Sex on the cycle

Whenever I tell someone that I blog about pedicabbing, the conversation usually goes more or less like this.

Other person: Wow, I'll bet you get lots of great stories!

Me: Oh yeah! If I don't manage to turn it into a book, it won't be for lack of material.

Other person: I can imagine! 

It's usually somewhere around this point in the conversation that the question arises as as to whether any kind of sexual activity has ever transpired on the back seat of my pedicab. Until recently -- Saturday before last to be more precise -- my answer has always been: "No, not as far as I'm aware."

I have to phrase it that way because I'm lacking the evolutionary adaptation that is evidently unique to grade school teachers: eyes in the back of the head. There's really no way to know what all has gone on behind my back over the last few months while I was busy watching the road ahead. (Come to think of it, a grade school teacher who pursued a second career as a pedicabbie would probably be in a position to write a much more exciting blog than this one!)

I might have remained blissfully unaware still if it hadn't happened that my boss (the owner's brother, who often pedicabs along with us) pulled up beside me at a red light at an opportune moment. He had a couple of young female passengers on his bike, and they started hooting and hollering and pointing my way. Wondering what all the fuss was about, I glanced behind me just long enough to realize that the middle-aged couple (mid 50s I would guess) on the backseat of my pedicab were getting it on*.

So what did I do? We were only a couple of blocks from their destination, so I got them there as fast as I could go. What would you have done?

*I'd prefer that this blog not get an adult rating, but if you must know, we're talking here about what is known in technical terms as digital penetration of the vagina.

Mea Culpa

I was brought up to believe that we must all own up to our mistakes, so I'm writing this to shoulder my share of the blame for the Saints' defeat in last night's preseason game against the Jaguars. Their defensive end Jeremy Mincey made things pretty miserable for us out there. I had the man on my pedicab the night before, and I delivered him to his destination uninjured. And for a measly $20! I promise not to let it happen again.

Conan O'Brien: NYC Pedicab Driver

I've got some really cool colleagues. Like this guy, Conan, for instance.

The best pedicabbie pickup line ever! (If only it were mine.)

I find myself doing the three second sales pitch (also known as the pedicabbie pickup line) much less frequently now then when I first started the job. In general, folks who flag me down are willing to pay more than the ones that I have to persuade to get on the trike. These days, I generally save the sales pitch for slow nights when I have to be more aggressive in order to pick up fares.

Last night after we got off work a couple of colleagues and I went out for burgers. (Technically, it wasn't last night; it was 3 AM this morning). One of these fellow pedicabbies, who started riding  around the same time as me told me this story about committing an act of desperation on a dull, dreary day:

It had been raining for hours and the colleague had spent the day hunkered down under a tree feeling miserable and not getting a single ride. Finally the rain stopped, and he spotted a couple approaching at a distance. He hopped in the driver's seat and pedaled toward them furiously, screeching to a halt beside them.

"Get on the pedicab now!" he ordered breathlessly. "I'll explain later." Looking at one another in bewilderment, the couple complied. (I should explain that this colleague is in the Marine Reserves. He's not a big guy, but he's probably pretty imposing when he wants to be.)

I asked my friend whether the couple actually ended up paying for their ride and what kind of explanation he offered them. He said that, yes, they did pay and that he merely explained how desperate he was to get a ride.

I have to say that I'm a bit jealous. I don't think that any of the pickup lines I've come up with could touch that one for creativity and humor. And even if I were imaginative enough to think up something that outrageous, I doubt that I would have whatever it takes to actually pull it off.

The city's smellscape

Riding around in a car there's a curtain of glass and steel separating you from the sounds, sights and smells of the streets. Roll the windows down if you want to, but there’s still no way that you’re going to get the kind of intimate experience of the city that you would get on the back of a pedicab. Lest this sound like some clumsy pedicab propaganda piece, let me hasten to say that the street-level intimacy I’m talking about is not necessarily pleasant. Sometimes it's pure bliss, but not always.

I mentioned sounds, sights and smells, so let's begin by considering a couple of examples from the auditory realm. Having nothing between you and the melodies of the musicians on Royal Street may be nice. On the other hand there’s that car with the shock and awe stereo system blasting out something that resembles the sound of a jackhammer, only less melodic and about a hundred decibels louder. That will make you wish fervently for some windows to roll up.

What about the city's sights? You may well appreciate the improved opportunities for admiring the Spanish colonial architecture from the passenger seat of the pedicab; but sit in that same seat for long, and you'll start to feel like you’re on an urban safari in which Rattus norvegicus (the common rat) is not early as rare and elusive as we all might wish.  (Early on in my pedicab career I saw a rat darting between a drain and a dumpster, and without thinking I blurted out: “Wow, look at that rat!” to which one of my riders responded: “Umm… I don’t think that’s the tour we paid for.”)

Then there’s the olfactory experience, to which the remainder of this post will be devoted.

On the plus side there's the warm, sweet fragrance of frying beignets at Cafe du Monde.

In the minus column, there are those piles of manure left behind by the carriage mules and police horses. (Read here about the controversy this has been creating lately.) In the interest of full disclosure, I've been working lately as a buggy driver in addition to the pedicab gig. The company I work for, Royal Carriages, recently had an hour-and-half meeting to discuss creative solutions to the mule poo problem. (Our mules wear "diapers", but they're not entirely effective. Of course, the horses used by the mounted police don't wear diapers.)

Back to French Quarter fragrances: The block of St. Phillip between Chartres and Decatur is especially nice. At the Chartres end, there's the enticing smell of Creole/Italian cooking coming from Irene's; at the Decatur end, there's the French Market Restaurant with its exquisite, spicy and distinctly New Orleans boiled-seafood aroma. I think they're pumping it out to the street on purpose. No doubt New Orleans has much better restaurants, but as far as I'm concerned, 1001 Decatur might just be the sweetest smelling spot in the city.

When it comes to picking the Quarter's stinkiest spot, I don't think that there would be much controversy in the pedicabbie community. The stench of vomit is common up and down Bourbon, but the corner of Bourbon and Iberville is the foulest by far. Not just the corner actually, but that whole right-angle stretch from Canal and Bourbon to Bourbon and Iberville to Iberville and Royal. I'm not sure what it is that makes that bit so bad. It must have something to do with the cluster of oyster houses there. If you think about it, they have to be discarding gillions of oyster shells, and all those juices are dripping out of the dumpsters and draining right into the streets.  

It was a fellow pedicabbie who suggested that I devote a post to the smells of the city, so I decided that it would be a good idea to solicit input from my colleagues for this piece. I put the word out on the our Facebook page, and I got an enthusiastic response, the highlights of which I now pass on to you my readers. (The quotes are in italics. My comments are in plain text.)

• You can't forget about marijuana. There have been a couple of occasions in which I have become aware that someone was smoking pot on the back of my bike. Strangely enough I didn't smell it those times. I'm guessing that the smoke just drifted along behind us like exhaust from a car. But whenever I ride past someone who's toking on the side of the street the acrid odor is unmistakable.
• The jerk chicken man on Frenchmen St. This is a Jamaican dude with a barbecue grill. I bought his chicken once. It was OK, but definitely one of those things that doesn't taste nearly as good as it smells.
• You can smell those crust punks from 50 feet away sometimes. Three different people mentioned the body odor of crust punks.
• You can't leave out the sweet olive trees and confederate jasmine during springtime. 
• Piss-covered, passed-out frat boy with a hint of sugary Hand Grenade vomit. 
• Coffee roasting at the P&G plant in the Marigny that wafts over to us in the Quarter sometimes.
• Standard coffee and Aunt Sally's in the Marigny. Candy and coffee. Are there any better smells?

One colleague was so inspired by this whole discussion that he proposed a scratch-and-sniff map of New Orleans. Sounds like a great idea! I wonder how you would go about capturing the essence of crust punk body odor for a scratch-and-sniff map.

