The discussion of the John Birch Society was short and not so sweet.  She was apparently knowledgeable about what some deemed a fringe radical group, that had a growing presence in Wisconsin in the late Sixities and early Seventies.  I mentioned what I had heard (second hand) about a group in the next county over and her return comment was delivered with a certain forceful directness that might have made Rambo back up.  No, they were not armed, and No, they were not militarily subversive! 
     I quickly and tactfully conceded having no known true knowledge on the subject and cowered a little wondering if this would make it back to the cab company as a complaint.  My uneasiness was alieviated when she explained upon exiting  the cab, "Don't worry about such things, but really you should come to my church".  With that, she paid the fare, with no tip, and slipped me a small note hastily scribbled with the church address and service times.  No church name, though, which I at the time thought was strange.  That encounter stayed with me a few days, although  at that young age it didn't impress on me the need to keep a watch on my freeness of tongue.
     That remeberance would soon fade a few days later with a call to the near north side, the ghetto!     ..........(To Be Continued)     
  

     When you're a younger person starting a new job, the obvious point is that you don't start at the top of the organization.  I started getting pages over the radio for calls right away.  I thought that was a pretty good thing.  The dispatcher was keeping me busy, satisfying the customers, and I was making money.  A win win situation.
     After a couple of those busy days I had pause for reflection.  At the end of each day, you had to 'cash out'.  You would go to the dispatcher with your mileage, your trip log, a ticket to show you filled the gas tank back up, and he would make a 'cash out' ticket for what it cost for you to 'rent' the cab for that day.  Each renter paid a flat fee for the daily cab rental, paid a mileage charge, and the cost of the gas to refill the tank.  Here's where the lessons started.  First, you were technically self employed, as they did not keep track of your earnings, nor would they become involved in any tax situation.  That was your problem.   Lesson two, was that at the beginning of each shift you had to be careful to verify the previous driver had indeed filled the tank to the top.  Otherwise you ended up paying part of his gas bill, which he took home as income.
     You were paid daily for each shift.  The amount I was left with was hardly enough to pay expenses for a very frugal lifestyle, which I had.
     I was driving cab #552.  It was a middle sixities Chevy II four door sedan.  It was the same as the cab 'Buckles' was driving, but he made considerably more than I did.  In talking with 'Buckles', therein was my third lesson on the road to cab driving reality.
     To be continued.........

     There were a few formalities before I could actually start driving cab, but they were handled swiftly by Yellow Cab.  They were constantly in need of driver's to produce the kind of service that staying ahead of the competition demanded.
     I received a new cab driver's cap that resembled what I know of as a Greek fisherman's cap.  On the upper front of the cap, above the bill or brim if you prefer that name, was pinned an oval metal insignia.  On that insignia was my cab driver's license number.  I still have that badge to this day.
     The requirements for driving cab could be very lenient if you stayed within their boundaries.  Come to work neat and clean, be polite as possible to customers and come to work one out of every three days.  Not to much to ask for, and it fit my lifestyle in those days well.  
     I started work and chose the day shift, as it was easier to find my way around the parts of Milwaukee I wasn't familiar with yet.  Starting out on night shift could be very dangerous if a person was still somewhat naive, like myself.  I was soon to start learning just how complicated driving a cab could be.  It may not seem so, and at first did not appear to be difficult.  Post your cab somewhere you feel people will need rides from, and when the call comes over the radio, try to be the first to answer.  Seemed like a shoo-in.
     Again, being a young man from a mostly rural area, even after an enlistment in the Navy, I was going to receive further education in the 'Big City'.
     To be continued.........
 
 

     When I was younger and discharged from the U.S. Navy, I went through a period where I was footloose and enjoying that state of being.  I worked at mostly technical jobs in electronics, based on electronics repair training and experience received through the Navy.
     I was enrolled in the Milwaukee School of Engineering and working full time nights to pay the bills, along with a small G.I. bill payment.  It wasn't long before I was way behind in school work and doing miserably.  There just wasn't enough time to get everything done and still sleep.
     One day in March of 1967, it all came to a head.  I took the small amount of personal belongings out of my school locker, left the textbooks in the locker, the locker unlocked, and left.  That night found me trying to hitchhike into Illinois on my way to Philadelphia to visit an old Navy buddy.  I was having no success with rides, so as the night grew later, I changed direction and hitchhiked back into Milwaukee and ended up at the bus station.  I had my pockets stuffed full of government savings bonds I had purchased through deductions while in the Navy.
     I bought a ticket to downtown Philadelphia, and after a grueling 24 hours on the bus I arrived.  The trip to Philadelphia will be another story.  I stayed there about two weeks and returned to Milwaukee where I made some friends and through one of those friends, "Buckles", got hired at Yellow Cab Co.
     To be continued........