Pirates to Pyramids: Las Vegas Taxi Tales (6 page)

Remember, millions walk the Strip, so one year later that poor fence was holding up hundreds of
T-shirts covering every spike to the maximum and burying the originals in a love hug of words.
Roses and bouquets of all types along with pictures and poems and letters were left for nearly
two years.

The New York, New York Hotel started cleaning the area like a sanctuary. Being extremely careful they replaced all the shirts that survived the road dirt and weather-aging. I saw many guys stop and remove their own t-shirts, and place them there, too. Later I discovered that police and fire departments all over the country have their own unit t-shirts. Thousands went there.

The Fireman's Olympics was held in Vegas each year, back then, and it would usually draw one or two thousand guys. The year after 9/11 more than five thousand firemen came and Vegas was ready and partnering with them. They gathered a quarter mile away at the Mandalay Bay and a prouder formation you have never seen.

Las Vegas police usually keep a low profile but they activated all their motorcycles and many police cars to block the Strip and escort all the visiting firemen and off-duty locals with their trucks down the boulevard to the New York, New York. Bagpipes led a proud march that day that gave us all goose bumps.

To my delightful surprise they stopped in the middle of Tropicana and Las Vegas Boulevard, one the most busily traveled intersections on the Strip where they were greeted by the Hotel president and management who honored them with a proclamation of partnership and an announcement that a monument was being built there in front of Lady Liberty where they now stood.

This marble and glass monument stands today where the first T-shirt went up and is designed to display some of the original shirts with the sentiments and messages of love for the fallen, and, our great American city, New York.

Now you know why I found it so hard to stop at that intersection, because I couldn't look away even if it meant a wet face. I salute New York City, the people who live there, the firemen and police who serve there. I also salute people who care about people.
 

I especially tip my hat to our dear friends, the Brits, who continue to show their love for us and
who during those tough times showed us how to endure. Thank you, Brits. We love you, too.

HOCKEY GIRL

Great things come in small packages. I never saw that more clearly than one day a few short months after 9/11. The people who came to Vegas were different and much more subdued for at least a year after the terrorist attack. For one thing people wouldn't even fly as much or want to travel cross country for many months later. We saw Westerners and, of course, the Brits come to Vegas but very few Easterners came who were not forced by business reasons. People were staying home.

So, I got a long awaited shot in the arm from the most unlikely source one day. I was first in line at the Monte Carlo hotel so I was watching expectantly for a new ride. I saw a blonde girl of such short stature, that I was concerned she might not be 16 yrs old and legal for a ride in a cab. She was dragging a garment bag that was almost as big as her. God, she's too short for that big bag, but wait, there is a sports bag and a hockey stick? Okay, where is her dad or, worse, boyfriend?

I wanted to give them hell in my cab for making her drag all that stuff by herself. That just wasn't fair at all unless she was showing off. But as the doorman waved me up and I felt a giant grin explode on my face. A "blinding flash of the obvious" made it all make sense.

This was not a young girl. It was a fully grown woman, albeit, she was legally a dwarf since she
is not 4 foot, 11 inches. She was dragging her own stuff and I saw this because the hockey stick was short like her. The shortest I had ever seen. This fact caused a cascade of good thoughts. She was a jock, an amateur girl jock..

Not just a jock but a hockey player jock. This meant she was an amateur which meant she was
in a league with teams that play other regions' girl amateur teams. I knew this because she was in Las Vegas for a tournament. Why else go to the desert to play hockey unless it was a tournament enticing many teams, the way bowlers had done for decades. This means there had to be hundreds, if not, thousands of amateur girl hockey players in our country. What a country.

This was glorious news and made me crazy with delight. Remember, we had recently been attacked by terrorists. We Americans were shocked to be hated by anyone. We still wondered what we had done. Back then you could see people in my cab trying to make sense of it.

Hockey girl put it all back in perspective for me just by walking out to my cab. What I saw was:

The good old U.S.A. has so much liberty available for the citizenry that even our girls can choose to be anything they want. Want a hobby? Go ahead. Want to gather into teams and leagues and regions and travel across the country? Do it. Want to play on ice rinks in the desert? Go and do it, with our blessing.

How great is our country to allow choices like that. And we got attacked by a guy or guys that think we should change? These guys who are led by a fanatic who lives in a cave? Don't let me get started. So she got in my cab.

Airport, yes, she was going home and I could not wait to pump the answers out of her.

"You were here for a tournament?" Oh yeah. They had played three games in a double elimination tournament, meaning her team won one and lost two. She added that they were
good teams this year. My buttons were secretly popping off.

Turns out there were 21 teams this year. Now I checked my assumptions. Nope, she was from
Miami. I learned that Miami is crazy about hockey, like they are up north, because they come from up north. She loved the game since childhood, and girls are often not encouraged to play hockey. Miami was a freedom for her inner hockey player.

Hockey girl was an absolute tonic for me and many of my riders after 9/11.

After hockey girl, I made it a point to share my personal wake up call of American pride and my riders responded like the sun had come up. We were sick and tired of being sick and tired. We all needed to remember who we are and what we have. I never stop thanking hockey girl for the reminder.

You go, American amateur hockey girl.