A good cop story (which has nothing to do with the pedicab)

New Orleans has long been infamous for its corrupt cops, but today I heard a story about a New Orleans police officer who, with one simple act of kindness and creativity, helped transform the lives of six troubled teens.

My car's in the shop, and my bicycle has a flat, so I called a cab this morning to come pick me up today. (Yes, I called a car cab. Hey, I'm all for patronizing pedicabs, and I do so whenever the circumstances allow it. And you can be sure that I pay generous tips. But I'm living in Gentilly -- about three miles from downtown -- so running my errands in a pedicab would cost a lot more time and money than I have to spare. We all have our niche, right?) 


After greeting the driver and giving him my destination, I expressed my condolences for the murder of his colleague earlier this week. He told me that although they worked for the same company, he only knew the victim in passing. However, he was close friends with another cab driver who was murdered in May 2011.


I asked my driver whether he had ever been robbed on the job, and he said no, which wasn't all that surprising. He was a big, burly African-American dude with his hair pulled back tight in a little ponytail. If I were in charge of casting someone to play the part of a bouncer, I don't think I could do any better than this guy. If, on the other hand, I was out looking for someone to rob, I'd probably look elsewhere. As it turned out he didn't just look fierce; he was actually an ex cop. He had started working as a cabby only after retiring from a full career with the police force. 


He had gotten into quite a bit of trouble in his younger years he told me. "I was never really bad," he said. "Just mischievous." But that mischievous streak might have eventually pulled him down a darker path had it not been for one particular encounter with the law. Here's the story as he told it to me.


Some friends and I had climbed over the fence at the school to shoot some hoops. After a while we got thirsty, so we pried a door open to go inside and drink some water. Without knowing it we had set off an alarm. We went back outside to play and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by police cars. Some of the cops got out carrying shotguns. We were really scared.


The chief came over to me and pulled me aside. "I know you from somewhere," he said.


I said, "Yeah, I work over there at Winn Dixie by the precinct station, so you've probably seen me around."


"Look," the chief said. "I don't think you're a bad kid. Tell me what was going on here."


"Nothing, man. We just broke in to get some water."


He walked back over to his colleagues and ordered them all to leave. "I'll handle this one," he said. Then he cuffed all six of us and put us all in his car. It was tight, but he made us all squeeze in. Then he asked us where we lived, and one by one he took every one of us home and talked to our parents. I vowed that day that the next time I met up with the law, I was going to be the policeman. 


After I got out of the academy, I saw that same police chief, and he recognized me. He cried!


Of the six of us who got into trouble that day, me and another guy went on to become policemen. One became an attorney. One became an executive of a big financial firm. One owns a construction company. And one is a social worker with a PhD in psychology. 

By the time he was done with his story, I had tears in my eyes. "Look, I hate to bring this up," I said. "But you know how it is here in New Orleans. Whenever you talk about crime and police -- or anything else, for that matter -- race is always part of the picture. So, your friends... They were all African American?"

"Yes," he said.

"And the policeman?"

"No, he was white."

I told the cab driver that I write a blog and that I would love to share his story. He said that was okay. I asked permission to use his name, and he respectfully declined.

Assuming that his story was accurate, he and his companions definitely beat the odds. You've probably heard the grim statistics about African-American men. If anything the situation is worse around here. A couple of years ago a report calculated that a black male in Jefferson Parish (an area which includes most of New Orleans' suburbs) was more likely to be murdered than a U.S. soldier deployed to Iraq was to be killed there.

I want to be careful not to put more weight on this story than it can bear. First of all, I can't say whether that policeman's behavior was anything out of the ordinary. For all I know he may have merely been following the police policy manual. Secondly, there must have been many other people who helped point these young men toward a productive path -- schoolteachers, pastors, social workers, and who knows who else -- to say nothing of their parents. Let's not overlook the fact that involving the boys' parents was a key component of the policeman's plan. 


Still, the cop-turned-cabby who shared his story with me today credits that one policeman and his wise action at a critical time with setting him on the road for a successful life. 

A nice ride rudely interrupted. (Plus bonus interactive survey.)

I was doing a drop off at a French Quarter hotel just before midnight last week. A couple of soccer-mom types, one blonde and the other brunette, were standing in front of the hotel entrance.

"Hey, let's see your calves!" demanded the blonde as my passengers disembarked. I dutifully flexed my calf muscles for her.

"Do you go Uptown?" asked the brunette.

This is a common question and one that is almost never sincere. People seem to get a big kick out of asking me to take them to outlandish places: the airport, the West Bank, California... Technically Uptown doesn't fit in this category since it is located inside Orleans Parish and is therefore, in theory at least, a possible pedicab destination. (See here for a previous post on distance rides including the story of a trip Uptown.) But nine times out of ten, when someone asks to go Uptown the request is intended as a joke.

I gave my stock reply: "It's not a question of how far I can go; it's a question of how far you can afford."

"Hmmm... Well, how much would it be to --?" asked the lady, naming an Uptown address well beyond the Garden District.

So maybe this one was serious. Or more likely, she had been joking initially but on a sudden whim was giving the idea serious consideration.

I hesitated a moment. Did I really want to do this? It would be the furthest I had ever traveled on a single, one-way ride. There was almost zero chance of picking up a fare on the return. It was hard to estimate how long it might take, but I figured that it would be more than an hour round trip -- probably a good bit more.

On the other hand, it had been a slow night with slim tips so far. It was a warm summer evening, and the prospect of a long, leisurely ride Uptown with moonlight filtering through the leafy branches of the live oak trees overhead was very appealing.  In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably also mention that these ladies were very pretty. (It turned out that only one of them needed a ride, but I didn’t know that yet.) Not that I had any untoward intentions, but if you read my last post you may not be surprised to know that I’m a bit hungry for any kind of female companionship lately.

"Thirty dollars," I said.

This was a lot more than it would have cost to make the trip by taxi -- but dirt cheap for that distance on the pedicab. I really wanted to do the ride but not badly enough to do it for nothing.

"Oh, I see," the lady said, sounding a little disappointed. "I'm probably better off just taking a cab."

"Yes, I'm sure you can get a cab a lot cheaper if that's what you're looking for," I admitted.

She hesitated a moment before blurting out. "You know what? I'm going to do it!"

"Are you serious?" her friend said, suddenly realizing that the joke had gone farther than she had expected.

"Sure! Why not? It'll be fun," the brunette replied.

"You've got to be kidding!" the blonde protested. "I'm going to tell your husband."

The brunette ignored the threat and settled into the seat behind me.

"Take good care of her," the blonde ordered me as I began pedaling away. "She's got three kids and a husband at home."

"Yes, please be careful," echoed the brunette. "I've got three kids and a husband."

"Hey, do I look dangerous?" I asked.

"No," she admitted. "But the dangerous ones never look dangerous."

The ride started out well. She was friendly without being flirtatious. I don't think she told me her name; if so, I don't remember it. I did learn that she was a school administrator. I asked about her Katrina experience, which is a pretty reliable way to open up a conversation in New Orleans, and she told me a brief version of her story. Our conversation moved on, and we both talked about our kids a bit.

About five minutes into the ride she got a call on her cell phone. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help overhearing.

Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll be home in a little bit.

…I’m on my way now. It’ll be a few minutes.

…Yes.

…Yes. I’m on my way.

…I uh…took a uh...pedicab.

…Did she really call you? I’m going to get her! She betrayed me!

…No! I could have gotten a taxi if that’s what I wanted.

…I’m going to pay him forty dollars.

…No!

…NO!

…NO! I’m fine. Really.

…NO! I don’t need you to come get me.

…No, really, I’m fine. I’m OK, hear? I’ll be home soon!

“Uh-oh,” I said when she hung up. “Sounds like you’re in trouble.”

“Oh yeah, a little,” she said dismissively. “It’s no big deal.”

We picked up the conversation where we had left off as we continued the ride. Another ten minutes passed pleasantly before a car came zooming up out of nowhere and screeched to a halt beside us. The driver shouted something that I didn’t quite catch through the open window, presumably my passenger’s name.

