November Rider Stories

THE FINAL RIDE: It's easy to remember that some of my best rides are the first or last ride of the day.  This is the first time I will remember the last ride of the month.  Sunday was a very slow day and as I approached 5 pm I had only 1 hour or so to drive and there was little chance of hitting my goal for the day.  I picked up a guy at a bar and drove him home, it was a $5 ride.  He did have plenty to drink, but we had a good conversation in the car and I could tell he was a pretty good guy.  He lived on Ocean Blvd. and his backyard faced the water.  It looked like a pretty normal family house with a large front and back yard. 

Driving about 5-10 minutes away I heard beeping and realized he had left his phone in the car.  Typically what happens is that I report it to Uber and they contact him and charge him $15 which goes to me and I return the phone. However, I knew where he lived and I was close by, so I went back.  I rang the doorbell many times, knocked on the door and honked the horn, but I had no luck.  I left him a note to call me. About fifteen minutes later his phone beeped a message to call him.  He went back to the bar somehow to look for the phone.  I headed back to the bar and had lost enough time to call it a night.  At the bar, he thanked me and handed me some folded up bills. He gave me a $55 tip and wanted to know if he could do anything else for me.  I was hungry, so I did wonder if I could get dinner out of this too,(maybe ribs?) but I didn't ask.  Arriving at home I realized that he tipped me $5 for the ride also and on the last ride of the month I made $65 which was close to half of what I made for the whole day.

THE SHORTEST RIDE: The shortest ride I've ever had was a Texas couple I picked up at their hotel and they were going to a restaurant around the corner.  It was close enough that I could have thrown a baseball and hit the building.  They didn't  know it was that close.  Today I picked up a guy at a gas station and as I started the route I saw we were going to a Food Lion supermarket. I pulled out of the lot and turned right. Since the gas station was at that corner I went through the light and turned right immediately into the supermarket parking lot.  It was obviously zero miles and the time of the ride was 1 minute and 6 seconds which seems long to me. The supermarket was just on the other side of the side street.  I made $3 and the guy was nice enough to tip me for the ride. It can't get any shorter than that.

THE BUFFALO COMMENT: One of my favorite comments by a rider last year came from a woman from Buffalo, New York.  Knowing how bad the weather is there in the winter I said, "how do you manage to get through the weather in the winter?" She replied, "Since the world is ending soon, we'll be okay in Buffalo." I had no idea what she meant and I changed the subject.  A guy from Buffalo explained to me that there's a misconception about how bad the weather is in Buffalo and it's really not a big deal.  He's heard the same comment from people and that's what the comment really means.  

LEARNING ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA: I had a great opportunity to learn about South Africa from a couple who left there four years ago and are living in Washington DC and working for a finance company. They enjoy the city, but they do miss family and friends back home.  What they miss most apparently is the animals, since South Africa is known for their variety of animals.  I didn't learn this until after I suggested on their next visit they see the safari in Myrtle Beach.  The couple both had the virus towards the beginning of the year and struggled with losing their taste buds.  They are very grateful for the opportunity to both work at home since they traveled frequently in different directions and have spent a lot of time at home together.  They also have taken the opportunity to travel around to different parts of the county.  Just before we arrived at the airport, they told me that I should tell the next British passenger that they "are very sorry for beating them in Rugby." They were very interesting and fun to speak with.

IT'S TURKEY WEEKEND!

 I have said it before and I will say it again, turkey is the most underappreciated underrated food.  I don't mean the turkey you get at the deli counter, I mean a real cooked turkey, like the one pictured below.  We should be eating this kind of turkey once a month or six times a year, it is that good.  Let me explain in detail:

THE MEAL: We were only three people(or four if you consider my appetite for turkey) and it was about 15 pounds.  The legs on this bird looked and tasted amazing.  I ate one leg first and helped out with the other one.  See this exciting picture below and I promise you that I really, really enjoyed it, look closely at my eyes.(they were not bigger than my stomach)

THE LINE-UP: One of the things that makes Turkey so special is everything surrounding it.  On Thanksgiving, frequently there is mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, maybe a carrot dish or a green bean dish or some other vegetables and corn.(no cob), and maybe another half dozen dishes depending on the number of people eating.  And, let's not forget the cranberry bread which is missing from this table, because we started eating it a few days earlier and still have some left. The turkey is your clean-up hitter, the Babe Ruth of the meal.  And, if you have a bunch of these things "hitting" your stomach before and after the turkey, it just makes turkey even better.

