Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver: A Very Particular Set of Skills

Episode 23 in a series of true rideshare stories

His daughter orders the ride for him and texts me ahead of time to let me know his name. When I get there, she helps him out to the car and asks if it's okay if he sits in the front seat. He's in his 80s, maybe even 90s. He looks like Mike Ehrmantraut from Breaking Bad would look if he made it to a long and healthy retirement.

Once he's in and settled, we drive, and he begins to talk.

He speaks quietly, in a kind of strained voice, and I have to turn off the already-quiet music in order to hear him. He tells me how they went to dinner tonight and his youngest granddaughter drove them because she just got her license. He mentions how critical he gets of his family's driving because he used to be a race car driver.

I immediately find him interesting. I think of all the children who dream of being race car drivers when they’re little. I'm not sure I've met one, until now, who grew up to do it for real. He tells me a little bit about racing cars, then asks me where I'm from.

I give him my stock answer. “Well, I grew up here, then I moved to Texas, Florida, Mexico, China, Illinois, California, Canada, and back to here.” When I rattle off that list, most people ask me about China, unless they have their own experiences with one of those places, in which case they ask me about that one. This guy asks me a few questions about what I did in China (I was an English teacher) and whether I enjoyed it (it was a mixed bag, but I’m glad I did it), then asks if I ever made it to Japan while I was in that part of the world. I tell him I’m sad to say I never did, and I ask him if he’s been there.

"Many times. At one point I had a very impressive collection of Japanese swords. I always liked going there and seeing the sword smiths who worked in the ancient styles. It's a pretty fascinating art form."

Well hell! A race car driving sword collector? Suddenly this guy seems like the old man 80% of 12-year-old boys want to grow up to be. He tells me about Japanese sword makers, about the schools where they train, the masters and apprenticeships, and the 30 years it takes for them to master their craft. He also tells me about differences in Chinese and Japanese culture and mentions that, while the spoken languages are completely different, the written ones are fairly similar.

"Does that mean you can speak and read Japanese?"

"No, I never learned to read it. I don't think I could speak it much anymore, but I used to be okay. Although, almost all of my experience speaking it was through martial arts, because I studied most of the Japanese martial arts, so I had a vocabulary that was pretty centered around that."

Jesus. Forget Mike Ehrmantraut. This guy is 90-year-old James Bond or something. A multilingual, race car driving martial artist with an arsenal of Japanese swords?! Son of a bitch is one inciting incident from having a Liam Neeson movie made about him!

By the time I get him to his neighborhood, conversation has been reduced to the weather, and he says he hopes it gets warmer and less windy soon because the wind keeps almost knocking him over. As he gets out of the car and walks to his front door, I think about the awesome life that man has lived, the envy of so many little boys, and I remember an African proverb I once heard:

"When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground."

When that particular library burns, I think someone ought to walk away from the flames in slow motion, because that old man lived a life straight out of the movies.

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Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver is a series that tells true stories of my 10,000+ trips as a rideshare driver. I will post them every Monday.