on the last night of the convention that brought me to boston, i had the priviledge of attending an organic trade association dinner to honor organic valley’s chief marketing executive, theresa marquez, who was receiving the organic leadership award.

after the excellent and fun-filled event, a group of colleagues stood outside the venue and, despite our best efforts, couldn’t manage to hail a cab back to the hotel. after watching cab after cab go by already filled with people going here and there, a large escalade made a u-turn and pulled up in front of us. the door opened and a large, jovial black man opened the doors and said, “hop in! where can i take you!”

it was clear that the man wasn’t an official cabbie, but after a brief moment of group hesitation, seven of us jumped in and told where we were staying. over the ten minute drive back to the hotel our driver, who said his name was funky d, said he was a drummer and told us all sorts of stories about places he’d played around the city and people he’d met along the way. he pulled out autographed pictures from michael jackson’s drummer and even told us he was new edition’s drummer for eight years. i have no idea if any of his stories were true ( the bit about new edition was likely not true, as folks have since told me they only used drum machines ), but it didn’t matter as we all enjoyed the stories and were thankful for the man who appeared from nowhere who seemed happy to give strangers a lift on a cold and rainy night.

after the surreal ride back to the hotel we jumped out, paid him, and went to our rooms.

fifteen minutes later, i heard a crushing sound that could only mean a horrendous car accident had happened near the hotel. i ran down the hallway and saw a horrific three car wreck down below in the intersection we had just passed through. since the hotel was right next to hospita, first responders were quick to arrive on the scene and i watched as they used jaws of life to assist in pulling out victims.

some went into ambulances and some went into body bags.

i went to bed wondering what would have happened if our our mysterious cabbie had never appeared and we climbed in cabs fifteen minutes later than we left with him.

in The Movie In My Mind, funky d was most certainly our guardian angel.