“Oh no!” she gasped.

“Your husband?”

“Yes, my husband. I can’t believe it! This is so embarrassing! I’m really sorry,” she said as she fumbled through her purse for the money to pay me.

“No need to apologize,” I reassured her. “No damage done to me.”

Of course there wasn’t any damage done to me. To the contrary, she paid me the price we had agreed upon plus a ten dollar tip, so I ended up getting a fairly decent fare for the distance, which would not have been the case had I carried her all the way to her destination. No damage at all. Just a twinge of disappointment.

______________________________

Here’s a chance for you, my readers, to weigh in on this story. I’m interested in knowing what you think about the husband’s behavior.

A. His action was reasonable and responsible. His wife had put herself in a potentially dangerous situation that demanded his intervention.

B. His action was romantic. He went above and beyond the call of duty out of a noble desire to protect his lady. Any girl should be grateful to be so well cared for.

C. He was acting like an overbearing jerk.

D. Other. (Explain.)

Homecoming

Homeless!

Well, I grew up in the area, but I moved away for 27 years, and I finally found my way back here last August.

That's what I've been telling people lately when the question of where I'm from comes up.  I've noticed that this stock reply has undergone a subtle shift recently. I used to say: I grew up in the area, but I moved away for 27 years, and I found myself back here in August.

Did you catch the difference? I suppose that "finding my way back" as opposed to "finding myself back" reflects a growing sense of being at home. This place certainly didn't feel like home when I first got back. In the early days after my return I would say things like: "I thought I had escaped the orbit of South Louisiana, but here I am again."

When my family and I came back to the States last summer, we had been living in the Balkans for 13 of the last 16 years. We had lived in three different countries -- Albania, Kosova, and Macedonia -- but always among ethnic Albanians, and I had dedicated myself to learning the Albanian language, immersing myself in their lifestyle, and loving their food and their folk music. (Speaking of which here, here and here are some really cool songs.) One of the highest compliments anyone ever paid me was author Katherine Paterson's comment in an interview with Publisher's Weekly that when she saw my photos of Kosova, she knew that she had found someone who knew and loved the land and its people. When I imagined my future, I saw myself living among the Albanians for at least the rest of my working days if not the rest of my life.

Still, I never had any illusions of being truly "at home" there. Whenever an Albanian friend flattered me by saying, "You're one of us!" I received the compliment joyfully without ever believing for a moment that it was true. "I'll never really be Albanian," I used to say. "But after all these years living with Albanians, I'll never really quite be American either."

My wife Mary and I were both from Louisiana -- she from the northwest corner of the state and I from the southeast corner; but neither of us had much emotional attachment to the places we had grown up. In fact, both of us had been glad to put some distance between ourselves and our hometowns as soon as we graduated from high school.

Our kids, Lydia and Luke, had both grown up in Southeastern Europe. A year or two ago Luke asked me: "Dad, when people ask where I'm from, is it OK to just tell them 'New Orleans'?" He had never lived in New Orleans. (In fact, I had never actually lived in New Orleans -- more about that in a minute.) But Luke had become a big Saints fan, and he had decided that if he had to identify with some city, New Orleans would be his choice. I doubt that the thought of actually living in New Orleans had even occurred to him as a possibility. He was just looking for a convenient way to respond to a very common question, which for him and his sister had no simple answer.

We all loved our life in Macedonia, and none of us wanted to leave. However, the relationship between Mary and me had been crumbling over the last several years. We had traveled far and wide for counseling -- Akron, Ohio; Springfield, Missouri; Budapest, Hungary; and finally Seattle, Washington, where we took a six month leave in order to devote ourselves full-time to marriage therapy. After each of these trips we returned hopeful that our marriage was on the mend. By last summer it was clear to everyone around us that we were still struggling, and the leaders of the organization we worked for finally concluded that for our own sake and the sake of the work we were a part of, we needed to leave Macedonia where we were living at the time. When the word finally came down that we had to go home, we came face to face with the fact that we had no idea where home was.

Mary and I responded at first by looking for job opportunities that would allow us to continue to live in the Balkans, but we couldn't come up with anything in time. When it became apparent that we really had to return to the U.S., we sent emails to our parents and siblings saying: "We're coming back to the States, but we haven't picked a place. If you would like for us to live near you, feel free to make your pitch." One step removed from putting on a blindfold and throwing darts at a map.

My youngest sister replied to say that she and her husband had a house in Slidell, Louisiana that they were trying to sell. She would rent it to us at far less than the market value until it sold, which was likely to be several months. So based on this offer of a cheap and convenient place to live, we settled on Slidell, the town where I had grown up.

Suburb vs. City

These days when I'm riding the pedicab in the French Quarter, and I tell people "I grew up here in this area," I'm using language that is just vague enough to avoid an outright deception. In terms of sheer distance it's true that Slidell is not so far from New Orleans; but Lake Pontchartrain, the barrier between suburb and city, is no mere imaginary municipal line. The 30-some-odd mile commute requires traversing a featureless bridge across five miles of open water -- not to mention several miles of uninhabited marshland with the carcasses of road-killed alligators strewn alongside the freeway.

Slidell has virtually no industry of its own. It's often referred to as a "bedroom community" for people who work in the city but don't want to live there. The relationship between Slidell and New Orleans is best illustrated by a recent conversation with an acquaintance in which I was complaining about the lack of public transportation between the north and south shores of the lake. Given the large number of people making this commute every day, it was shocking to me that there was no way to get back and forth other than in a private car. The guy I was chatting with, who's a few years older than me and has lived in this area his whole life, said, "Well, you understand why, don't you? There have been attempts in the past, but Slidell and the other cities on the North Shore have always been against it. Not that they would mind being able to take a bus or train to New Orleans. But they don't want to provide an easy way for the undesirables from New Orleans to cross to the North Shore. You know, the crime and all that?..." I can't say for sure whether this explanation is accurate, but it rings true to me. For many of the inhabitants of the North Shore the lake serves as a security fence. Car ownership is a key that lets you cross the fence whenever you need to. (If you're picking up racial overtones here, you're probably on target.)

In my growing up years New Orleans was just foreign enough to be a little bit frightening, mysterious and thrilling. When I was in college, I got into the habit of bringing international students home with me for weekends and holidays, and I enjoyed taking them into the city and showing them around. The truth is I didn't know my way around all that much, but I could find the aquarium and the zoo and Cafe du Monde and the Superdome. Every time we made the trip, and we didn't get mugged and my car didn't get stolen or towed, I felt as though I had successfully completed some epic quest.

Returning to Slidell last August, things looked different. Having lived almost eight years in Kosova, what could be so scary about New Orleans? Mary and I disagreed about many things, but we agreed from the get-go that we weren't really the kind of people who wanted to live out our lives in the suburbs. My sister's house was a big blessing in a time of need, but from the beginning we decided that if we were going to live in southeast Louisiana, we wanted to get to the other side of the lake as soon as we could.

Something better than Sam's Club

Before we could think about moving, we had to find work. When people asked me how I ended up on the pedicab there are two distinct ways to answer. On the one hand, I found myself in a situation where I really didn't have a lot of other options. A couple of years earlier I had told our counselor in Budapest that as much as I loved my life and work in the Balkans, I was ready at any time to return to the States permanently for the sake of my marriage. "That's bullshit!" he told me. "You'd end up as a greeter at Sam's Club." (I figured that I might enjoy being a greeter at Sam's and that I'd probably be very good at it; but I had to admit that it would be hard to make enough money to take good care of my family.) As it turned out the counselor had a point. I ended up returning to the U.S. armed with a 23-year-old degree in journalism at a time when newspapers were going broke left and right and a highly specialized set of skills for which there was no market. (Know of an job openings for an albanologist anyone?) I sent out quite a few resumes but never heard back from anybody.

