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Show By SUSIE DAVIS New York cabs made the trip to 'Big Apple' extemeley memorable .. r . ...... . ;i; . him "good luck" on the first day of . his new career! " In response to her husband's inquiry in-quiry about the cab ride and tip she said, "It wasn't a tip, it was a gift! I decided that she got a lot more for her, nineteen ' dollars than: one i'i '"" . ; IK do" ' 1 ... ... ..... . ..' i . , .. .'! :. .. ....... , ... .... ......... t sometimes gets. It wasn't a half of a bag of groceries, three-quarters of a tank of gas, or a night out on the town. It was the memory of acting . on the warm impulse of her heart on the first day of the rest of someone's some-one's life!--- i ciwttw cti nt .',.,,! Picture this! Yellow with black, circling in groups. Speedy, agile, instinctive.. Abrupt, accurate and ' almost instantaneous direction changes and stops. Screeching and honking! s ' On a recent trip to the "Big Ap-ple.iny-engaged daughtijr and I encountered the phenomenon of the predatory New York taxi cab. With twenty thousand taxis in the New York area, they are anything but an endangered species. They circle in what seems like schools of sharks, protruding signs atop their roofs like dorsal fins. Screech! And we were off to our destinations. Some of the cabs took us straight there and some took us not-so-straight there. But we always made it to the play, to Greenwich Village, to Saks, " or to the airport alive! . s , I'm sure New Yorkers don't care ' where these guys are from, but I found it intriguing. My daughter Cr- -inged as I brought out my standard phrase, "Where you from?" They were from $oitth Africa, Ghana, India, In-dia, Brazil, Haiti and a few were from the USA. But mostly, it was the United Nations. I could see that they had gotten this far in the land of opportunity, but no further,' now spending each day circling, accelerating, dec-celerating, dec-celerating, and stalking. Do they know what America is really like? As they responded in their thick accents ac-cents with sometimes lazy hps, I decided that 95 percent didn't even know that Utah existed. ; ' In spite of the. fact that I needed a neck brace after riding in some of the cabs, I found myself wanting to tip these new Americans more than I needed to. Their lives seemed so empty if this was it Drive and keep alive in a violent city. So I did tip more than I needed on occasion. My friend had this experience. She hailed a cab to take her to the airport It was about a $20 ride. As she was being driven, her driver told her he had just bought this cab and she was his first fare on the first day of owning his very own cab. Undoubtedly, it had taken him years to earn the money to buy a cab. - They cost over a hundred thousand dollars as a business. . ..-He was from India and very excited ex-cited and proud, not to mention enterprising. As they reached the airport, the fare came to $21. My friend wanted to tip him about three dollars. She discovered she only . had two twenties. Impulsively, she ' handed him the two twenties, bade |