The Cab Stand

There is a street in Avon, Ohio named Just Imagine Drive.   You can look it up.   I wish it had existed when they built Cleveland and its environs, because imagination, when it came to naming streets, was often not in evidence.   Just Imagine Drive might have been inspirational to the folks who were struggling with the Greater Cleveland Street Name Shortage back then.

On Cleveland’s west side, there’s a street called Elmwood.   The ‘burb immediately west of Cleveland is Lakewood, and Lakewood has an Elmwood.   Rocky River is next in line…  it has an Elmwood as well.   Due west of Rocky River is Bay Village…  yup, they have one, too.   So does Westlake, which is just south of Bay.   None of these Elmwoods are connected and none are thoroughfares of any significance. But elms, I suppose, were a major point of civic pride once upon a time.

The aforementioned cities of Lakewood and Rocky River each have their own Wagar Road. Neither version has anything whatsoever to do with the other, save that both derive their name from a local historical character named Mars Wagar.   I think it was some years after inventing his eponymous planet that Mr. Wagar took to naming streets, although I could be wrong on that count…  he did manage to get both of his names memorialized in Lakewood, as it boasts a Mars Avenue as well.   No other local burg has copied that one as yet.

There is a street named West Park in Cleveland, one in Fairview Park, and another in North Olmsted, all within eight miles or so of each other.  Since people have missed out on deliveries of pizza and Christmas presents from the ensuing confusion, I think that there should have been an 11th Commandment:

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Streets

I also think that cities should hire cab drivers to name their streets…  you’d get distinctive street names, whimsical and non-derivative.  

Elvis Avenue

Pork Chop Lane

Ennui Court

Support Hose Road

It really isn’t difficult.

 Multiple Choice

You know those multiple choice questions that are part of informal quizzes?    The ones where several reasonable answers are given along with one ridiculous one?   Let’s give it a try…

You’re driving down a single-lane-in-each-direction street and, as you’re about to enter an intersection, you suddenly realize that you don’t know which way to go…  do you:

A) turn left;

B) turn right;

C) go through the intersection and then pull off the road to consult your map;

or

D) enter the intersection, come to a complete stop, block all traffic in every direction, and begin a cell phone call to, presumably, some person who might be able to give you directions even though you probably cannot explain where it is that you are.

I saw someone choose “D” this morning.   From now on, when you see someone opt to do the exact wrong thing in a given situation in spite of its obvious absurdity, just refer to them as an “Option D.”

We’ll all know what you mean.

I had a Director in my cab yesterday.

I’ve had any number of Directors in my cab through the years, but this fine gentleman was easily the best example of the breed to patronize my rolling establishment since I’ve begun writing these little blurbs at you.   Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I very strongly suspect that Directors dwell in a plane of existence that is, if not clearly superior to yours and mine, then clearly different.

I came across yesterday’s Director at a medical building in Westlake.   I presumed that, just like all of us who’ve moments ago escaped the clutches of our chosen medical overlords and their nursely tormentors, he’d want to go home.   He did.

“Where can I take you, sir?”          “home, please…   I live on Munn Road, in Cleveland… do you know where that is?”

“One block south of Edgecliff, between Warren Road and Rocky River Drive”         “oh, you’ve been there before?”

“Many times over the years, yes sir…”          “well, we can take the highway…”

:: thinking that I have a new blog topic and deciding to play it out ::

The medical building is immediately adjacent to I-90, of course…  it’s a Cleveland Clinic facility, and local ordinances require that one of these things be built at every third interchange on Interstate Highways that pass through the region.   They’re ubiquitous.

So, I pull the cab away from the curb, my Director settled nicely in back.   We exit the parking lot and head for the highway, just a few hundred feet distant…  and I flick on the right turn signal just to see if…

“we can get on the highway there…  we should go east…”              :: yup, he’s a Director ::

“Do you take cabs often, sir?”          “no, I always drive, but today I couldn’t because of my leg.”

“Well, you can relax…  I’ll have you home in no time…”                “it doesn’t take too long when you use the highway…”

Now, we need only travel two exits down I-90 to get to my Director’s neighborhood.   His exit off the highway is maybe a half-mile past an entrance ramp that becomes a new right lane, expanding the highway from three lanes to four.   You must get into that new right lane, and fairly quickly, in order to exit where we’re going.   In anticipation, I again flick on the right turn signal so as to advertise my intended lane change for all the world to see…   there’s no traffic, and I execute a splendid and graceful slide to the right.   I almost expected to see Eastern Europeans dressed like dinner mints standing at the berm, holding placards with 10s on them.

But there are no Eastern Europeans…  there is only me…   and my Director.   My turn signal continues to blink…         

“we should get off at this exit”

…and we do.   And since we must turn right at the intersection atop the ramp, the turn signal blinks unabated and unabashedly to the right…

“we make a right turn here…”

…and we do.   And because we must make a left turn at the very first intersection upcoming, I want to dazzle my Director by making the underhand-fingertip right-to-left turn signal switcheroo…   the turn signal now blinks left…

“now, we make a left turn at that next light…”

We have only one more turn to make at this point, a simple left onto Munn Road, the Director’s specified destination.   It will be at the first traffic light we encounter, and we can only turn left.   There’s even a convenient left turn lane awaiting us.   So I signal a left turn and glide effortlessly into the aforementioned left turn lane…

“we should make a left turn here…  this is my street…”

We do.          “My house is five from the end on the left…”

That part I actually did not know, and I was grateful to my Director for sharing.   We pulled into his drive, and he paid his fare, adding a reasonable tip.   He seemed relieved that he had defied all odds and arrived at a more familiar plane of existence than the morning’s fates had chosen to deal him…  and even his dog seemed happy to see him, standing at the fence, tail all a-wagging…   You know what my Director said to me as I held the door for him?

“That’s my dog…”

I grinned all the way back to Rocky River.