avoid waving at people."

He: "My girlfriend broke up with me to marry another guy. Ten years later I went to close on a house and saw them at the closing-it was their house. Two years later she left him and I started dating her again."

They met online during the pandemic and had their first date on the beach. She: "We went out on one date and moved in together." He: "Two weeks after we met, I bought a car and we drove around the country for 18 months while we worked remotely."

She graduated in communications from Syracuse, "Who is the most famous graduate from Syracuse?" She hit it out of the park a few minutes later by saying, "President Biden, Jim Brown, and Bob Costas."

He: "My sister got me my first engineering job. I was helping my dad build her house and she said if I stayed to finish it, she would find me a job and she did. My company sent me to Hawaii to train, working in Pearl Harbor the first six months."

From Indiana she explained, "Y'all is something said out in the country and we have a water tower in Indiana that says, 'Hey y'all."

She: "I have nothing to complain about here in Myrtle Beach, the grass is not always greener on the other side."

She: "My boyfriend has a creepy clown mask with blood on it that he keeps in his apartment. He's an acrobat and has worked in Vegas."

My rider was "Rider." He said, "My dad was a big Doors fan and he loved the song, "Riders on The Storm."

I asked her what her name Amoy means and she said, "In Jamaican, it's beautiful goddess."

I asked her how her parents came up with the name Kirby and she joked, "Maybe they just hated me."

She's from Kansas: "Every three months I order half a cow from Kansas and they cut it up just the way I want it. It cost $350 but it's worth it."

She: "I met my husband after college although we were at the same college at the same time. When we were married five years later, someone in my family pulled out a picture of our family at my college orientation. Walking behind us in the picture was my future husband."

 MORE COMMENTS

She has her own business in the South: "Everyone comes down here with pocketfulls of money and I'm happy to take a little for me." I said, "For the right person, that would make a great commercial." She: "I'm not the right person."

She: "I used to have a big doll that I carried around until 4th grade and called her my sister."

The Washington Redskin fan said of his team, "It's been a rough last three decades." I said, "I remember when they were really good." He said, "I do too, but then I turned seven."

The woman from Long Island asked several family members to pick her up at the airport and drive her to the airport and drive her to Staten Island, NY to see her son compete in a race. "My sister said she was allergic to the Belt." (The Belt Parkway)

The retired Navy guy said, "I drove Uber in 2013, when no one knew what it was. I just started driving again and I try to give people what I would want."

"I was in an Uber talking with the driver and towards the end realized he was one of my good friends in high school."

She: Charleston is the best city I've ever been in."

They went to one of the Charleston plantations and she said, "It was sad." Her husband joked, "I'm Italian, we didn't have slaves."

She: I have a collection of 79 Starbucks mugs."

He: The 20 pesos in Mexican is plastic because of how much it's used."

"My grandfather used to say when he was tired, "I need to rest my neck."

She told me because of her personality, "I'm a different kind of accountant."

ABOUT LILY, MY MANNEQUIN

Picking up my last rider, Lilly, I told her that my mannequin's name was Lily, with one L, she said, "The friend we're picking up, her name is Lily, with one L too." We took a great selfie together.

I told her that Lily was a gift to me by a passenger from in Kansas who owns a salon and she said, "Is that because you're bald?"

She: "My uncle collected antique clothes and he had three mannequins in his house that he used to dress up all the time."

ABOUT ME AND MY CAR

Looking at the money from 45 countries represented in my car, she said, "It's like Epcot."

He: "You're the man-so cool."

He: "This was the most enjoyable ride I've ever had."

She said about her short ride: "One of the most fun Ubers I've ever been in."

"You just made our morning."

"That was the best Uber experience I've ever had."

"This really is amazing."

"I love the experience, awesome."

"This is so dope, this is awesome."

After showing her friend she was talking to some video of the car her friend said that I was, "As a cool as a fan."

I told him I wasn't a psychologist, just an Uber driver.  He said, "Anyone with bills from 44 countries in their car, is not just an Uber driver."

The man from Chicago said, "It's good to see a driver who enjoys what he does.

"You're a character."

He: "Did I work with you in Atlanta? I guess there's another good looking person who looks like you."