I met some incredible people this month and here they are:
THE PROUD MOM
It was an unusual ride from the start. She needed a two-hour ride to Hilton Head Island from Charleston. I was around the corner and when I picked her up, she said goodbye to her three girls. They had all been in Charleston for the oldest daughter's bachelorette party. They had grown up mostly in the Las Vegas suburbs and their mom was originally from Hungary. Married for 32 years, her and her husband always took their four kids with them on vacation. She has visited more than half of the 48 countries represented in my car.
I asked her what the secret was to a successful marriage and she said, "Respect and talking to each other. I never saw my parents fighting." We talked about many things including how we eat cereal. I eat it like her husband does and she drowns her cereal as my wife does. At the end of the ride she gave me a very generous $50 cash tip. Moments later, she tipped me $27 on the app and for some reason the following day she tipped me another $10. (Only the second person to ever tip me three times for the same ride.) Driving her was a great way to end my day and she will be one of the best rides I have in 2024.
HE BEAT CANCER
On Easter Sunday I had the pleasure of driving a very compassionate 32 year-old nurse. He works in an assisted living home in South Carolina and he is treasured by the female residents because he treasures them. Some of them are dealing with dementia, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's disease. He explained to me how he cares for them and is constantly praising and complimenting them and telling them, "You're beautiful."
I was impressed with him before he told me he was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 17 growing up in Texas. He said, "I knew it was serious when I had 40-50 doctors in my room." He was told that they caught it early and a couple years later he was able to get a stem cell transplant from a woman overseas. He's been cancer-free for 13 years.
He also told me he was born with cerebral palsy. He has a little limp and he constantly needs to exercise his left hand because the muscle will get stuck if he doesn't. Apparently, both his hands are super strong and it appears to be something that he manages and doesn't prevent it from living his life to the fullest. He's very compassionate about his life and he's clearly a winner-he was a joy to drive.
AN ACCOMPLISHED AUTHOR
She currently lives in Florida, but she's a history professor at a college in New York City. Once a week she flies up to New York to teach classes for one day and visit with her sister. She flies back to nicer weather in Miami which she loves. She was in the Charleston area doing research for her next book. She has written 15 books and published 8 of them on many different topics. She was a lot of fun talking to, but she asked me a question no one else has ever asked, "Are there snakes here?" When she toured a plantation her guide took her shoe off and placed it on top of a small hole on the floor in a building. The tour guide said, "The last time I gave this tour a snake came out of that hole." My passenger was not amused by her story.
DO YOU WANT TO GET ON A BOAT?
Where does inspiration come from? Sometimes a great idea can come to you sitting at a bar. My passenger was doing just that when someone showed him a dating app. A girl said on the app, "I'm not looking for a boyfriend, just a boat to hang out on." He created an app for people to do just that, hang out and have a good time on a boat. Just recently his app, BOTI, was put on the app store. It's a social network for people who enjoy being on the water.
I asked him and his girlfriend how they met and he said, "We were both docked on a different boat and I saw four beautiful girls on a boat and I went over and said hello." Recently they enjoyed throwing a big party on a boat for 500 people for the beginning of his new venture. I'm wishing them both blue skies and smooth sailing personally and professionally.
THE FLYING REALTORS
It was the perfect ending to a great day in Charleston. The three women were heading downtown to celebrate one of them getting a new job as a flight attendant. She is also a realtor which is an unusual combination unless you were her friend sitting behind her. Two of the three women were "flying realtors" and the third one was "just" a realtor.
How unique were these three good friends? They met in Oklahoma where there husbands were all pilots and friends in the Air Force. Today, they live 30 minutes west of Charleston and they each have three children. The oldest child is nine years old and they co-parent together since they regularly meet with the whole crew. We had a terrific time on the ride. The woman who ordered the ride said, " I canceled two rides before yours, I'm so glad we got you."
THE UBER COUPLE
After fifteen minutes of entertaining them and having a lot of fun, I asked, "How did you two meet?" He said, "I'm an Uber driver in Virginia and I accepted a scheduled ride a week earlier in an area that is over and hour from my home, but where I regularly dive. I thought about canceling it during the week, but I felt badly for the rider." She: "I was going to a winery in the middle of nowhere so I scheduled it early. My friend was going with me, but canceled. I would have canceled the ride, but I knew the driver had excepted it. I was hoping he would cancel, but he didn't."
He said, "I wound up an hour and a half from the winery, but I decided to pick her up anyway." They hit it off and she gave him her number. They are engaged and in two months they will be married. I think destiny was on their side. They have a terrific story and I wish them at least forty years of joy and happiness.
THE BOSTON SHUTTLE
I drive friends regularly to and from the airport as the couple goes back and forth to the Boston area for doctor appointments. They normally put them all together, but this time his dentist appointment was the only one. He said, "We're going up for a teeth cleaning and we'll be back in two days." They've been going to the dentist for thirty years and the dentist felt, "Honored" they traveled from Myrtle Beach just for his cleaning. Below is the picture after his teeth were cleaned. He said, "I'm not shy." His dentist does the cleaning and it lasts close to an hour and he said, "A lot of dentists up north don't want to do cleanings."
We also talked about some of the foreigners who have clothing attire that they are wrapped up in. He said, "I'd be pretty bummed if I had to be wrapped up." I would too, he's too funny to be wrapped up.
THE RETURN OF THE ATTITUDE ADJUSTER
When I published my book, I couldn't wait to stop in to the Trader Joe's this guy worked in. He was my 6th favorite rider out of my first 11,000 rides and I told him I was going to give him a book. I wrote a nice note to him and signed it, but when I went into his store, he had moved from Mt. Pleasant, near Charleston, all the way back home to the west coast. I left my name and number with a manager and asked if they could contact him. Unfortunately, I never heard back from him.
He used to work there as a greeter at Trader Joe's. He told me, "I rap there and get people in a better mood to shop." His story was incredible. In high school over twenty years ago, he was in a tragic accident and his parents were told he wasn't going to make it or he'd have to live in assisted living. After brain surgery, his parents gave him a lot of positive reinforcement and he recovered to help researchers help people and kids recovering from serious injuries.
On the day I hit 13,000 rides this month, one of my rides was Aaron, who greeted me with a hug. I was thrilled to sign his book and he was excited to read it. I wrote, "To Aaron, one of the most inspiring people I've ever met. Thank you, on behalf of all the people you've inspired." When you ask him, "How are you?" he will say, "Amazing," and he really is.
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