It was mid-afternoon, and the leaves settled onto the street, bent upward from the draft emitted as cars drove by. Hardly anyone walks on my street anymore. It's a political conversion. We have all become limousine liberals.
Arthritis has set into both my knees, especially the one I tore when I fell off a window, trying to put up a poster at my school. We were about to be inspected by a team considering giving us money to expand. Just over a year before it was announced we would close.
My super and his wife both have debilitating cases of arthritis, and in his case, diabetes. My next door neighbor sold her car so that she could convert her living room to a bedroom for her grandchild.
The lady downstairs can't drive with her autistic son because he won't sit still. The postal carrier and his wife don't go too many places, but if they have to, they will take a cab because between the rheumatism and the wife's heart condition, subways are too risky.
So, all of us take taxis to various places. We don't have cable, new furniture or cars. We don't own anything. But, in order for us to function, we often need to take cabs. To work, to the Social Security Office, to the doctor. Sure, we can walk over a block so we don't qualify for "Access-a-Ride" -- NY's assistive public transit. My best friend can't walk OVER a block, but that doesn't count. She too, takes cabs to survive.
My last driver, an avid Rush Limbaugh fan, tried to Jew-bate me on my ride to the bank which is in a Hasidic Jewish section of my neighborhood. He said the section was "unique". I explained that it brings my grandmother's tales of Eastern Europe to life and he quickly asked, "Are you
Jewish?" Then he qualified that he had grown up with "American Jews" and basically "didn't judge anybody." He went on that he was "not an atheist liberal" -- and I told him not all liberals were atheists. He said he knew and I changed the subject back to the neighborhood. I explained that there are all different kinds of Hasidic Jews and that the different outfits you see in the neighborhood had their origins in the various towns these groups originated from. Most of these, like my grandmother's town, have long been erased. Not by atheists, but fanatics of another kind. There were probably a few liberals, agnostic, believing and otherwise, in the camps with the members of my grandmother's town.
At the end of the ride, I asked for an amount of change which would've given the driver a dollar tip. That's well over twenty percent of the ride and more than fair in this neighborhood. He claimed only to have enough change to give himself two dollars. I conceded rather than fight. It was getting late and I was anxious to get back to my apartment, my medicine and my cats.
So, I gave the Limbaugh-loving driver the extra dollar. After all, I'm a limousine liberal.
Arthritis has set into both my knees, especially the one I tore when I fell off a window, trying to put up a poster at my school. We were about to be inspected by a team considering giving us money to expand. Just over a year before it was announced we would close.
My super and his wife both have debilitating cases of arthritis, and in his case, diabetes. My next door neighbor sold her car so that she could convert her living room to a bedroom for her grandchild.
The lady downstairs can't drive with her autistic son because he won't sit still. The postal carrier and his wife don't go too many places, but if they have to, they will take a cab because between the rheumatism and the wife's heart condition, subways are too risky.
So, all of us take taxis to various places. We don't have cable, new furniture or cars. We don't own anything. But, in order for us to function, we often need to take cabs. To work, to the Social Security Office, to the doctor. Sure, we can walk over a block so we don't qualify for "Access-a-Ride" -- NY's assistive public transit. My best friend can't walk OVER a block, but that doesn't count. She too, takes cabs to survive.
My last driver, an avid Rush Limbaugh fan, tried to Jew-bate me on my ride to the bank which is in a Hasidic Jewish section of my neighborhood. He said the section was "unique". I explained that it brings my grandmother's tales of Eastern Europe to life and he quickly asked, "Are you
Jewish?" Then he qualified that he had grown up with "American Jews" and basically "didn't judge anybody." He went on that he was "not an atheist liberal" -- and I told him not all liberals were atheists. He said he knew and I changed the subject back to the neighborhood. I explained that there are all different kinds of Hasidic Jews and that the different outfits you see in the neighborhood had their origins in the various towns these groups originated from. Most of these, like my grandmother's town, have long been erased. Not by atheists, but fanatics of another kind. There were probably a few liberals, agnostic, believing and otherwise, in the camps with the members of my grandmother's town.
At the end of the ride, I asked for an amount of change which would've given the driver a dollar tip. That's well over twenty percent of the ride and more than fair in this neighborhood. He claimed only to have enough change to give himself two dollars. I conceded rather than fight. It was getting late and I was anxious to get back to my apartment, my medicine and my cats.
So, I gave the Limbaugh-loving driver the extra dollar. After all, I'm a limousine liberal.
(My cats, by the way, both take cabs to the Vet, so they also are limousine liberals.)
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