Trolling for fares on Main Street, I noticed a boisterous clutch of friends walking past the Flynn Center. One of them, a husky guy closest to the curb, brushed against a bicycle hitched to a tree, carelessly knocking it to the ground. He broke stride for a moment to glance down at the bike, now vulnerably splayed on the pavement. Shrugging his shoulders at no one in particular, he continued on and caught up with the group.... Read more

Gassing up at the Maplefields on Williston Road, I stuck my head back in the taxi to ask my customer, Richard Thurman, if he wanted anything from the store. It was a rainy afternoon, bordering on sleety, and the man had just been released from Fletcher Allen after sufficiently recovering from open-heart surgery. If the procedure is commonplace these days, the reality of having your chest split apart is anything but. Imagine exposing your beating heart for — God willing — repair. It’s like an engine job; you can only pray the mechanics know what they’re doing.... Read more

The two brawny guys in the backseat of my taxi — old friends, it appeared — were talking as guys do.

“She’s so hot. Grant me that, dude. I mean, she’s the hot nurse!”

“Yup, Mandy is hot. Everybody knows that, genius. It just doesn’t concern you. You’re engaged, T.J. Remember that? And Ally is such a great girl. So I just don’t know what the fuck you’re thinking.”... Read more

“So what’s your story?” asked my customer from the shotgun seat. I was driving her home from a night out with the girls, two of whom were boisterously chatting in the back seat.... Read more

“What a town, man. It feels like I never left.”

“Didja grow up here?”

“No, I graduated last year from St. Mike’s. This is my first time back.”

It was a late night on Mardi Gras weekend that found me driving this young man to his Colchester alma mater. That would be Burlington’s Mardi Gras celebration, the one taking place a few weeks after the original, Big Easy version.... Read more

The fare was to Hogansburg, New York, the main town of the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation. The Mohawk Indian name for the reservation is Akwesasne.... Read more

I’m a denizen of Burlington International Airport. Well, perhaps that overstates it, as I don’t actually live there, but it feels like I spend more time in the terminal than in my own home. Long ago I stopped working the airport’s taxi queue; the often multihour waiting times left me beyond antsy. What bring me to the terminal now are scheduled pickups.

After 30 years prowling the building, through its many expansions, I know every square inch — at least those inches open to the public. But mostly I just take a seat by the arrival gate to people watch or read.... Read more

Zero degrees, and the roads were devoid of snow or ice — in other words, an ideal night for us cabbies. Freezing temperatures goose the demand for taxis, and the clear streets allow for making time. I was out there cooking in my trusty Buick LeSabre.... Read more

Sometimes I think I have two distinct jobs: driving a cab, and driving a cab on New Year’s Eve. Year-round, Burlington is an active town with an array of events, concerts and festivals giving rise to busy—at times hectic—nights for us cabdrivers. But New Year’s Eve is altogether a different animal. On this last night of the year, from early evening until five or six in the morning, the demand for taxis far exceeds the supply. I mean far. Hectic gives way to frenetic.... Read more

“I thought there’d be more snow,” my customer said from the shotgun seat — not as a complaint, but cheerfully, conversationally.

Noreen Catalano had the look of a ’60s-era folk singer, with a dark complexion, long, silky black hair parted in the middle, and large, expressive brown eyes. I was driving her up to Stowe for a Christmas visit with her brother’s family. Back at the airport awaiting her bag, she had told me she lived in an apartment in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood — at Avenue B and Ninth, to be exact. ... Read more