LA Freeway
Guy Clark
This was in our repertoire when I played with John Rasmussen. I’ve been a big fan of Guy Clark ever since.
Pack up all your dishes
Make note of all good wishes
Say good-bye to the landlord for me
Son-of-a-bitch has always bored me
Throw away them LA papers
And that moldy box of vanilla wafers
Say good-bye to all this concrete
I'm gonna find me a dirt road back street.
Chorus
If I can just get off o' this LA freeway
Without gettin' killed or caught
I'll be down the road in a cloud of smoke
To some land that I ain't bought.
Here's to you old Skinny Dennis
The only one I really will miss
I can hear that old bass singin'
Sweet 'n' low like a gift you're bringin'
Play it for me one more time now
Gotta give it all we can now
I believe everything you're sayin'
Just you keep on, keep on playin'.
Chorus
Put the pink card in the mailbox
Leave the key in the front door lock
They will find it likely as not
I'm sure there's something we have forgot
O, Susannah, don't you cry, babe
Love's a gift that's surely handmade
We got somethin' to believe in
Don't you think it's time we're leavin'.
Chorus
Taxi Driver
In 1974, I got a taxi driver’s licence. I didn’t know of any other female taxi drivers at the time. Certainly the physical arrangements for getting a taxi driver’s licence didn’t accommodate women. We had to provide a urine sample. I had to wait for all the men to finish in the toilets before going in myself. We had little enamel bowls to pee in, then we all stood in a queue with our bowls waiting to be processed. A somewhat awkward situation but, hey, that was Women’s Lib.
I was living in Monbulk and Yellow Cabs had a depot in Bayswater, so that’s where I was based. I usually drove the late night shift, from about 7pm up to about 6am, depending on the availability of the taxi. There was always a game of 3-handed euchre going on in the depot, the players rotating according to the call-outs.
This model shows a cab like the one I was driving
Not everyone was happy having a female taxi driver.
One evening, I was asked to pick up Mr Pritchard from the Royal Hotel in Ferntree Gully. This happened each week at the same time, but it was my first time picking him up.
He came out of the hotel with a small Gladstone bag in each hand. He put one of the bags down, opened the door, picked the bag up again, leaned in to sit down, then suddenly withdrew, put both bags down, leaned in the door to look at me and said, “A woman! They’ve sent me a bloody woman!”
