Older Drivers Hit the Road for Uber and Lyft
“…a growing number of older Americans … are driving for Uber or its competitor Lyft to augment their retirement income.”
-New York Times, January 22, 2016
I looked to my phone as I stood on the sidewalk outside the Newark train station. The app said my ride would be here in 1 minute.
I spotted the car turning the corner, a blue Volvo with Connecticut plates, and walked into the street to flag it.
The driver rolled down the window as he came to stop next to me.
“Tom?”
“Philip?”
He nodded. I hesitated for a second about whether to get in the front seat or back, but got in the front.
“Make yourself at home,” he said as I got in.
“You’re older than I expected,” I said – which was the truth.
“Yeah. I get that a lot.”
He didn’t look like other Uber drivers I’ve had. He was wearing a tweed jacket, button-down shirt and a knit tie. He had a fringe of grey hair and an impressively wrinkled forehead and prominent nose. He reminded me of a statue of a Roman Senator — that, or an eagle.
As I buckled myself in, he said:
“So. Now vee may perhaps begin. Yes?”
I laughed nervously.
“You been doing this long?” I said.
“Not too long. I retired recently,” Philip said, “and this gets me out of the house. I like driving and I always end up in Newark. What about you? What brings you to Newark?”
I told him that I was there for business.
“Monkey business?” He said laughing. “You have a wife? A girlfriend? A wife and a girlfriend?”
I laughed nervously.
“It never ends, you know. The desire for women. I may be over 80, but in my head I’m still 36 – and so are the women I dream about.”
As we drove by a public school, Philip said: “That’s Weequahic High. I graduated there in 1950. Way before the internet, almost before TV. This was a Jewish neighborhood then….”
He was a talker. Boy, was he a talker! He was on a tear:
“And that home there,” he continued. “That’s where Seymour lived. Seymour Berkowitz. He was my best friend in 10th grade. Star of the baseball team. And the model for the Swede.”
“The Swede? Is that why you drive a Volvo?’
“Maybe it is,” he said and laughed again.
“Do you have Spotify?”
“What’s that–a stain remover? I have some tissues… and some raw liver in the cooler, if that floats your boat.” He laughed again.
“You married?”
I said I had been.
“I was married. Twice. Didn’t work out. But that’s over for me. The women and their discontents.”
He drove slowly, carefully and in control. I had the feeling that he enjoyed the conversation more than the driving, so I said: “If you don’t mind me asking, what was it you did?”
He chuckled. “You could say I worked in a factory. Day in, day out. Hardly ever took a break. For almost 60 years.”
“What kind of factory was it? What did you make?”
“I wouldn’t call it sausage – it was…how can I describe it? I made paper products.” He laughed again and then said, ruefully, “Back in my day, print still mattered.”
“Really? You don’t look like the factory-type. More like an English professor.”
“I did that too, for a while. In Chicago and Philadelphia and at Hunter College in New York.”
“You taught about paper products?” I said.
“Yes. Yes I did,” Philip said almost wistfully. But then he was off again: “I’m not going to talk politics with you. But Trump – what a character – and all his gang. I mean this is before your time, but Nixon, Tricky Dick we called him–I thought he was good value. But Trump? His Hair could write a novel! And the Botox-ed Solvenian wife who speaks so slowly in that accent? – wonder where her grandparents were during World War Two…And those sons: Thing One and Thing Two? And how about that his prized daughter, focus of his unnatural love, the ultra-shiksa daughter—married to an Orthodox Jew! Converted! And the forgotten daughter, the semi-mieskite… You can’t make this up. I pity the writer who has to compete with that.”
We pulled up to a tall Neo-Classical building. “The National Newark Building. Built in 1931 – older than me! It used to be the tallest building in Newark. But those days are gone.”
I opened the door. “Well, thanks for the ride. You sure know a lot about Newark.”
“That I do,” he said. “Also about the prostate, it turns out.” I closed the door and he drove away.
A few seconds later, my phone pinged with my Uber receipt: “You rode with Philip.” I decided to give him five stars. Seemed like he needed something to do all day.And he had lots of stories to tell.
Although who drives around with liver in a cooler? Raw.
