THE READER: I love to read, especially books. When my passenger started talking about reading books I was pretty amazed. "I think I've read a few thousand books in my life," he said. It's impressive, but it's a little more that when you're only 21 years old. When he was in Junior High School, he was given detention and his aunt gave him the punishment that he had to read several novels. As he read them, it didn't become a punishment, but something he really enjoyed. "In high school, I read 200 hundred books in one year and they put my picture up on the wall for reading the most books in a year." He majored in physics and he's working in a scientific position, but his real passion is reading. He enjoys romance novels and horror stories, which he says helps him be creative. He's read a number of biographies in the scientific fields and gave me a five minute lecture on Einstein. Einstein never graduated from high school because he was expelled after an explosion with a chemistry experiment. Obviously, a very bright guy. It's a good thing he was given detention when he was younger.
THE LOADMASTER: I picked up a delightful woman who has been in the Air Force Reserves for the years. In her career she has visited 45 countries and recently had a training in Hawaii during the festivities of the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. You could tell that it meant a lot to her to be there and she told me, "there was a 102 year old woman who was being recognized who was spry and very active." Her job today is a loadmaster and she is responsible for getting everything to fit in the basement of the large planes. She's been doing it along time and she does enjoy it. Just before she got out of the car she told me she sometimes is an Uber driver, but I didn't get a chance to talk to her about her driving experiences. I hope I get to drive her again, it was a very interesting ride.
THE BUS RIDE: There are many ways to see the country, but what if you got on a Greyhound bus and traveled from Los Angeles to Charleston, South Carolina? The young man had a wonderful time on the trip and could not wait to get back on the bus. "I was a little mad when it got dark and I couldn't see the sites," he said. I asked him if he slept well on the bus and he said, "Yeah, no-not really." The round trip ticket cost under $500 and he enjoyed stopping at a number of places for a couple hours so he could look around the city. The trip took two full days. He works in Los Angeles doing Uber Eats on an electric bicycle. He said that the money was good and the electric bike is great going in and out of traffic. He was visiting family in Charleston and had only a couple more days before he got back on the bus.
THE RETIRED COP: Sometimes I wait all day for the one ride that makes the day. On my way home I picked up a couple for a short ride and I immediately knew this was the ride of the day. Getting in my car, I said to them, " "how are you tonight?" The man, who turned out to be a retired cop from New York, said, "good, I haven't had the urge or desire to kill anyone today?"(joking) Laughing, I said, "is it urge or desire?" Him: "That's open to interpretation." He's a retired cop from New York living here and he said, "loving life." He had a very good sense of humor and we hit it off immediately. He even invited me to join them for a drink which would have been fun to do. He explained to me his opening comment: "yesterday I was putting up decorations on the front of my house and I had my music playing in my garage. Out of nowhere, a woman appeared and asked me to turn down my music. I told her it was 3 pm and asked who she was. She was house sitting across the street and said the music was bothering her. She walked away and I continued working because it wasn't loud. Fifteen minutes later she came back and said, "I asked you nicely to turn down your music." I told her that it was 3 pm and she called me obnoxious and told me to, "go back to the North." I cursed at her in Italian which I'm sure she didn't understand and told her to call the police." He then told me he thought of it later that he should have said to her, "bless your heart," which in the South frequently does not mean what it sounds like. I don't think that woman enjoyed meeting him as much as I did, but I hope to drive him again.
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