The Other Side of Midnight Read Free

dead. My uncle Jim, who was in partnership with my father, never had any children. Harry Bugden and his daughter, Olive, are dead and gone. Doug Voisey—his father was Hotel Taxi—died of a heart attack.
    Of the old taxi stands, the last was Burgess Brothers’ Cabs, and we closed down in 1982. They were all taken over by people like the Gullivers and the Holletts. O.K. Taxi—that’s another one that used to be big—didn’t come into being until after the war. All of them that are in business today, like Northwest Taxi, have started up since George Street. Northwest Taxi was the old West End Taxi on Water Street west. They changed the name when they started operating from the Village Mall. Another one is City Wide. Dave Gulliver was originally in business with his father, which was Gulliver’s Taxi on Queen’s Street. Then he started his own stand and called it Dave Gulliver’s Cabs. But Dave is only a young man compared to me.
    Did I tell you how my father got into the taxi business? He decided he wanted to start taxiing, but he had no money. He went down to the Bank of Montreal on Water Street, walked in and said, “I want a loan of $500.”
    The bank manager asked him, “What do you want $500 for?”
    â€œI want to buy a car to go taxiing.”
    â€œYou’re going to go into business by yourself?”
    â€œOh, yes.”
    â€œWhat collateral have you got?”
    Now a man with Grade 5, what we used to call “primer,” didn’t know what the word “collateral” meant. He said, “What do you mean? What’s collateral?”
    â€œWhat value of the $500 have you got?”
    My father said, “If I had the value of $500, I wouldn’t be in here asking you for $500.” He was right, as far as he knew. He had no education, or anything.
    The bank manager turned him down: “We can’t lend it to you.”
    Dad told him right to his face, “Go to hell!”
    He walked out of the Bank of Montreal and went right across the street to the Bank of Nova Scotia. He told them the same thing—that he needed a loan of $500 to go taxiing.
    They said, “You’re going to make this a successful business?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œHere’s your $500.”
    Years and years later, Mr. Ches Pippy, a well-known local businessman, rang the stand. He said, “Harry, we need a chauffeur for my Cadillac.”
    My father asked, “What do you want that for?”
    â€œThe president of the Bank of Montreal is coming to spend a week here. We need a chauffeur to drive him around.”
    â€œNo trouble.”
    I became the chauffeur.
    When it was all said and done, Mr. Pippy gave me an invitation to a big banquet on the final night the president of the Bank of Montreal was going to be in St. John’s. I thought to myself, What do I want to go to an old banquet for? I know my father won’t go to no Bank of Montreal banquet. But I brought the invitation down to the stand.
    My father said, “Bank of Montreal? Not likely. Wait now. Yes, I’m going to go to that!”
    He went down, walked in, and met the president. “How do you do? I’m Mr. Harry Burgess. I’m a successful businessman here in St. John’s. I deal with the Bank of Nova Scotia.”
    The president asked, “Mr. Burgess, why do you deal with the Bank of Nova Scotia?”
    â€œBecause the Bank of Montreal turned me down.”
    Now is that an old-time story? It has nothing to do with the taxi business, but it does because that’s how my father got started back in 1917. He would’ve been eighteen years old then. Now that’s how far back the taxi business goes in my family.
    In those early days, my father used a car in the summer and a horse and a side-sled in the winter. He operated down on Water Street right by the railway station. The horses were kept in a barn off LeMarchant Road. He told me that; I