THE LEFT-OVERS: I love bones, but not the bone itself.  The meat that is on the bones is fabulous and there's a lot more than you think there is.  Friday for lunch I ate the carcass, but not the bones.  Here's a picture of what it looked like before it was trimmed.  It was a terrific lunch, but admittedly it is not a pretty sight to watch me rip apart the bones and gnaw at them.  A video of this could go viral and upset the whole family.

FRIDAY DINNER: There are plenty of things to choose from, all the side dishes are still in play.  With a lot of pieces of turkey left, I went with the big salad with lots of turkey thrown in.  I don't fool around with salad, I keep it simple.  The picture below has lettuce, some egg, some cheese, thousand island dressing and of course a bunch of turkey.

SATURDAY: I prepared a turkey sandwich to eat of the road with thousand island dressing.  If your turkey pieces are not big enough, press down on them into the bread or roll so it will be easier to eat.  If a piece falls out while you're eating it, go after it! Don't leave any piece of turkey uneaten, this is serious stuff.  The picture below shows my sandwich and the special snack I put together for the road.  I will try to eat the snack after lunch, but I'll be thinking about it.  Instead of grapes, throw some pieces of turkey in a baggie and pop them in your mouth, it's the perfect snack for driving. For dinner, I'll let the others nibble away since I won't be home in time.

SUNDAY: It's clean-up time, if anything is left.  I could go with another sandwich or turkey snack or even a turkey salad for dinner again.  If you do this right, all the sides are gone and the turkey is being finished. Why do we have to wait a whole year to do this again? The bottom line is that this was, "some good eatin' on a turkey weekend!

I'm So Tidy???

 There are many words that could describe me, but if you know me, tidy would not be one of them.  However, I was told this week, "you're so tidy."  How is that possible?

Over the past several years there has been a lot of discussion about facts and how different people are coming up with their own facts. However, in many cases it's a difference of opinion, not a difference of facts.  Let's take a look at how I was called, "tidy."

My neighbor across the street came over to talk with my wife about painting.  He saw me washing my car and apparently has seen me washing my car frequently and said, "you're so tidy."  The fact is that I do wash my car every week to get it ready to Uber other people.  Since they are paying for the ride, it should be relatively clean.

If my neighbor had watched closely he would have seen that I do not do a spectacular and thorough job, that's how my wife washes her car.  I do a quick, general clean, which is just enough for it to look pretty good. 

My neighbor's observation is also based on him not being very "tidy," which is what he told me.  The correct fact is that I do wash my car every week, but only in his eyes am I "tidy."

Another quick example: the facts are that Joe Biden won the Presidential Election a few weeks ago. You and I may have very different opinions on the important conclusions from the election based on our views and experiences, however, he did win. 

Keep this in mind each week as you go about your daily life.  Are you reading or hearing a fact or an opinion? I think it's very important, but that is only my opinion.

Celebrating Birthdays A Little Differently

 This was a big week in our house with my wife and youngest daughter both having birthdays. We decided to go to a very nice steak house on Wednesday on my wife's birthday. The place had a courtyard and we could eat outside since it would  be safer. Below is a picture of the courtyard during the day and my beef tips and mashed potatoes below and the rest of the story below that.

We walked through the restaurant wearing masks and went out into the courtyard to sit at a table.  We were the only people outside so we had the whole area to ourselves, it was very private.  I did say that night that we could walk through the courtyard to our car without paying and no one would see us, but we didn't do that. It was a perfect night.

Saturday was very, very different. I went to Uber in Charleston, South Carolina and my wife and daughter were going to meet me at Jim&Nick's Barbecue to celebrate my daughter's birthday.  The usual one we go to was closed, so we went to the one near the Charleston Airport.  There was a 30-60 minute wait at 2 pm to eat outside.  We got take-out and went to the parking lot behind the restaurant  which belonged to The Marriott. We had a picnic there! I opened up the back of my van and my daughter sat in the trunk and we put our food out like it was a picnic table. I was walking around the car eating a large spare rib, which was really, really good.  Thirty years from now our daughter will remember the birthday she celebrated in a Marriott parking lot.

