Taxi Tales of Rome and Toronto

Alberto Tomassi, 50 years a taxi driver on Rome's winding roads...Courtesy NY Times 

A story in the NY Times about a taxi driver running around Rome for 50 years reminded me of another Taxi doing the same thing but this was in Toronto. See article here....http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/world/europe/italy-rome-taxi.html

David Setelbach, Tornto Taxi Diver, of blessed memory

My taxi driver friend's name was David Setelbach, a holocaust survivor who came to Canada around 1948 and also drove around 50 years till he retired. He recently passed away.

He had a lot of tales to tell. When he first got his brand new taxi, he had a Korean lady in the back seat who requested him to take her to the hospital. But that was not meant to be as she gave birth in the back seat with a little extra you know what. He said it was a foot deep of it. He happened to have a reunion with the Korean kid like 20 years later. In another story, a young teenage lady demanded that he take her to some illicit place to buy drugs and of course he said no because he was not going to break the law and she threatened him with arrest so he of course took her right to the police station and the police told her to start walking. As per baseball stars, I believe he told me that Yogi Berra was his passenger. He also had his share of movie stars.

He said he used to pick up my grandfather, Rabbi Solomon Langner and take him to his temple, Anshei Kiev and then my grandfather would ask him if he could join them for a minyan and of course he complied.

I guess those were the good old days, conversing with David Setelbach, who said he never saw a doctor but of course, the grim reaper caught up to him too. Rest in Peace, my friend David the Taxi driver...