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Soldiers who give years of service to the military receive campaign medals. Fathers who give years of service to their children receive . . . coffee mugs. Yes, the little gift is in front of me as I type. It bears the inscription “Dad’s Taxi Mug” and there is even a picture of a wee red taxi – just in case the message might be lost on me.
The bare bones of the title tell you little of the various campaigns for which I have been awarded this honour. The inscription could just as easily read “I am 20 years a-taxi-ing and all I got was this mug”. However, that would be sour. It is the thought that counts and, my children, well up now, have finally remembered to thank me for my efforts.
I reckon, over the 20 years that I have been providing this taxi service, that I have probably travelled as far as the moon by now. (Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of dad’s taxi...) Yes, I reckon that would not be an exaggeration. Let me count the school runs, the runs to music classes, the camogie matches, the runs up to the city, the runs back from the city, the runs to the pictures, the late-night pick-ups after dances, the little summer day trips up the coast, all in the hope of keeping the children happy and sona sásta.
The taxis have changed over the years. There was that little Nissan Almera – a lovely car – a couple of Citroens, and, least loved of all, that hulking Hyundai Trajet. "Trajet" it seems is French for "journey". That sounds sophisticated, doesn't it? Alas, my Trajet was a tank of a car – the right piece of equipment at the right time – but a tank nonetheless. It had the turning circle of a Tiger tank.
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I began to refuse, point blank, to go into any multi-storey car parks. I just could not get parked in the tiny, tiny little parking spaces. Worse! Sometimes, I did manage to get parked but could not get out. Have you ever tried to get a Trajet out of a packed multi-story car park? It is not for the faint-hearted. Move. Stop. Move. Stop. A little to the right. Stop. Cut it back again....
‘Chug Chug’
There are no atheists in a Trajet, I can tell you. There are only true believers, people who pray and pray hard; people who believe in guardian angels.
The children, the cruel, cruel children, named it “Chug Chug”, such was their antipathy towards it. Sleek, stylish and sporty it was not. It was a box on wheels – but even boxes on wheels have their uses. I could fit the entire full-back and half-back lines of the local camogie club – and their sticks – into Chug Chug! That was no mean feat for any taxi-driver.
Indeed, to give the Trajet its due, I could also put my daughter’s double-bass into the back – with room to spare. Many’s the time I gave people a good laugh, pulling up at the music centre, the school, or the feis, and parking, opening up the boot and pulling out a double bass. Siegfried and Roy eat your heart out! Perhaps Trajet is really the French for Tardis?
Chug Chug has gone now, but his memory – Chug Chug was a him – lives on in my continuing taxi-ing. And, unlike real taxi-drivers, who get paid, my children expect their trips to be free. There is no cash for me at the end of the journey. In fact, more often than not, I am the one who has to go and fill up the car. Is there anything more painful than watching your beer money go into the petrol tank?
I will admit that the children have not been the worst passengers in the world and there have been times when I have actually enjoyed being an unpaid, skivvy of a taxi-driver.
Oh sure, I complained a lot. I admit that. Oh sure, I went to university. Oh sure, I’ve read Plato – and there are no Platonic dialogues on taxi driving. But let us leave that aside. I am a saint, a living, breathing, feminist saint who has put his children before his “career”. Yes, there have been moments of fun being a taxi-driver. There is the mug and, better by far, there are the memories. Standing pitch-side, an Armagh evening, the sun shining down, the girls hacking away with their sticks, other young camógs hacking back at them. Mothers, fathers, friends just watching a game of no great importance – other than the fact that our children were playing. “Sure, it gets them out of the house,” we unpaid taxi-drivers say to each other.
And, on the way home, a bag of chips. Sure, you can’t be bad to a camogie match, a bag of chips and a free taxi ride.