Maybe next year we can celebrate my birthday on the beach.  Wait, my family took me to the beach for years on my birthday, that would NOT be different.

COME AND GET IT

 Being on the road as much as I am, it is not unusual for me to see something unusual. There are times that I would like to pull over, get out of my car, and walk up to someone and say, "what is that on your lawn?" Or, maybe I would say, "What are you doing?" I remember very clearly the morning I saw a woman mowing her lawn just after 7 am.  She was not out in the middle of nowhere, she had neighbors.  How could she mow her lawn that early in the morning? I'll never know the answer, but I'd like to know.

Recently, I was driving and I stopped at a light and across the street was a car that had printed on it in big letters, "COME AND  GET IT." It was not on the back of the car, but it neatly printed on the driver's side of the car.  Was that a macho statement that he's not afraid of anyone? Was he saying, "my car isn't worth much, take it?" Was it a dare, "if you think you can take my car, try it." I don't have a clue,  maybe you do.

On most days we can watch the news or look on Facebook and there's something that makes no sense. Why would someone do or say that? What were they thinking? Were they thinking? It just goes to show how different we are and there are things that you may never understand.

You may have thought, "why would he even write about this?" You may have thought to yourself that you wouldn't have taken the time to write this blogpost. That may be true, but the next time you see or hear something unusual, you may ask yourself the same question I did ,when I saw that car, "what????"

October Rider Comments

 Female rider: "My dog is like my daughter and I call her dog-ter.  My Dad calls her grand dog-ter."

Female: "I try my best every day with my five year old and three year old and cocktails help."

"As an offensive lineman for Navy I weighed 290 pounds at the beginning of the year. I had to lose weight for their nuclear program and with a group of friends I lost 85 pounds in four months and have kept it off."

"Two years ago I told the company who owned my car to come pick it up.  I'm now saving $700 a month."

"I'll go inside Starbucks to order, I have to show them a video of what I want."

"I truly believe that God brought me here to Myrtle Beach to save my life."(great healthcare)

Couple in their 40's on their first date. Him: "We met on Sugar Daddy.com."(not) "She stalked me on Facebook after not seeing me in five years."(not) "Bambi is her "striptease-ego" name." (definitely not)

Female to me: "You've been married 37 years, how do you do that?" Me: "One year at a time."

A mom: "We're proud Pittsburgh Steeler fans.  When my son got married they had "terrible towels"(what are used at the games to cheer the team on) on each table at the reception.  They were in black and yellow, the Steeler's colors and had the wedding couple's name and wedding date."

(College female sitting in the middle) "You can't even tell I drank the most wine. We're twins.(the girl next to her), but she's one year older."

(The woman walked out of the pub in the afternoon barefoot and her boyfriend put his jacket on the ground for her to walk on towards my car." She said, "My feet aren't dirty, I cleaned them in the bathroom sink inside. I've done that my whole life."

Black female rider: My dad and I are dark skinned.  When my Dad saw my daughter for the first time he said, "ugly" and walked out of the room."

"When my 21 year old sister has a headache she describes it as "a little mouse running around in my head stabbing me."

I asked him, "how are you adjusting to your first year of retirement?" He mumbled and all that came out of his mouth was something like, "bb,rr,tt,bb, mm."(probably having a tough time)

"I want to make today special for my boyfriend since today is "Sweetest Day," which we celebrate in the mid-west. It's important to me since Christmas is coming and then my birthday."

Male: "South Beach in Florida is dangerous today.  If you melted me like butter and dripped me on South Beach, I wouldn't go."(? not drinking)

"We came from Chicago just for the safari."

"Texas is so hot that you can look outside and start sweating."

Me: "Did you go from selling commercial real estate to owning a store that sold and installed Jeep parts because you were making too much money?" Him: "Oh yeah, it's much better being in an industry that keeps me F'N poor all the time." 

Male New England Patriot fan: "She's seen me only cry twice and once was when Brady left."

"When I was in my mid-20's we had a contest on who could sleep with the oldest woman.  I slept with a 60 year-old, but I didn't win."

