A gold heart

I didn’t want anyone to meet me at the airport in North Carolina, so nobody was there. I got into a taxi and asked the driver to take me to my hotel. He said, “The hotel is so near. You should wait for the yellow bus. It will take you there for free.”

I waited five minutes, but the bus didn’t come. So again I asked the taxi driver to take me to my hotel. He said, “I will have to charge you five dollars, but the bus will take you free.” He was so honest!

I said, “I will give you five dollars,” and I got into the car.

Just then the yellow bus came. The taxi driver said, “Why don’t you get out and take the bus?”

I said, “No, please take me to the hotel.”

The hotel was not even five hundred metres away. The taxi made just two or three turns, and then we were there.

I gave him a ten dollar bill, and he gave me five dollars in return. I took the five dollars and got out of the cab.

As I was talking to a lady at the door of the hotel, the taxi driver started shouting at me: “You gave me two ten dollar bills by mistake.” They were new bills, so they had stuck together. He was kind enough to return the extra ten dollar bill. Then I gave him the five dollar bill as a token of my appreciation.

This is how this taxi driver showed his gold heart.

— 21 July 1982