None of this is to suggest that becoming a pedicabbie was an act of desperation. When I saw the help-wanted ad, it looked to me like a dream job -- which turned out to be true more or less. (By the way, the timing of the whole thing was pretty close to perfect. We arrived back in the States in August.The very next month pedicabs were finally cleared to operate in New Orleans -- the conclusion of a two-and-a-half year legal battle. I didn't actually start the job till November, but I still manage to catch the industry in its infancy. I was among the first full-time pedicabbies in the city.)

When I first began pedicabbing, I knew next to nothing about the layout of the city. I didn't know how to find Frenchmen St. or Pat O'Brien's. Despite investing in a smart phone with GPS and a bluetooth headset, I managed to get myself into some pretty embarrassing situations in those early days. But it wasn't long before I was finding my way around like a native. After all, there's probably no better way to get intimately acquainted with an urban location than to spend days and nights riding the streets on a big trike for eight hours at a stretch.

Rediscovering my roots

Speaking of getting intimately acquainted, the more time I spent on the pedicab, the more I found myself captivated by the Crescent City. Despite the fact that I had never lived in New Orleans, it started to make sense to me that these streets would feel familiar. After all, my father had grown up here as had his father before him. My great grandfather had immigrated to New Orleans from Spain by way of Cuba. I hadn't really given it much thought before, but my roots were generations deep in the city's swampy soil.

Riding by the exquisite Le Pavillon Hotel on Poydras St., I remembered my dad having pointed it out to me when I was a kid. "That's where your grandfather used to work," he had said. I called him up to make sure that I remembered right. Turns out that my memory had served me well. It was called the Hotel Desoto back then, but it was the same location, same building, same Romanesque facade featuring fifteen-foot tall limestone statues. My grandfather, who died before I was born, used to sell tours there for a company called Gray Line. (Bike Taxi Unlimited, the pedicab company I work for, has a contract to provide transport for Gray Line guests.) I couldn't resist telling my passengers every time I dropped off or picked up at Le Pavillon:  "My grandpa used to work here!"

On another occasion I was riding in the Garden District, and I suddenly recalled hearing my dad say that he grown up in that part of town. I called him to ask for the address. It turned out that he and his family had lived in two different Garden District houses. Later, when I had the time, I found the houses and photographed them. Both were shotgun houses tucked in among the antebellum mansions for which the Garden District is famous. In one of the houses, my father, his brother and their parents had lived together with two other families. Imagining three families living in such cramped conditions gave me a picture of the poverty in which my father was raised.

Immediately downriver from the French Quarter I discovered another utterly delightful neighborhood, the Marigny. In a conversation with my youngest sister (the one who provided us with the house and the only of my three siblings still living in the New Orleans area) I was telling her how enchanted I was with the Marigny, and she said, "You know that our great grandfather lived over there on Spain St. when he immigrated to New Orleans, right?" I hadn't known. It's possible that I had heard this fact before and hadn't found it worth remembering, but now I was intrigued. Just as with Le Pavillon, I began pointing the site out to my passengers as though they had actually signed up for a tour of the Crescent City Pedicabbie's ancestral homeland.

Postscript. Finding my way home as my home breaks apart

On Wednesday (day after tomorrow as I write this) my wife and I will finally be leaving my sister's house in Slidell and moving to New Orleans. After having shared our lives for 22 years, we will be sharing the moving truck on that day, but unfortunately, we will be unloading our belongings at two separate houses. It has finally become clear that our marriage is beyond repair. We have chosen to live just four blocks apart so that our children will continue to have the benefit of two parents. 

Looking back over the last few months, I realize that I have relied on the pleasure of pedicabbing to help deaden the pain of seeing my marriage come to an end. And now, as I enter the next phase of my life minus Mary's companionship, I am seeking comfort in the Crescent City's warm embrace. 

My fame spreads

I  predicted here that it was just a matter of time till I was being hounded by paparazzi. I wouldn't say that it's come to that quite yet (unless you count this one Amish woman), but my picture was published in a USA Today slideshow. Apparently being cycled around by the Crescent City Pedicabbie is one of the most romantic things to do in New Orleans. Here's the link. Flip through to picture number 9 to see me.

What moves me to go the distance

"How far do you go?"

This is something that people ask us all the time. Lately, my stock answer has become: "The question is not how far can I go. The question is how far can you afford!"

There are only two real limitations:
1. Legally we can't leave Orleans Parish.
2. The pedicab doesn't float.

According to Wikipedia, Orleans Parish takes in 350.2 square miles, of which 169.7 square miles is water. That leaves us 180.6 square miles of dry land (assuming all the levees and pumps are functioning) on which to range.

It's true that most of the time we operate in a fairly small geographical area: the French Quarter; the Central Business District; the Warehouse District; and Frenchmen St. in the Marigny. A lot of locals never see us anywhere else, so they assume that we can't cross these boundaries.

For the first couple of months of my career, I tended to stay inside that zone, but now I'm happy to venture further afield. Especially on the day shift, when rides are much harder to come by, I jump at the chance to take someone up to the Garden District or down to the Bywater. At night, I need a little stronger motivation before I'm willing to remove myself from the action.

Speaking of "motivation", it's the monetary type that first comes to mind of course. But oddly enough, when I think about the furthest rides I've undertaken, there are three trips that stand out, and in all three cases my main motivation was something other than money.


All the way uptown for oysters.

I was working Uptown during Mardi Gras when I was approached by a couple of men, locals, who wanted a ride all the way to Carrollton at the end of St. Charles. I was already about three miles from our base, and Carrollton was another three miles upriver. (In New Orleans, "uptown" is upriver, and "downtown" is downriver.) The men had been drinking heavily and were a little bit hostile, so I was reluctant to let them on my pedicab at all. After a bit of haggling I agreed to take them 20 minutes toward their destination, but no more. They weren't happy with this arrangement, but there were no taxis to be found, and they weren't in any condition to walk three miles, so they agreed. "OK, 20 minutes then," one of them said. "But we're going to f*** with you the whole time!"

I'm pretty sure that they were expecting me to take the 20 minutes at a leisurely pace. Since I had insisted on doing the ride based on time rather than distance, there wasn't much incentive for me to exert myself. With every push of the pedals I would only be distancing myself that much more from the active zone where I was likely to pick up rides. Nevertheless, I decided that I would do my best to give these two jerks their money's worth, so I started working up a sweat, and in less than five minutes I had completely won them over.

To be fair, it wasn't just me. Riding along upper St. Charles Avenue past the 19th Century mansions beneath the shade of overarching live oak trees on that gorgeous spring afternoon probably would have been enough to mellow out the most ferocious mass murderer.

According to conventional wisdom, this trip is best experienced from the inside of a streetcar. I'm not one to lightly discard more than 100 years of tradition, and I'll be the first to admit that the streetcar has plenty of historical charm -- not to mention that it's very cheap. But for sheer pleasure on a pretty spring afternoon, I think that the pedicab is hard to beat. Maybe I'm wrong about this, and maybe calling a couple of drunken Mardi Gras revelers to the stand doesn't strengthen my case all that much. But I can tell you that they were certainly eager to testify. "This is definitely the best way to see the city," they were saying. It was as though these two natives were getting to know New Orleans for the first time. "This is the most most beautiful city in the world!" one of them kept saying. I've been to a few places that he probably hadn't been to: Prague, Barcelona, Budapest, London... But that afternoon I would have found it hard to disagree.

Somewhere along the way, my passengers re-opened the negotiations. They would pay me more AND treat me to a dozen raw erstas on the half-shell if I would take them all the way to Cooter Brown's on Carrollton. By the time the 20 minutes was up, my mind was made up. I wanted those oysters. I kept going.

After ducking inside Cooter Brown's for the oysters and a cold Coke, I managed to pick up one more ride, which actually took me a little further from base. Then, knowing that someone on the night shift would be needing my trike, I had to pedal furiously more than six miles to get back to the shop by 6 PM.

