Small events - big rewards...

What is great in man is that he is

a bridge and not a goal.”

– Friedrich Nietzshe

I was a little nervous because it was my first time and it was happening so quickly.

The weekend in Chicago was for a board meeting of an organization to which I belong. I had just boarded the flight and sat down when the text came. “You need to download the Uber App before you get to Chicago, it’s less than half the cab fare.”

I have heard of this car service and have friends that use it regularly. Even the guy from whom I get occasional massages drives for this car service in his spare time.

I started the download, and it was coming slowly. By the time all the passengers had boarded, it was only three-quarters done. I thought to myself, I’m going to leave my phone on until we reach the active runway. If I don’t have the full app by that time, I’ll put the phone on flight mode.

Amazingly, just as the plane in front of us began its roll down the runway, the app finished loading. Yeah, I get it. I pushed the envelope, but it was a ‘venial sin,' not qualifying me for eternal damnation.

By the time I got to Chicago and picked up my luggage, it was time to try this thing out. I have always been a little anxious every time I have tried anything new. Large or small, it is the unknown that pushes the breath a little faster and elevates the heart rate. That notwithstanding, firing up the app, I plunged right in!

The app already knew where I was as it showed a pin stuck in a map of Chicago O’hare Airport. There was a place to put my destination. I sent out the signal, and within two minutes I got a confirmation from Kristi. The ID had her picture, a description of the car and license number.

I met her at the departure area of the airport. Uncertain she would know who I was, I called and described myself. In a few short minutes, she showed up and whisked me away in her late model robin-egg-blue Kia. Kristi was a sandy-haired, pleasant-voiced gal in her early thirties. It was clear that she was not calorie deprived, and had a pleasant voice.

I like to talk to taxi drivers when I travel. My friend Uffe and I both do this and enjoy sharing our stories of our adventures with one another. I wondered whether Kristi would be comfortable chatting it up with a man she didn’t know. I should not have been worried. Before long we were chatting like a couple of magpies. Before I hopped out of her car thirty minutes later, I felt like an old friend.

Kristi had done a couple of years of college when her 81 year-year-old grandmother fell and broke her ankle leading to a hospital admission. The woman had been a diabetic her entire life and managed it well. In the Hospital, she acquired a MRSA infection. Soon after returning home, she slipped into dementia, leading Kristi to voluntarily withdraw from school to take care of her. "She lived for five more years, but it was kinda sad to see her end like this,” she said.

There were many more stories about her family, recovering addict husband (clean for seven years), her two-year-old daughter and the adventures of being an Uber driver in Chicago, the city where she had lived her entire life.

The thing is, this young woman had every reason to see her life as a journey that had been unfair to her. That was not the case. She was articulate, joyful, forward-looking and seemed to genuinely enjoy driving her car all over the Windy City.

The meetings went through the weekend, ending Monday night.

By now I was an old hand at Uber. Yep, I was ready to see what the Tuesday morning drive to the airport would bring.

It brought William in a black Chrysler and a license plate that read ‘Skeeta.' He was a mid-sixties, African American. I asked if I could sit in the front seat with him to which he said, "Yeah man, climb in."

While the majority of people I interact with are fun to talk to, there are some so memorable that I have carried in my heart for many years. William was one of those home run hitting, touchdown scoring, high jump winning fellows!

William was a semi-retired professional photographer who specialized in taking pictures of children in day care centers. As it turned out, both of our fathers were ministers (Baptist, me – Methodist, him). We traded stories that only preacher's kids could appreciate and understand. There was a lot of laughter and comments about the similarities of our lives. 

William's wife is a middle-school psychologist. This led me a discussion of education in the Chicago public school system. He felt it was basically warehousing children...most time spent disciplining and teaching for standardized tests, rather than educating. "My wife sometimes comes home in tears, because she can't stand that the kids are managed, not taught. I tell her she has got to find a way to let it go, but man it's tough on her."

There was more, but before we knew it, we were at the airport.  "Man, I wish you could ride around with me all day," he said. I replied genuinely, "Yeah me too. This went too fast."

I got out of the car on my side and him on his. I pulled my bags out and did something I have never done before. We shook hands, and I hugged him. No that's not right, we hugged each other. His parting shot was, "I am gonna remember this for a long time."

Me too, man, me too….

- ted