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A snowflake; from the archives

June 2, 2006 By pia Leave a Comment

This is from November, 2004. On the way home from the dentist something really nice happened, Unexpected. Unusual. When I read this I remember and my faith in the world around me is restored. Should explain that they had the same snowflake hanging across Fifth Avenue from the time the Trump Building was first built until 2004–or so it seemed to me–and I lived six or so blocks from it for fifteen years. I wasn’t as great with minor details when I wrote this. In some ways though I was more experimental and possibly interesting. I probably should have put this in on 6/19–my final appointments.

Big Luce has a demanding job that pays OK but not enough to live in New York, and a daughter, Little Luce who will be fourteen on Saturday. The ex lives out of state, and that’s a good thing.

An ex friend of mine, still a friend of Big Luce, and I somehow got her a job that was supposed to be straight manuscript typing job. It wasn’t. I decided to help her. The first day was sheer hell, but by the second day I developed a rhythm and a beat. Then I had to go to the dentist.

My dentist’s office is on Fifth Avenue, two blocks from where I used to live Going there always leaves me feeling strangely nostalgic. It was humid and I was tired; I decided to take a cab home to the Upper West Side.

Historically shift change for cab drivers has always been between 4:00 and 5:30, just when they’re most needed. This was supposed to have changed when they received a recent much needed, but hurtful for the customer, raise.

I was going to give up and walk which I should have been doing anyway, when I saw a woman getting out of a cab. I ran. The cab driver was a handsome Asian-looking man. Fifth Avenue, further down, was a mess of news trucks and people.

“Oh, the snowflake,” I said, “they’re finally changing the snowflake, and putting it up tonight.”

The cab driver didn’t understand what I meant. He thought that I was a tourist who wanted to see Fifth Avenue. I explained that the snowflake was hung over Fifth for the winter.

The cab driver asked me to explain what a snow flake is. I’m still trying. How do you explain the brilliance of one fleck of snow?

The cab driver turned out to be from Nepal and we spent the rest of the ride chit chatting. Just normal conversation; nothing sparkling; nothing out of the ordinary.

When we arrived at my building he refused my fare.
“You can’t. Nobody ever refuses my money.”
“You have soft voice. You very nice. You good to talk to.”

Then he rode away.

Sometimes life is a wonderful thing.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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Comments

  1. Sar says

    June 2, 2006 at 9:57 am

    If your conversation was as interesting as your posts, he should not only have refused your fare, but he should have paid you!

    Happy Friday, Pia. 🙂

    Reply
  2. Doug says

    June 2, 2006 at 4:46 pm

    I remember this story. It’s a great story.

    Reply
  3. Jonathan says

    June 2, 2006 at 5:04 pm

    It’s weird, isn’t it – among the millions of people that cross our paths, now and again we bump into somebody that we remember…

    Reply
  4. g says

    June 2, 2006 at 6:10 pm

    That’s a very touching New York story – well, just a very touching story. You were probably the first person in his cab that didn’t just bark an address and stare out the window. I like it.

    Reply
  5. Bone says

    June 3, 2006 at 2:34 am

    Ah, he gave you the soft voice discount 🙂

    What was it, like a giant decorative snowflake?

    Reply
  6. cooper says

    June 3, 2006 at 3:54 am

    Loved this one.

    Reply
  7. neva says

    June 3, 2006 at 8:13 pm

    i’ve met some mighty nice cabbies in nyc…but have yet to have one refuse my money! i love the optimism and simple joy of this post!

    Reply
  8. cat says

    June 4, 2006 at 2:46 pm

    Very sweet, very heartwarming. 🙂

    Reply
  9. Miz BoheMia says

    June 4, 2006 at 11:14 pm

    Cab drivers here… well, it would be weird to leave one without knowing their life story… and in San Francisco my most memorable one was from a Jewish, educated New Yorker, who gave it all up to drive a cab in SF… he drove me around my last night in the city as I looked for extra luggage. Our car had already been shipped to Spain you see…

    Loved the post!

    Reply

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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