To the end of the Bywater for barbecue ribs (and friendship)

Once when I was working the day shift, an old friend of mine called to say that he had some free time and that he wanted to ride around with me and hang out for a bit. He offered to treat me to lunch at The Joint, a favorite barbecue place of his, which had recently been featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. The Joint (motto: Always Smokin') was located at the very end of the Bywater on Poland Avenue, three miles downriver from the French Quarter. (It has since relocated a few blocks to Mazant and Royal.) After tasting their ribs, I concluded that they were definitely worth pedaling three miles for.

A side benefit of that trip was that I got to explore the Bywater for the first time, and I instantly fell in love with the neighborhood. I think it's the coolest neighborhood in New Orleans, and whenever I get tourists on the pedicab who are ready for an off-the-beaten track experience, I try to talk them into letting me take them there.

To the Garden District to rescue a damsel in distress


Trips to the Garden District have become almost routine for me during the daytime, but this was the only time I've undertaken such a distant journey at 3:30 in the morning. Technically the night shift ends at 2, but there's often a lot of money to be made between 2 and 4, so it's not uncommon for me to stay out a couple of extra hours.

On this particular occasion, I was flagged down by a beautiful young couple on Poydras St. Earlier that evening they had been in the company of Sheryl Crow, Ellen Degeneres, and other stars at a gala fundraiser sponsored by Brad Pitt's Make it Right Foundation. But the event had ended hours ago, and they had been trying unsuccessfully to hail a cab to take them home to the Garden District. The lady was wearing heels, so walking a couple of miles was out of the question.

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you," I said. "It's already past time for me to be heading home. If it were on my way, I might consider it, but that's just too far at this time of night." I was thinking not only of the ride back to the shop, but also of the 45 minute commute by car across the lake to Slidell.

"OK, we understand," the man said.

Then his female companion looked at me with big, puppy-dog eyes that were filling with tears. And suddenly I was the one that was helpless, not she. "Get on, and let's go!" I said.

After I had dropped them off and I was on my way back to the shop, my boss happened to pass me in his car. He whipped over to the side of the road and got out to ask me what the heck I was doing in the Garden District at 4 AM. He wasn't angry, just amazed.

"I know, it's crazy," I said. "It was this girl's eyes. You should have seen them. You would have done the same thing."

We both laughed, and he got back in his car, and each of us continued on his way.

15 miles to the muffaletta

Napoleon once said, "An army marches on its stomach." Actually there's some debate as to whether it was Napoleon who said this or Frederick the Great. I'm going with Napoleon because I think that it would typically take a Frenchman to be so keenly attuned to the vital role of food in every field of human endeavor. (On the other hand I suppose one might argue that the German would be more likely to be so keenly attuned to the minutiae of military strategy.)

Speaking of French people and food, maybe it's our French heritage that helps explain why we're so passionate about good eating around these parts. If you want to observe this passion in action, try this experiment: Next time you happen to be in the same room with two our three native New Orleanians try raising the question of who makes the best roast beef po boy in town. You'll probably find them expressing their preferences with the articulateness of wine connoisseurs and the aggression of a pack of stray dogs fighting over a ribeye.

A tourist once asked one of my colleagues for directions to a restaurant of a certain well-known, middle-of-the-road, national chain, which I shall leave unnamed. The pedicabbie responded, "We don't have that restaurant here. But if you really want sh***y food, I can probably help you find something. And if you want overpriced sh***y food, I can help you find that too."

A friend of mine from Cajun country once went to Jamaica for vacation. When he got back I asked him how the trip was, and he was very enthusiastic. "Oh, it was wonderful!" he said. "I had the time of my life."

"How about the food?" I asked.

"Oh the food," he said waving his hand dismissively. "The food was lousy. But when you're from South Louisiana you don't go traveling to eat!"

OK, back to where I started, which was with that quote of indeterminate origin about an army marching on its stomach. What I had set out to say was that this same principle applies to pedicabbies. A pedicabbie rolls on his stomach. Actually, that doesn't quite convey the right meaning, does it? My journalism degree isn't helping me out much here. Anyway, I think you get what I'm trying to say.

When I first started the job, my boss told me that I could claim the money I spent on food as a tax write-off since food is our fuel just as petroleum products are the fuel of car taxis. My first thought was that this was a bit shady. After all, we have to eat either way, right? I really didn't get it then. What I've discovered is that if you're pedicabbing full time, then you're going to be spending A LOT OF MONEY on extra food.

Since I started the job back in November I've lost about 25 pounds, and I eat like a horse. Not really like a horse because horses eat mostly salad. Not me. I'm eating good New Orleans food. Oyster poboys and fried boudin balls and crawfish pies and bread pudding. All of it that I can afford. I get home at 5 in the morning after working the night shift, and I go to bed, and after a couple of hours, I wake up hungry, so I get up and eat, and go back to bed, and a couple of hours later I wake up hungry again and eat some more and go back to bed. This is my lifestyle lately. Did I mention that I've lost 25 pounds?

I remember when I was a kid,  there were a couple of guys who were riding their bikes across the country who visited our church one Sunday morning. My parents invited them over for lunch after church. To this day I remember how how much those guys seemed to like my mom's cooking. They piled their plates high over and over again, so many times that we finally lost count. My mom was really flattered. Now, all these years later, I understand better what I witnessed back then. My mom is a good cook, without a doubt, but there was another force at work that day. It must take a ton of calories to cross the continent on a bicycle. (Also, those two didn't really talk like churchgoing folk as I recall. I hate to be cynical, but I can't help wondering whether they  knew in advance that they were likely get an invitation to lunch if they went to church. Nothing wrong with seeing the Lord's house as a good place to get fed, I suppose. After all, Jesus was known for giving out free lunches.)

Once when I was riding the pedicab, some smart aleck called out to me from the side of the street, "Hey, what kind of mileage do you get on that thing?" I answered him without missing a beat, "Oh, I get about 15 miles to the muffaletta!"

Coincidences: two stories

Coincidence is king of the world. Albanian proverb


Late Monday night (technically Tuesday morning since it was after midnight) I picked up a pair of lovely young ladies on Bourbon St. Before we proceed with the story, let me define "lovely" and "young". By "young" I mean "my age" -- 46 to be precise. By "lovely" I mean that when they forced me to guess their age, I undershot by 10 years. And it wasn't that I wanted to flatter them... OK, maybe a little, but definitely not ten years' worth. 


Anyway, I could tell before they ever got on board the bike that it was going to be a fun ride. "Hey, I have an idea!" one of them said, walking up to me with a big smile. "Why don't you give us a ride, and we give you money?" I thought that sounded like the best idea I had heard in quite a while. 


They were fraternal twins as it turned out, one blonde, the other redhead. When I introduced myself, they told me that they had a brother named Mark, and I said, that based on the name, he was probably a pretty cool guy, and they said, yes, he was. None of these details are really relevant to the point of the story, but these ladies were wanting to get mentioned in the blog, so I hope they read this and enjoy it.  


As we began the ride, I asked them the usual questions: Where are you from? Have you been to New Orleans before? Are you enjoying your visit? Then they started asking about me, and the conversation settled into a pattern that is repeated almost verbatim over and over again every time I'm out on the pedicab:

Them: "So, where are you from?"


Me: "Well, I grew up here in this area, moved away for 27 years, and just got back in August." 


Them: "So where did you move to for 27 years?" 


Me: "Different places, but for most of the last 16 years I was living and working in the Balkans. A couple of years in Albania, several years in Kosova, and most recently, a few years in the Republic of Macedonia."


It was at this point in this very routine dialogue that something outside of the routine occurred -- not anything earthshaking or urgent, but something just strange enough to be intriguing. We were waiting at a traffic light on Canal St., which was almost deserted at this time of night. Right as I mentioned Macedonia, some guy walked by us, a kind of rough-looking guy, probably not homeless but just a step up from that perhaps. Apparently overhearing me mention Macedonia,  he called out to me a greeting in Macedonian: "Kako si?" ("How are you?" It's actually the same in pretty much all the South Slavic languages: Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian, etc.) If this were Detroit, for example, or some other city with a high concentration of South Slavic immigrants, this whole thing would have been a lot less surprising, but here in New Orleans, I don't think that very many people are even aware that there's a country called Macedonia. 


