About the trusted taxi driver, you would be surprised. Many years ago, in the days before Uber and Lyft, I lived in an apartment complex in Campbell, CA. There

About the trusted taxi driver, you would be surprised. Many years ago, in the days before Uber and Lyft, I lived in an apartment complex in Campbell, CA. There was a nice Ethiopian family a couple of units over from me. I would often smell the delicious food they were cooking, and they probably smelled the coffee I would roast in my Gene Cafe. I mostly roasted dry process Ethiopian coffees (and still do). When I had a minor medical procedure scheduled that would require light sedation, I thought to myself, "I need a way to get there and back." I was going to call a regular taxi, and then I realized I'd been seeing this Green Cab parked in our lot a couple of spots over from mine. I had a feeling it might be one of my neighbors, because I'd often seen Ethiopians driving Green Cabs. So I left a note under the windshield wiper: "Hi neighbor! I see you drive a cab. Would you happen to be available on such-and-such a date and time to drive me over to San Jose and then back a couple of hours later? He called, we made arrangements, and we sure had a lot to talk about between Ethiopian coffee and food and life in general. You never know what kind of connection you may make with someone who is "just a taxi driver."