Word: cab
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...York's J.F.K. Airport, they found an 81-year-old woman brandishing a youth-fare airline ticket. The incident reflects the widespread abuse of the regulations governing cut-rate charters, especially on the North Atlantic run, by so-called "charter consolidators," also known as "body brokers." Recently the CAB began a drive to clip their wings, and it has forced many out of business. In the process, it has stranded thousands of tourists who held return tickets that had become worthless...
...unions or comparable "affinity groups" are allowed to travel on charter flights, which cost half or less of the price of fares on scheduled airlines. Many consolidators form fraudulent clubs, advertise illegally for members, and enroll people who have nothing in common except a desire to save money (one CAB check established that twelve of the 15 members of one "affinity group " did not know what organization they were supposed to be members of). For a fee, the consolidators then quickly buy blocks of low-priced tickets from airlines...
...catch the first cab I see; it is the one that nearly hit me coming our of the Garden onto Causeway St. The cab driver is a trifle taken back, but once he knows where I've come from, he warms up considerably. "What about that Jagger fella? Y'know I usta get sing in a band, a ways back. Usta get laid twenty times a night." The proprietors of the flowers shop are helpful. Particularly when it becomes apparent that six or eight dozen flowers wouldn't be nearly enough. I decide to spend the whole thirty dollars...
...stab at infidelity with the melancholic wife of one of his neighbors in suburban Great Neck. Now the positions are reversed. Barney, after his combat training, has become the manic aggressor; Jeanette Fisher is the coward, full of fear and un certainty. Barney finally bundles Jea nette into a cab, then goes to a phone booth to call his wife Thelma and in vite her down to Mom's for a romantic afternoon...
...last part of the book returns to England and in a way to A Cab at the Door. Pritchett's blustering father and droll mother come onstage for a final turn, somewhat better off financially but still squabbling, buying and selling inappropriate property, defying the blitz by moving into London. Both died in their 80s after the war. Probably out of modesty, he sketches his later life very lightly, discussing his novels and short stories briefly and barely mentioning both his career as critic for the New Statesman and the major study of Balzac he has worked...