I responded in my best Macedonian (which is pretty poor to tell the truth), "Fine, thank you! How are you? And where did you learn that?" He just shrugged and walked on. Apparently he had exhausted his Macedonian vocabulary with those two words. 


"Well that was bizarre!" I commented to my passengers.


"Apparently the universe just wanted to verify that you were telling the truth about living in those places," one of them replied.

------------------------------------

That story reminded me of another one that happened a while back -- a bit similar perhaps but even more striking in my opinion.


I was riding around the Central Business District looking for fares. Spotting a young couple at a corner, I asked if they would like a ride. "No thank you," one them replied. "Actually we rode with your company earlier today. It was really nice. Our driver was Jenny." 


"Oh, yes, Jenny!" I replied. "She's awesome!" because Jenny is a really cool colleague. She works part time with us and the rest of the time as a concierge at a hotel, which means that when she's working her other job she's able to steer a  lot of dispatches our way. And besides that, she's just a fun, sweet person. 


Anyway,  just as I said that Jenny was awesome, who should go walking by but Jenny! Turns out she lives there in the Central Business District, and she just happened to be out walking her dogs just in time to overhear me singing her praises to her former passengers.


"Wow, Jenny!" I told her. "If I had known you were eavesdropping, I would have tried to come up with something a little stronger than awesome!" 


This is the kind of story that it's almost impossible not to end with, "And the moral of the story is..." On the other hand, the moral seems so obvious that I won't even bother to state it.

The Kaintucks take over New Orleans -- again

Congratulations to the University of Kentucky for their victory in the NCAA basketball championship. The Superdome was certainly rocking Monday night, if not from the cheers of wildcat fans on the inside then from the violent spring thunderstorm on the outside. More about that thunderstorm in a bit.

New Orleans was awash with Kentuckians during the Final Four just as it had been three weeks earlier during the Southeastern Conference tournament. Judging by the color of the crowds thronging the Quarter, it appeared that at both events citizens of the Big Blue Nation far outnumbered the fans of all the other teams combined. A random sample of riders on my rickshaw would have confirmed this. In fact, ESPN reported that even when the wildcats took on LSU -- practically the hometown team -- in the SEC tournament, almost everyone in the near-capacity crowd was wearing Kentucky blue. "The Tigers... had hardly any representation outside of the players' families", the article said.

Noting all those blue t-shirts on Bourbon St. one night, I remarked to a colleague that Kentucky appeared to have colonized New Orleans -- which triggered a memory of something I had learned recently as I was preparing to take a test for a New Orleans tour guide's license. Bear with me here for a very brief (I promise!) history lesson.

During its colonial days Louisiana was bounced around like a basketball, a situation which couldn't have been easy on the colony's residents. Sovereignty over the swampy soil beneath their feet shifted constantly without anyone bothering to consult them -- or in some cases even to notify them. Here are some of the highlights:

• Soon after establishing the colony, France privatized it, handing over control to a rich banker named Antoine Crozat. Contrary to his hopes of exploiting Louisiana to add to his personal fortune,  Crozat found the colony to be a financial black hole, and just five years into what was to have been a 15-year charter, he gave Louisiana back.
• Control of the colony was then handed over to a corporation headed by a Scotsman named John Law, one of the most notorious (and brilliant) con men in the history of the humanity. Just to give you an idea what kind of man we're talking about here, one modern biography of John Law is entitled The Moneymaker: The True Story of a Philanderer, Gambler, Murderer, and the Father of Modern Finance. 
• In 1762 France gave Louisiana to Spain in a secret treaty, which the colonists didn't even hear about till two years later. (Frenchmen St., now home to many of New Orleans' best music venues, is named in honor of a group of colonists who were executed for their role in resisting the handover to Spain.)
• In 1800 Napoleon twisted the arm of Charles IV of Spain to make him give Louisiana back to France.
• By the time Spain and France got around to actually doing the transfer in 1803, Napoleon had already decided to sell Louisiana to the United States.

This last handover was by far the hardest for the colonists to take. Around this time there was a steady flow of thousands of Kentuckians -- "Kaintucks" as New Orleans' French-speaking residents called them -- floating downriver on keelboats and flatboats loaded with stuff to sell. Kentucky was the American frontier back then, and these riverboat men were a rough lot. In those days before the invention of the steamboat, travel upriver was next to impossible, so the Kaintucks, after selling their goods in the Crescent City, broke up their boats and sold them for lumber. Having filled their pockets with cash, their main interest was to indulge themselves with whores and whiskey before setting out on the long walk back upriver along the Natchez Trace. 

When the average French-speaking resident of New Orleans thought of an American, the image that came to mind was the Kaintuck -- a foul-mouthed, violent, dirty, drunken barbarian. New Orleanians had tolerated these Kaintucks for the economic benefits that they brought, but when word got out that Napoleon had sold Louisiana to the United States, the Creoles of New Orleans said, "Of God, please, no! We thought being under Spanish rule was bad, but now we've been bought by the KAINTUCKS!"

Now, more than 200 years later, thousands of Kentuckians were flooding New Orleans again, flowing down the freeway from the source of Bourbon whiskey to Bourbon St. So how do these modern sons of the Kaintucks compare to their uncouth ancestors? As it turned out, I found the Kentucky fans to be really nice folks. Just as a point of reference, they were definitely a much better-behaved bunch than the LSU-Alabama crowd that was here for the BCS Bowl. (But it may not be fair to compare a basketball crowd with a football crowd.)

That thunderstorm that I mentioned in the first paragraph probably played a part in limiting excesses as well. In the end it was the weather that was brutal, not the fans. The rain, which slacked up at times but never stopped entirely, made things miserable; and intense periods of lightening made the situation downright dangerous. The storm even caused a brief power outage in the French Quarter. 

For me, what should have been a very unpleasant night to be out on a pedicab was salvaged by the kindness of a pair of Kentucky belles who, out of gratitude for being given a ride to their hotel room in the driving rain, gave me a $100 tip for a ten minute trip. There's nothing like Benjamin Franklin's beautiful face to brighten up a cold, wet night. As far as I'm concerned, the Kaintucks can colonize us again anytime they want!

Calves comments: The best-of collection

We had 12,000 operating room nurses in town this week for a convention, so this has been the main pool that my passengers have been coming from over the last few days. One of them said to me, "Wow, you have beautiful soleus and gastrocnemius!" It wasn't hard to figure out what she was referring to, but I asked her to put it in writing so I could look it up when I got home.


Her remark got me thinking about some of the more interesting and outrageous comments that have been inspired by my soleus and gastrocnemius muscles since I've been pedicabbing. Here's a list, along with some comments of my own:


"Those are so gorgeous, I'd love to just take a bite out of them!"
I'm glad that this girl found them attractive -- and even gladder that she didn't give in to her impulse. Can you imagine how this list of comments might be different if she had? ("Eeww! How did you get that hideous gaping hole in the back of your leg? Was that from a cycling accident or a shark encounter?")

__________

Female passenger A: God, look at those calves!
Female passenger B: I know! Wouldn't he look good in heels!
I have a hard time conjuring up any image as repulsive as my hairy horse-cavles atop a pair of high heels.  On second thought, the image of my calves with a big bloody bite taken out of them (See above) might come  close.

__________

"I sure would hate for you to kick me!"
This is one that I've heard several times, mostly from guys. I suppose it's a safe way for a guy to compliment me on my calves without sounding gay.

__________

"I'm so jealous! I wish I had calves like that."
This is probably the most common comment, and it's always women who say this. A common variation (one I heard last night, actually) is: "I need this job so I can have legs like that!" Personally, I don't think calves like mine -- even clean shaven -- would be very attractive on a girl. But that's just me.

__________

"Can I touch them?"
Sometimes they don't even bother to ask; they just start grabbing.

__________

And my all-time favorite, which I already recorded in an earlier post, but I think it's worth telling again. 
Drunk Cajun A: Man, look at those calves!
Drunk Cajun B: Those aren't calves, no. Those are full grown cows!

