Naomi Now Loves Strawberries

Naomi Lewandowski is the wisest person in all of San Francisco. She may not have met everyone in this city, but she's met most of us. She may not have seen it all, but she has seen too much. Naomi is a San Francisco cab driver.

How can strawberries be true success? I asked.

"This guy gets in the cab down by the B of A building, salt and pepper hair, a nice suit, a clean look, and tells me to take him home to Nob Hill."

A rich guy, eh?

"This dude had gold dust dripping off his collar!"

And Nob Hill is where he lives?

"One of those tall apartment buildings by Grace Cathedral where the butler dusts the money all day."

The rich don't live like you and I.

"I do a U-ie across four lanes of rush hour on California Street, and we're going uphill before the tow trucks can blink at us, and he asks me what kind of car this is."

This cab we're in now?

She rubbed the dashboard as if rubbing her favorite puppy.

"This baby here."

One thing about Naomi, she always had one of the newest (and cleanest) cabs on the street, and she shamelessly babied it. Always a pleasure riding with Naomi.

"I'd just gotten her from the bosses. A brand new Ford Crown Vic with everything on her. Fast and gutsy, too. She still can carry six adults up California Street with no problem."

To prove this, Naomi hit the gas pedal and we whooshed around a cable car reloading at Grant Avenue. Scattering tourists, of course, but then Naomi always drove like a cab driver.

"The rich dude's leaning over the front seat, just like you are, and he's asking me what kind of a car is it, whether I like driving it, how much does it cost, stuff like that."

And you told him what you thought of it?

"Ford makes a wonderful car nowadays. I think people should buy American these days. Hey, call me a cock-eyed optimist!"

So he was thinking about buying a new car?

"He said he's not sure if he should. Said he had a car in his garage on Nob Hill, but he only puts four thousand miles on it a year . . . "

Four thousand miles a year isn't very much driving.

"I asked him what kind of car he had, and he tells me a Rolls Royce!"

Wow! Lucky man!

"Yeah. He says he really loves it, but he worries he's not getting his money's worth."

I suppose they must be expensive to maintain.

"I asked him about that. I said, just between you and me and the meter, how much auto insurance do you pay in a year."

And he told you?

"He said he didn't know."

He didn't know? How could that happen?

"He said his personal secretary paid it."

And he never asked how much?

"Right. He said it was like the strawberries."

Strawberries?

"Strawberries."

I leaned back and laughed. Okay, Naomi, you got me hooked.

"He said he wasn't always rich. Said he made it the hardest way a guy could make it. Said he was dirt poor growing up. His family had nothing. He and his brothers and sisters ate gruel and mush every day growing up."

A rags to riches story.

"Exactly. But he also said once a year his mother would treat 'em all with a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes for breakfast."

They were poor!

"He'd eat the Kellogg's Corn Flakes and look at the box they came in and dream about being rich enough to have corn flakes every morning."

Some people's dreams . . .

"Have you ever looked at a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes? There's a bowl of flakes on the cover, right, and along with the corn flakes, in the bowl there's strawberries."

That's right! Strawberries!

Naomi nodded. "And this little kid would dream about being rich enough some day to have strawberries and corn flakes every morning."

And now that he's rich enough . . . ?

"Now that he's rich enough, every morning he now has strawberries with his Kellogg's Corn Flakes."

What's that got to do with his Rolls Royce?

"Just like he never asks his personal secretary how much his Rolls Royce costs him each year, he never asks his personal cook how much the strawberries cost him every day. Because then all he'd think about is how much they cost him. Not how much they mean to him."

And he wouldn't want them any more.

"Maybe he would. But for all the wrong reasons."