July 4th 1979 dusk...Battery Park...place is going nuts with fireworks and firecrackers and is plenty crowded. I am with some high school buds. It’s their first time in NYC. We decide to take a cab back to the Times Square area where our hotel is. That cab ride was as wild a ride as any you could imagine easily rivaling any amusement park ride. At the end of it after bouncing around in the back seat and seeing our lives pass before our eyes a few times the cabbie turns around and says to us he accepts marijuana as payment in lieu of cash. Only in NYC :)
It was all the “twenty dollar handshakes” that got me.
You can go through A LOT of cash in a very short time, while accumulating nothing.
We went to NYC for 4th of July once. Manhattan was deserted. We grabbed two cabs and told the driver “Take us to McSorley’s and use the scenic route”. He took us directly there. We must have befuddled him.