Rickshawing in the rain

I recently got a shout out from the American Meteorological Society's blog in response to this post. (Executive summary: I jokingly speculated that the wisdom of pedicabbies may somehow factor into the algorithms that meteorologists use to predict the weather. The AMS blogger affirmed that meteorologists do in fact pay attention to the observations of pediabbies as part of their data collection process.) I guess this makes sense, right? If being out in the weather a lot qualifies you, then we pedicabbies should be experts.

Speaking of being out in the weather, this brings to mind a question that I get asked a lot: "What do you do when it rains?"

In these four months that I have been working outdoors full time, I have not missed a single day's work because of the weather. And don't forget, this is New Orleans we're talking about! There have been plenty of days when I didn't manage to get in a full eight hour shift, but I've always showed up for work. Even on the wettest of days there have always been enough breaks in the rain to give me brief windows in which to ride.

As long as I can keep luring people onto the trike, I try to keep moving. The week before Mardi Gras I took a couple on a 20-minute ride in a downpour so fierce if felt as if there were a big fire hydrant in the sky hovering over our heads.

We have two types of canopy available to cover the passenger seat. One is open at the front, and doesn't really offer much protection; the other is a zip-up cocoon kind of thing that is quite an ordeal for riders to get into and out of. With both types, the added wind resistance is like having another 200 pound passenger on board all the time. Naturally, it takes time and effort to mount the canopy and take it down. All that to say that I hardly ever bother to use a canopy anymore. After all, if I don't get any protection on the front seat, why should the guys on the back, right?

If the weather gets bad enough that I can't get anyone on board, then I take cover and wait it out. If I'm lucky enough to be in range, I try to make it to Riverfront Restaurant on Decatur, where they give me free coffee, and the waitresses spoil me. "What can I get you, sweetheart?" they say. "Would you like a refill on that coffee, darling?" (It's a New Orleans thing, I think.)

On rainy days I often struggle to remember why I like this job so much. Sometimes I barely make enough money to cover the cost of fuel for the commute back and forth across the lake. The worst part is the cold. You have no idea just how cold 50 degrees Fahrenheit -- or even 60  or 70 for that matter -- can be until you're out in it and soaked to the skin for hours at a time! As long as I stay dry, it's not hard to combat the cold; I just start pedaling furiously, and pretty soon I'm generating my own heat. But when I get drenched, the only thing that helps is to go home and take off my wet clothes and soak my already wrinkled skin in a steaming bath.

News flash: Idaho joins the Union!

I did it! I can now boast that I have transported passengers from all 50 states... Wait, that's not quite right, is it? I mean, I haven't actually transported anyone across any state lines. After all, hauling someone from Hawaii to New Orleans on a pedicab would be problematic, right? Anyway, I think that you get what I'm trying to say.

Yesterday, within a couple of hours of posting this entry, I picked up a pair of passengers from Idaho. I had been riding around looking for a fare, when I spotted a middle-aged couple poring over a map and looking a bit lost on the corner of Bourbon and Dumaine, so I stopped to ask them if they needed directions. (This is something that I make a practice of. It gets me rides sometimes, though not as often as you might think; but either way, I want my city's guests to have an impression of New Orleans as a friendly, helpful place. I know that sounds corny, but it's true.)

In this case the couple seemed happy for my help. They wanted to know if I could show them where they were on the map and where they might find a good seafood restaurant. This was right up my alley. "Sure!" I said. And just about that time I noticed that the man was wearing a Boise State baseball cap.

"Are you from Idaho?" I asked, barely able to contain my excitement.

"Yes, we are," they said.

"Then hop on," I ordered them, "because you're going to get a free ride anywhere you want to go!" Looking back, that was a bit rash. It's a good thing they didn't say, "OK then, take us back to Idaho!" As it turned out, I just took them a couple of blocks -- far enough for me to explain a bit breathlessly (Like I said, I was excited, not to mention the fact that they were as plump as a pair of Idaho potatoes, bless their hearts.) why I was so thrilled to have riders from Idaho.

When they got off, they asked how much, and I told them again that there was no charge. I didn't want them to think that the whole story was just a ploy to get them on board and get a fare. But they insisted on giving me a ten, which I finally (after a solid three or four seconds!) accepted.

And so -- barely four months into my pedicabbie career -- I have had the honor of transporting tourists who have come to the great city of New Orleans from every single state in the Union. I've also had riders from most of the provinces of Canada and from a number of other countries, including: Mexico, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Greece, India, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Taiwan, and Japan. What a wonderful job I have!

I need an Idahoan

Anybody know anybody from Idaho headed to the Big Easy? If so, have 'em call me for a free ride. I've had passengers from 49 states, and I'd love to make it an even 50.

How much for a ride?

Here's an interesting (to me, at least) piece from The Pricing Journal on pedicab pricing of all things. After experimenting with a number of different approaches to setting fares, the one described in this article is precisely the one I've settled on -- at least when it comes to rides of 20 minutes or less, which is more than 90 percent of what I do. For longer rides, it's a dollar a minute.

I still improvise occasionally depending on the situation. Last night I had a pair of ladies who wanted a ride to their hotel, which I figured was just at the edge of the 20 minute boundary. It was past 2 AM, things were pretty busy, and I really didn't want to take a chance on going that far away from the action for a meager tip, so I quoted a price of $20. They said, "OK, no thanks then. That's a little high. We'll just take a taxi."

Usually in these situations, I don't mind losing the customer. If she's looking for the least expensive option, she's better off with a conventional taxi. Whenever someone says, "I can get a cab for cheaper," I usually say, "You sure can! Would you like me to hail one for you?" But for some reason, I decided on impulse to gamble this time. "I tell you what," I said. "I'll take you for a tip. You just pay me whatever you like, and that will be fine."

They hesitated briefly. "Whatever we want? Are you sure?" I told them yes, I was sure, and they got on board.

The ride turned out nice. It was a beautiful night with a gentle breeze, and the three of us had a pleasant conversation along the way. It was clear that they were thoroughly enjoying the experience. When we got to their destination, they gave me $30.

"Are you sure this is enough?" they asked, seemingly having forgotten that just 20 minutes earlier, $20 was more than they were willing to pay.

"Yes, that's great," I said. "Thank you!"

"Are you sure?" they asked again.

"Yes, yes I'm sure!"

This kind of thing is fairly common actually. People end up enjoying their pedicab experience so much that they're happy to pay substantially more at the end than they were prepared to pay at the beginning. That's one of the reasons that I'd prefer not to lock them on to a price before they get on board. It's also one of the reasons that I really love my job!

Another funny story featuring my freakish calves

Yesterday afternoon. I pull up and park beside a colleague for a minute to catch my breath and engage in the pedicabbie equivalent of water cooler conversation.

"Remember when I had that couple on my bike, and you rode past me over by the steamboat terminal?" he asks.

"Sure."

"Well they were admiring my muscular legs," says my colleague, an ex-Marine, who's pretty ripped all over by the way, "and right at that moment you go riding by. I told them, 'You think I've got strong legs, get a load of that guy!' Their reaction was like shock and awe. Honestly, Mark, I think they were so impressed that they actually gave me a better tip out of appreciation for pointing you out to them!"

Fast forward a couple of hours. The same colleague and I are back in the shop counting up our day's earnings. Turns out he made exactly three dollars more than me, which doesn't sound too bad -- till he reveals that he started the day two hours late. This just isn't fair! I worked till 3 a.m. the night before then slept in my car in the shop to get an early start on the day shift. And this guy shows up for work two hours late and finishes the day with three dollars more than me.

I haul off and whack him as hard as I can with a business card I happen to be holding at the moment. (In case you're wondering, I'm not resorting to literary license here; I actually did this. I actually hit the guy with an honest-to-goodness business card.) I would have used my fist, a bike wrench, or some other more formidable weapon were it not for two facts: 1) He's actually a really nice guy; and 2) as you may remember reading just a couple of paragraphs ago, he's a muscle-bound ex Marine. I figure he could probably snap my neck and the bike wrench with his bare hands. Simultaneously if necessary.