Male: "I've worked on a farm most of my life.  We had 25,000 chickens all together and it's easy for them to spread diseases. If we saw one with a bad leg we would hit it in the head and kill it."

Female: "Why did you move here?" Me: "My wife loves the beach and I love her, so we're at the beach." Female: "That's the best line I've ever heard."

"Keep on smiling Mr. Sunshine."

"I knew a family that owned a light company and their last name was Leer.  They named their daughter Shondra."

"Most of the year we get no sun in Michigan."

"We've been drinking all day and we have blisters on our feet from walking several miles.  We are so happy to see you."

"I drove across Montana and drove up to 140 mph in a trans am.  The steering got a little shaky and I decided not to pass anyone."

"I've seen a lot of people chase happiness, but lose their soul. The most important thing for me is to be a good father and husband."

A male and female 3rd mates who licensed to drive ships. He said, "we're just regular human beings, not big deals."

Referring to his pilot he said, "she's a baby pilot."

"If I had had a girl she would have been hell on wheels."

"All of New York is New Jersey's hat." (?)

(Top steak house in town) "Our sales are running almost 100% over last fall and we're now ranked in the top ten of our companies stores."

"I'm a nanny for a boy whose name is Saint."

"I want Brady to mess up so he can come back to the Patriots."

"I would do anything to keep my family together."

"When I was considering Navy and playing football, my Dad said I had to consider this not as a four year commitment, but as a 40 year commitment."

"Our HOA people are Nazis."

"Some Uber drivers have told me that a mask is optional, it's not."

"I think of selling as having a communication with people and helping them get what they want."

Young male holding a monopoly box: "I had a craving to play Monopoly last night, but I'm not very good at it."

"The four of us get together every year and go to a college football game somewhere. Two come from England, one from Florida and I'm from New Jersey. Due to the virus we weren't going to a game this year, but the two of us decided to get together so our wives couldn't say next year that we didn't go this year.  We didn't want any chinks in the armor."

"My significant other has bad karma and he's an awful driver."

"I hate painting, I'm just going to get some paint and slap it on."

Young male: "I wear a Trump mask in Chicago and no one says a word. They can't bully me."

Female: "I lost part of my big toe mowing the lawn. I was going up a hill and slipped and the mower went over my foot. It could have been a lot worse."

When they gave away the car he reserved my rider said to the agent, "What would you suggest?" She said, "I don't know what to tell you." He said, "You're not very good at your job, I worked for Enterprise for seven years."

"I was named after a Mexican Goddess."

After working as a pilot in Hong Kong for five years, "I was really happy to go into a supermarket yesterday and see 30 different barbecue sauces you could buy."

"I like snow in my cocktail."

"My Aunt and Uncle were married 71 years. He died of natural causes and she died one month later although she was healthy.  They say she died of a broken heart."

"I'm 24 and I have six partners who were wrestling friends.  We own an apparel business that did $1 million in sales last year.  I'm the CRO, Chief Revenue Officer, in charge of sales."

The steak restaurant in North Myrtle was up 50% in sales this September over last year.  The manager said, "some people are coming in five or seven straight days because they feel safe with our set-up."

Two young riders ate at one of the top steak places in Myrtle Beach and one of them said, "the $80 steak I had was not good."

"We flew in from North Carolina for a burger at Hamburger Joes."

"We drove through the west and mid-west in our motor home from February to August this year and we didn't kill each other.  We didn't eat outside our motor home until we got to Montana which had everything open since they only have 8 people living there."

"I want to tell you my Yankees story, it starts in New Dehli."

"I played shuffleboard once with a 60 year old woman and I beat her and retired."

23 year old female: "You don't look 60." Me: "Maybe it's the mask." Her: "It's not the mask."

Me: What do you do for work? Rider about the other male rider: "He's a stripper." (they saw strippers last night)

"I'm going to college online for free through Starbuck's program."

"The thing I like best about being a manager is seeing people in their first jobs get a handle on what to do."

"The best part of living in the Phillipines is that it's a calm lifestyle."

"I've been in sales since I was 14 marketing my Dad's landscaping business. Now I'm selling commercial real estate."

ESP replay guy: "If I'm standing next to a famous person on the sideline, I don't care.  I'm more interested in the technical side."

