Fare Thee Well

Gone in a Heartbeat

His full name was Xuan Van Pham, but everyone called him Subie. I first met him back when I first started driving a cab in 1992. He was easily the best mechanic in the company's garage. Subie had been working there pretty much since leaving his native Vietnam and settling in the U.S. in the late '70s. I quickly learned from longtime drivers that if you had a problem with the car, Subie was the one to see. He would quickly get you back on the road.

But aside from his mechanical abilities, the most amazing thing about Subie was his laugh. It was, well, just really, really loud. You could be out by the gas pumps with a dump truck rolling by in the street, and you would still hear his laugh from all the way in the building. It would shake everything in the area. I swear I once saw a brick come loose from the roof of the building and crash to the parking lot below. Doctor Evil from the Austin Powers movies would have done well to have that laugh.

And if someone in the shop dropped something, Subie would let loose with his trademark "Uh-oh, better call Maaco." Hell, sometimes I'd go in there and deliberately knock things over just to hear him yell it. As often as he said it, he should have been getting a commission check from Maaco.

In Fairfax county, every cab has to go through meter course twice a year. Subie was always there, making sure every car had the necessary paperwork ready for the hack inspector. And while everyone should have gone to the shop the day before for a quick safety check, there would invariably be one or two guys who would show up with a burned out bulb. It would fall to Subie to quickly change it so the cab could get through meter course and back on the road. When it happened to me, my excuse was a highly believable "Um, it must have burned out last night?" It was right about then that Subie told me to call Maaco.... Among other things.

Yesterday morning Subie was sitting in his car at a red light in Arlington, Virginia when he had a heart attack. His car then rolled into the intersection where it was struck by several other vehicles. By that time, however, he was apparently already dead. He was 59.

Subie, you will be missed.

Only in DC

So I get a trip this morning going from Virginia into DC to Union Station. Traffic is fine until we get to the Roosevelt Bridge, which carries traffic from interstate 66 across the Potomac. Once across the river, it more or less dumps you on Constitution Avenue. This morning, however, we only got about halfway across before everything came to a crawl. I'm figuring it's an accident, until I notice the sea of firetrucks and police cars along Constitution. There were also a couple of TV news trucks with those big antennas thrown in for good measure. That's when I notice the banner.

There's a construction site on the NW corner of 23rd and Constitution, with the State Department on the NE corner (that's the building on the right hand side of the photo at the end of this post). There was big banner hanging from one of two big cranes. It was a picture of the planet Earth with the caption "Too big to fail." Clever, I was thinking, but why the big emergency response? That's when I noticed the two objects hanging from the bottom corners of the banner: People. Two morons were actually hanging from this damn thing.

According to the Post article (there's also a better photo of the banner), it was a protest organized by Greenpeace and timed to correspond with some sort of economic forum taking place at the State Department. The protesters were apparently hoping to draw attention to environmental needs as well.

But did they really accomplish what they wanted? People trying to get to work were left steaming in traffic. So instead of merely drawing attention to their cause, the protesters instead succeeded in pissing off a lot of people. That was certainly the case with me. In fact, I spent the rest of day throwing trash out of the car while needlessly gunning the engine.

And suppose there had been a major fire in the area? With so much rescue equipment tied up because of these idiots, not to mention the traffic jams, there would have been serious problems.

My passenger and I were fortunate in that we got through the are shortly after the protest started. I took took a different route back out of the city and met up with 66 on the other side of the Potomac. By then it looked like the traffic was backed up at least a mile. Plus, with the protest now all over the news and traffic reports, many motorists tried taking alternate routes, jamming those as well.

Did these protesters stop to think about the consequences of their actions? Aside from pissing off potential supporters, did it occur to them that all the thousands of cars forced to needlessly sit in traffic were throwing even MORE CO2 into the atmosphere? Wouldn't it be a hoot if their actions were the final push needed to finally melt the ice caps and doom the Earth?

Maybe Greenpeace should stick with saving the whales.

Just Rewards

A minister dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates. Ahead of him is a guy who's dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket, and jeans. Saint Peter addresses the man, "Who are you, so that I may know whether or not to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?"

The guy replies, "I'm Joe Cohen, taxi-driver, of Noo Yawk City."

Saint Peter consults his list. He smiles and says to the taxi-driver, "Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

So the cab driver goes into Heaven with his robe and staff, and now it's the minister's turn. He stands erect and proudly booms out, "I am Joseph Snow, pastor of SaintMary's for the last 43 years."

Saint Peter consults his list. He says to the minister, "Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

"Just a minute," says the minister. "That man was a cab driver and he got a silken robe and golden staff. That can't possibly be right. How can you possibly justify such a difference in rewards?"

"Up here, we work by results," says Saint Peter. "While you preached, people slept. But while he drove, people prayed."

--From an email