By Dave Blood
It was the summer of 1963 and I was driving a night cab in Ocean City. This shift always seemed to turn out to be, “one for the books.”
One night the first surprise came early. It was about 11 p.m. and an elderly woman, with three little children and a train of suitcases in tow, flagged me down. She was beside herself with worry.
Her daughter and son-in-law were not at the 10th Street train station to meet her. Once in my cab, she asked me to take her to a hotel that was totally unknown to me. She described it as being near a Catholic church built in a Spanish style.
Upon arrival, she looked out the window and told me that this was not the church. Visibly shaken, she tried to avoid frightening the three little grandchildren in the back seat.
Quietly, I asked her if she thought she was in Ocean City, New Jersey, or Ocean City, Maryland.
“This isn’t Ocean City, Maryland?!” she responded.
“No, Ma’am. This is Ocean City, New Jersey.”
The grandmother had purchased her train tickets in New York. She asked for four tickets to Ocean City. She had no idea there was an Ocean City, New Jersey. The clerk, it seemed, did not know about Ocean City, Maryland. She and her grandchildren had come to the wrong seashore resort.
“My daughter and son-in-law must be beside themselves!” she cried.
We drove to the office and I called the hotel in Maryland.
“Don’t hang up!” the desk clerk said, and she put the children’s mother on the phone. She had obviously been crying, but brightened up immediately upon learning that her mother and children were safe.
I offered to drive her family to Maryland. The daughter thanked me and said that they would come up early the next day.
Now the problem was where to find a room for four people on a Friday night, in July.
Desperation turned to hope when we learned that the dispatcher’s mother-in law ran a rooming house. Fortunately there was one room not yet rented, and it was big enough for everyone. We gave the daughter the name of the roominghouse, its address, and phone number.
I was not on duty the next day when our lost grandmother, and her three grandchildren, were picked up by the relieved mom and dad.
I learned that the roominghouse offered a big breakfast the next morning at no charge. There was a nice tip waiting for me in the office. But, the best memory from this whole experience is that everything worked out in the end.
I had other “unique” experiences while driving a night cab that summer. Most of them I have long forgotten. However, the experience of meeting a grandmother and her grandchildren in the wrong seaside resort in the wrong state has stayed as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday.