"My daughter's reception venue wasn't going to let us have 250 people, so we spent $7,000 to flatten out our backyard to have it there.  The venue came through and we could have 150. We sent out another set of invitations and cut 100 guests."

"I went on a facebook group called "Wedding disasters and I felt better that I wasn't the only one."

October Rider Stories

THE DISC GOLFER: If you've never heard of Disc Golf you are not alone.  It is a growing sport that is played around the world and has around 10,000 courses.  It began in the early 1900's and is an individual sport that you throw a disc at a target using golf rules to get through the course with the least amount of throws. There was a tournament in Myrtle Beach this month and I drove the wife of one of the top players in the country.  She was a photographer for one of the disc companies and her husband does this full-time, about 47 weekends a year around the country.  The grand prize in Myrtle Beach was $2,000 and her husband was winning on the final day.  She gave me quite an education on our ride.  Since my son plays disc golf I asked for her husband's card, but instead she gave me a very nice pin with her husband's name on it. It was a very unique ride and a lot of fun talking with her.

THE YANKEE STORY: I picked up an older man who was in town to visit a friend.  He's been a big Yankee fan his whole life so we had something in common. I have some great Yankee stories, but I never had a chance to tell him.  He had to tell me his story, but it took him awhile to get to it.  Several times he started by saying, "It all started in New Deli," which cracked me up and intrigued me. He lived in New Dehli for a few years when he was a child.  His parents were best friends with George Weiss and his wife who were neighbors.  George Weiss was the General Manager of the New York Yankees for 29 years and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.  Weiss introduced my rider to all of the Yankee stars in the 50's, Berra, Mantle, Rizutto, and DiMaggio too. He had quite a story to tell, but time ran out and I only heard a summary of it, but, it started in New Dehli!

THE TWO THIRD MATES: The couple met going to school in New York where they earned the title of third mate and they are licensed to drive ships. They were very outgoing and easy to talk to and the guy said, "we're just regular human beings, we're not big deals."  She worked on the Mississippi River and he was waiting for his ship to be repaired in the Charleston dock.

THE KICKBALL TOURNAMENT: Yes, this does say kickball.  Like most people, I haven't heard of kickball since I played it in grammar school.  Would you believe there is an adult traveling tournament in the country that pays $125,000 to the winning team at the end of the year? I had two players in my car who were on the coed team from Wisconsin.  They play on a baseball field with baseball rules.  Most of the players are in their twenties, but my riders were in their 30's. They were in Myrtle Beach for our tournament which paid out $3,000 to the winning team.  Each player pays $60 for the tournament.  There were about twenty teams playing from different states. It sounded like it was good exercise and a lot of fun.

THE FIRST DATE: When I think of a couple going on a first date I usually think of a young couple, but that's not always the case.  I'm guessing that my two riders were around 40 years old, but they were wearing masks, so I'm not sure.  They had an odd story.  They had met five years earlier at a wedding.  She is from Indiana and he is from Philadelphia and they were in Myrtle Beach sort of on a first date.  When they met five years ago she was married and he was with someone as a last minute substitute for a person who could not go to the wedding.  He really hit it off with this woman and her husband, but they are no longer married.  The woman looked him up through someone else and they decided to meet in Myrtle Beach.  I was only with them a short time, but the guy was very funny.  He said, "we met on n Sugar Daddy.com."( a site where younger women are paid by wealthy guys for dates and more) He said, "She stalked me on Facebook after not seeing me in five years and "Bambi is her "striptease-ego" name." I don't know how this relationship turns out, but the woman will certainly spend a lot of time laughing.

THE SINGLE MOM: When she got in the car I thought she was in her mid twenties, until I found out she had six children.  The most striking thing about her was easily her bright pink hair, which reminded me of Julia Roberts wig in the movie, "Pretty Woman." She was putting on her make-up and she explained to me that she was raising her kids all by herself and she was actually 36 years old. She was only getting some support, but was making money by selling creative things on her Facebook site and through a local store. She was overcoming a couple disabilities that she has and had some big plans for her business. She was determined to do "whatever it takes to keep her family together." I thanked her for her inspiring story and told her that her ride was a great way for me to end my day driving.