Prior to becoming the host of my own show on Fox News Radio I spent the better part of my adult life as a cab driver in New York City. I know what you're thinking: how does a guy go from taxi driver to radio host? One job spends all day surrounded by a bunch of bottom-feeding crazy people, and the other is taxi driving.
I’m not entirely sure how I was able to make the jump, but one of the main reasons why was because I live in the greatest country in the world, a place where everyone has the freedom to work as hard as they want to go as far as they want. A place where your attitude truly defines your experience in life, regardless of color or creed.
I heard this a lot as a kid but it didn’t register until it was explained to me by a Nigerian-born cabbie we called “Big O,” who was one of a hundred drivers in my garage who’d immigrated here from around the world. Men and women who’d fled various levels of hostility in their home countries that make our current climate seem like an ice cream social.
Big O’s real name was Oba, which stood for King, and he was very much a monarch in our garage. The guy was the kind of tall that required a flashing red light on his head for planes, with a deep, thunderous laugh that sounded like he swallowed a sub-woofer speaker.
The King would tell me all the time that I had no idea how lucky I was to be here. I tended to agree with him every day when my alarm went off at 3 a.m.
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Taxi driving is a brutal gig. People always ask if I ever got scared and refused to pick up unsavory looking characters. The honest answer is no, because when you spend 15 hours a day in traffic, part of you WANTS to die. Seriously, if I didn’t pick you up in my cab, it’s probably because you didn’t look dangerous enough.
Yet each night I’d return my war-torn Ford Crown Victoria to what felt like a full-blown party in the garage. Picture Mardis Gras, if the beads were for orthopedic support. Big O and the rest of the United Nations (our nickname for the locker room) would spend a raucous hour at the end of each shift telling stories about their passengers and trading insults about each other.
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This is a serious breach of protocol on my part and it isn’t going to sit well with the cancel culture crowd, but taxi drivers love to bond over cheap stereotypical jokes associated with their countries of origin. It might sound silly to you, but the multicultural mayhem never got old to them. These moments taught me that at its core, human nature is wired more to "kid" than it is to "cancel."
I hated cab driving most days but I could never get over how consistently happy my fellow drivers were. I'd almost think they were on something, but our drug testing was very strict, despite what you might infer from the quality of our driving.
Big O would often tell me the magic trick to happiness was to stop focusing on what you don’t have and start enjoying what you do. In his case, it was the spectacular possibility of life in this country, and he was too thankful for it to complain.
Yes, we face different levels of adversity that society is constantly striving to correct, but if you choose an attitude of “victor-hood” over “victim-hood,” you’d be shocked at just how far your experience will take you.
As a sports fan, I frequently refer to America as the Michael Jordan of countries. And while it may seem like we’re going through the bizarro phase where MJ takes a time out to play baseball, the truth is, our founding principles of liberty and equality make ours a country of unparalleled opportunity for all.
Yes, we face different levels of adversity that society is constantly striving to correct, but if you choose an attitude of “victor-hood” over “victim-hood,” you’d be shocked at just how far your experience will take you.
For all the character assassinations America has endured of late, the fact remains that anyone can grow up to be anything here, whether you’re a black child born into a poor family like future President Barack Obama, or a Nigerian immigrant named Big O, who is now a practicing doctor.
It's truly a crowning achievement for a man whose name means King, just like the presidency was for Obama, and talk radio is for me. Three guys from impossibly different backgrounds who were able to achieve their goals because of the one thing they had in common, which is our unique American privilege.
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Happy 244th birthday to the greatest country the world has ever known. Congratulations in advance to everyone with an undying belief in its promise. Keep going. You’ll get there. But until then, we’re HERE.
Ride’s over. Pay up and get out.
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