Anyway, the injustice of the whole thing really sunk in on the drive home: By his own admission that no-good scoundrel had gotten an extra tip by showing off my calves. By all rights those three dollars should have been mine! I have been exploited for profit. I'm thinking that I just might sue if I can find a lawyer who'll take the case for a dollar or less.

Harrah's parrots

There's a colony of parrots living in the palm trees around Harrah's Casino. Soon after starting my job I caught a glimpse of an emerald-green bird flitting amongst the top fronds of a palm tree, and I wondered if I was hallucinating. (My daughter Lydia is the ornithological expert In our family, but I knew enough to be pretty sure that there weren't any birds of that color native to New Orleans.)

I've seen them several times now, and my pedicabbie colleagues have confirmed that they have seen them as well. Lydia says that colonies of feral parrots are fairly common in the southern U.S.  There may still be plenty of valid reasons to question my sanity, but apparently sighting little green birds outside Harrah's isn't one of them.

I often hear them chattering away when I ride beneath the palm tees at night. Unlike their kin in cages, they apparently don't speak English, so I can't say for sure what they're going on about. But I strongly suspect that they're commenting on my calves.

Mardi Gras stories

I've been out riding the rickshaw so much lately that I haven't had much time for keeping up the blog. The good news is that with all those long hours out on the street I've been accumulating that many more stories, all of which are just waiting for me to find the time to tell them.

Doing a double 

Speaking of long hours, I worked a couple of double shifts in the days leading up to Mardi Gras. The money was good of course, but my main motivation was something else: I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. Making it through more than 16 straight hours (almost 18 in one case) pedaling God-only-knows-how-many pounds of passengers for God-only-knows-how-many miles was as exhilarating as it was exhausting. To grasp why I found this so thrilling, you probably need to understand that I've never been the athletic type. When I was a kid and it came time to pick teams for kickball or dodgeball or whatever, there were generally girls who went higher in the draft than me. So at this point in my life, just a couple weeks shy of my 46th birthday (a milestone I crossed last Monday, by the way), meeting the physical challenge of "doing a double" on the pedicab felt like scaling a mountain or running a marathon.

Easy money

Like I said, the money was good too. Sometimes, it felt almost as though it were falling out of the sky. Here are some examples (not in chronological order):

__________

On Mardi Gras Day itself I was flagged down by a guy who runs two restaurants, both of which are located right along the main parade route. They had been serving so many hungry revelers that they were running out of supplies. The restaurateur wanted me to take a few cartons of cream from Restaurant A to Restaurant B and bring a couple of boxes of lime juice and big sacks of sugar back from Restaurant B to Restaurant A. When he asked how much, I hesitated a moment, a little unsure. "Is twenty dollars OK?" I proposed. "How about sixty"? he countered. Yes, I told him, sixty would be fine.

__________

The weekend before Mardi Gras day I had a couple of pretty girls on the back of the bike, and we were stuck in traffic. Some young guys in a nearby car started flirting with the girls, who seemed to be enjoying the attention. One of the guys began begging me to pop a wheelie. After he had made this request for about the fifth time, I got down off my seat and, with my feet planted on terra firma, gently lifted the front tire about three inches off the ground. The guy jumped out of the car, ran over to me, and handed me a twenty dollar bill.

__________

I was hired for a big chunk of Mardi Gras morning by a middle-aged man. A long-time resident of the Garden District, he and his wife belong to a small circle of friends who choose a theme every year, dress in elaborate handmade costumes based on that theme, and march together along Saint Charles Avenue (the main parade route) during the brief interlude between the two big parades, Zulu and Rex. This man has a handicap, which makes it difficult for him to walk, so he hired me to haul him and his wife in the pedicab while their friends walked alongside us. We moved at a snail's pace, pausing every few seconds to allow the people lined up along the route to take pictures of our procession.

When we saw the Krewe of Rex parade coming toward us, we pulled off onto a side street to watch for a couple of hours. During this time I was on standby, free to watch the parade or just wander around until the gentleman and his wife got ready for me to take them home.

Back at their house, they urged me to come in and eat lunch with them and their friends. I was eager to get back out and make more money, so I stopped in just long enough for some chitchat and a Coke. All in all, the whole job took a little more than three hours, of which less than one hour was spent actually pedaling -- and that at a very easy pace. For this, I was paid the full hourly rate for four hours plus a generous tip.

__________

Late one evening the weekend before Mardi Gras, a tall black guy collapsed onto the seat of the rickshaw. He mumbled the name of a hotel as though the mere act of speaking was depleting the very last of his energy. I couldn't tell whether he was drunk or just totally exhausted. Almost the instant we started rolling, he fell asleep. I tried to go slowly and to avoid sudden stops because I was worried that he might fall out of the pedicab.

When we reached his hotel, I had to grab his shoulder and gently shake him to wake him up. Once he had gathered his wits, he told me that he needed to go up to his room to get some money and that I would have to wait for him to come back down and pay me.

A couple of ladies who were standing outside the hotel smoking cigarettes overheard this conversation and offered me a twenty dollar bill. They said that they doubted very much that I would see my passenger again, and they hated to see me get stiffed. I argued that we should at least give him a couple of minutes to see if he kept his word; and at any rate, it wasn't their bill to pay. But they kept insisting that they wanted to pay for the man's ride, so finally I took the twenty.

Just about that time, the guy came back (seemingly a whole lot more coherent and energetic than a few short minutes before) and also offered me a twenty -- which, by the way, was a fairly generous amount for a single passenger on a brief ride.

"These two ladies already paid me for your ride, so why don't you just give it to them," I suggested.

Looking a bit bewildered, he turned toward the women and held out the money to them, but they refused to take it, so he turned back to me, trying to press it into my hand. I declined again. "Your ride has been taken care of," I said. "If they don't want the money, you can just keep it."

He just stood there stubbornly holding the money out and insisting that I take it until finally, I did. I made one more attempt to hand it over to the ladies, but they continued to refuse, so in the end I stuck his twenty in my wallet alongside theirs.

"You're an angel!" one of the ladies said to me as she planted a kiss on my cheek. I was grateful for the kiss and the compliment, but it still strikes me as strange. If anybody was angelic in that situation, it had to be the ladies. I, on the other hand, made out like a bandit.

_________________________________________________________

An angel with wheels instead of wings

Actually, these weren't the only women to tell me that I was an angel during the Mardi Gras season. It became something of a recurring theme. The typical scenario was that I would happen along at the right time to offer a ride to a lady who was desperately trying to get somewhere on foot while, either: A) drunk; B) wearing high heels; or C) drunk and wearing high heels. And she would say, "Oh God, yes, I would LOVE a ride!" And the whole way she would tell me over and over again that I was her angel (sometimes interspersing compliments on my calves). I lost track of how many times this happened, but I can tell you that I never got tired of it.

What does it take to make the blog?

On Mardi Gras and the days leading up to it, I ended up working more in the Garden District than in the French Quarter. I found working uptown (the Garden District) to be a much more pleasant experience all the way around than working downtown (the French Quarter). Navigating traffic was much easier, and the parade watchers were much better behaved. Truth be told, Mardi Gras parades are wild and raunchy affairs anywhere in the city, but far less so uptown where the crowd is made up largely of families with children as opposed to college kids and of locals as opposed to tourists.

That's not to say that all of my passengers were perfectly orderly, law-abiding and sober though. For example, there was this one seemingly sweet, young couple. We were having a pleasant chat along the way, and I mentioned to them that I write a blog about my experiences as a pedicabbie.

"That's cool," the man said, "So are we going to be in your blog?"

"Probably not," I told him. "You haven't really done anything outrageous enough to bear mentioning."

"Really?" said his female companion. "We just smoked a joint back here!"

So, sweet young couple, if you happen to read this, let me say to you, "Congratulations! You made the blog after all."