RUNAWAY PLANE

I have driven by Vegas' airport in my cab probably thousands of times. Nothing very unusual ever
happened until one day. Private planes at McCarran International Airport are bunched together in their own areas. Often so close together I've wondered how they squeeze them all into their parking spots. I saw the answer to this was that they carefully tow them with special tow jeeps going at very slow speeds.

So, I was very surprised to see that a big G5 Gulfstream, worth $50 million had gone for "a stroll" off the airport property. Okay, so it was just its front wheels that left the blacktop, but this was enough for the large precious plane to bust through the airport perimeter fence. Its front wheels rolled down ten feet of desert landscaping to the sidewalk allowing its expensive pointy nose to stick right out into Tropicana Boulevard. Maybe it just wanted to smell freedom?

The arrival of a corporate jet, albeit the nose, of which, onto one of Las Vegas' busiest streets near rush hour on a Friday night had the exact expected result. Immediately cars crashed into each other like a movie cliché. Yes, two cabs in a hurry to start their shift at the airport, bringing guests into Vegas for the weekend, smacked into one another. Predictably, the first one saw the "unusually large pedestrian” and the second one creamed the back end of the first cab.

The importance of this was that the police saw this and fearing more wrecks did what police do. They shut down the highway. This, alone, was interesting because it is the main street, to and from, the airport. Frequent travelers through our Las Vegas airport know Tropicana Boulevard. Now almost all airport traffic was being affected because of the chain of events that followed.

The executive airport managers trying to gather the plane back to the blacktop noticed the plane could not be pulled backward without risking snapping those skinny front legs. So it was correctly decided to hire a truck-mounted crane to lift the bird back onto the blacktop. When the crane arrived they were stunned by its overall height and started to worry about its work zone proximity to one of the active runways at McCarran Airport.

To add to the problem this was Friday night, the big night of the week for incoming flights. What a time to call the FAA and report the need to shut down a runway.

Having heard this long list of calamities my thoughts went to the poor company manager who might have just got home from work when he got "the call." Yes, he will always refer to this one as "the call." Or even if he was still in his office and it came by radio, still, "the call." Or, did the call come from the police saying you got a rogue plane in the street, it would still be "the call." Poor guy. This could push a guy around the bend. One can only guess who forgot to set the brakes or set chuck blocks at the wheels or whatever they do to immobilize a giant sleepwalking bird.

But windy night, or no windy night, even we all know to check the birdcage door before we go to bed. Birds can get into mischief.

ABSOLUTELY ANYONE CAN SURPRISE YOU

I have never completely gotten over this cute ride.

I was cruising down the Strip at a good clip when I noticed the New Frontier Hotel blinking light was signaling for a cab. The same funny thought came to me that always came to me when I looked at this hotel - if this is the New Frontier Hotel I would hate to see the old Frontier.

An old lady was waving at me so I pulled up to next to her and her bags.

“
Where to, ma'am?” She could not go yet; her husband was still coming out.

”
We have to wait for him,” she said in a thick vaudeville Swedish accent.

I thought she was putting me on. Does anyone really talk like that? She did
.
 

I said to myself, how long was this going to take, waiting with no meter running? She told me to
start the meter because he might take a while. Oh good, she understands cabbies. I told her to sit inside the cab and wait. How long did she think he will be? Maybe I would I go in and help? I was impatient.

"No, he is good at taking care of himself, even if he did just have brain surgery." What did she say? She repeated it. He had just had brain surgery, so now he moved slower.

"I told him years ago he needed his head examined," and laughed out loud. This was a vaudeville act, pure vaudeville. I had to find this guy, so I asked what he looks like. She said,

"He doesn't look like much, but he's all I got." She laughed again. She was the playful type.

I watched one old-timer after another exit the hotel and she didn't claim any of them. Then a little
old Japanese man appeared, and that was when she spoke up.

"I'll take that one." I was so shocked I didn't move. I thought she must be joking, again.

"That's him right there," she repeated. I blurted out,

"That little Japanese man?" (Was that offensive?) She ignored me but said,

"I told you he's not much. But I am stuck with him." I hoped they wouldn't fight in my car.

I loaded their bags into the car and I noticed he was moving a little gingerly, but at least he wasn't wearing any bandages. She started right in:

"I told the driver you were moving slower, now, with the brain surgery. I said you got your head examined like I'd been telling you." I braced for his hurt reaction. He belly laughed.

Oh brother, they're perfect for each other. Who knew a Swede and Japanese would work?

"So which airline do you want?"

They shrieked at me. "We are not going to the airport."

Never had I been yelled at by old folks like that in my life.

"Okay. Okay. Please calm down. Where do you want to go?" They immediately calmed.

"The Four Queens, like we always do." Always? Wait just a minute.

"How many days were you here?" Four.

"And how many days do you stay at the Four Queens?" Four.

They always stay four days, at each. Wow. These guys were tough. Eight days in Vegas is a lot. Most people can't handle more than three. I tell everybody,
Fantasyland becomes toxic after three days.
These two must come once a year, or maybe every couple of years.

"So how often do you two come to town," I asked.

"We come every month. We love this town." "Excuse me. I thought you said every month."

"You heard us right. We come every month, except December... dammit."