a new york city cab ride

a saturday night conversation with a cab driver...

sharing a cab home from chinatown with my friend brian. we are so very turned around. and confused of our exact whereabouts.

umm....where are we?!?

our friendly cabbie lets us know -- this is centre street! that's the criminal courthouse. behind it, the civil and supreme courts.

oh! i know where we are. i had jury duty in that building...i think.

somehow our conversation turns to the brooklyn courthouse...and how we are kind of ridiculous manhattanites who rarely venture outside of manhattan. guilty.

laughter from the front seat --
there's a whole world outside manhattan! you're missing out! at least tell me you've been to astoria, to the beer garden...

hah! oh the beer garden? yes yes, we've deeeefinitely been there.

then brian leaves us. and me and the friendly cabbie continue uptown. we decide that 10th ave is probably the best route at this time of night. i mention how i'm so glad it's not raining...

oh don't say anything about the rain, no more rain! and this winter has been terrible!

i know! i've only been her 5 years, but this winter...ugh. it's like the winter that won't end.

well i've lived here about 50 years and this is still one of the worst i've seen in a very long time.

he chuckles...my 5 winters are laughable to him! he continues how he is planning to golf on monday and tuesday, it's supposed to be sunny. i go on about how i'm going to the yankees game on wednesday night, so i'd really like for there to be no more rain...

so are you a yankees fan? i like the mets myself.

oh...uhhh...if i had to pick one, i guess so. i'm from texas. so i grew up watching the rangers and the cowboys with my dad.

i'm a cowboys fan! i grew up watching joe nameth and roger staubach back then, so you know, the cowboys were the team. and jerry jones makes it hard sometimes, but i'm a diehard fan. imagine? a cowboys fan in new york? hah!

haha, i think i respect you more for that!

i'll be a mets and cowboys fan till i die!

i find this hilarious. never have i ever met a new yorker that cheers for any texas team. much less the cowboys...around here, the giants, jets, yankees and mets rule all. this is turning out to be quite the entertaining cab ride!

so you've lived in new york for 5 years, huh?

yes, almost 5 years now. in june.

i wouldn't have guessed, i don't hear much of a southern drawl from you...

hah, nahhh. i grew up in the suburbs. not much of an accent. but i still say "y'all!"

...and i just realized that i said "forgetaboudit!" that's about as new york as it gets!

i tell him about how i thought i'd only be here a year, yet here i am, 5 years later, still in the city, still happy. he tells me he's from queens, lived here all his life --

my dad worked for the airline...pan am, you know? in the 40s and 50s...so we traveled a lot. i've been all over europe, south america, mexico, south africa, the carribbean. but there's no where else like new york. it just has such an energy about it. it's really a spectacular city.

well said friendly cabbie, very well said indeed. oh how i love it here.