From The Stowe Reporter
 "Hackie 2: Perfect Autumn"
November 30, 2006
By Evelyn Wermer Frey:

Jernigan Pontiac, author of “Hackie 2: Perfect Autumn,” says, “every single person is a walking epic novel” – and, like and epic, the tales in this book begin “in media res” – in the middle of things.

He doesn’t usually know what has happened to his passengers before they enter his cab, or what will happen after they get out, but it’s amazing how much he learns about humanity in these short encounters.

Each story is a play in miniature: a small cast of two to possibly five characters – Jernigan driving and perhaps one sitting next to him and three in the back, but most often he’s one-on-one. He sees the ones with hearts of gold, and the ones with hearts of brass, the sober and the drunks, the infirm and the jocks, the lost souls and the famous (Chubby Checker, David Mamet). Sometimes his cab is a time machine, taking us to the week after 9/11 or giving us a glimpse of the University of Vermont and Burlington of 50 years ago (not so accepting of ethnic diversity or civil rights).

While reading Jernigan’s tales, I came across a brief review in the Nov. 20 issue of the New York magazine of “the Book of Dave,” by Will Self about a London cabdriver, which stated, “The apocalypse that created the world in Self’s new novel somehow incinerated all the Shakespeare and the Tolstoy and the Bible, leaving only the angry scrawlings of a divorced London cabdriver named Dave upon which to build a new culture. Dave’s ruined life is worshipped and codified – bitterness as religion . . . It’s . . . a world to get lost in. That is, if we’re not lost already.”

A world built on Jernigan’s life and writings would be the opposite. Jernigan is a finder, and not just of streets and buildings along his route. He cares about his passengers, even (or maybe especially) the misfits having a real struggle with their lives. He loves the good and forgives the bad. He helps as many as he can, with his philosophy or maybe a free ride. In spite of so many years of seeing some of the worst sides of people, he still has a soft spot for human weakness, probably because he has that rare virtue – empathy, which results in kindness. A world based on Jernigan’s philosophy would be a good one.

To use his own words: “As I look back over these tales, one dominant theme emerges – I seem to be learning a single lesson time and time again. It’s an old teaching that Philo of Alexandria enunciated so succinctly a couple thousand years ago: Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

Be kind – and give your next cabdriver a nice tip in Jernigan’s honor.

From the Rutland Herald/Barre-Montpelier Times Argus
 "More Tales from a Burlington Hackie"
November 26, 2006
By Stephen Morris:

There's a lingering romance to driving a taxicab. As captain of his own ship, the cabbie cruises through the sea of humanity, always the observer, and occasionally the dispenser of sage counsel. The “seen-it-all, streetwise cabbie” ranks right up there with the “whore with a heart of gold” as an icon of American culture.

There are a few disconnects to the hackie concept. First, for most Vermonters living in rural areas, taxicabs are far less relevant to life than, say, a good set of jumper cables. Many Vermonters experience taxis primarily when they travel to big cities. This, likely as not, involves an encounter with a recent immigrant from the Third World.

Jernigan Pontiac is the exception, the throwback. Born and raised in New York City (he likes egg creams, so Brooklyn is a good guess as to his borough of origin), he is familiar with the streets. He has plied the paved roads of Chittenden County for 25 years as an independent cabbie. Along the way he began observing and recording. The result is a bi-weekly column that appears in Seven Days, the alternative weekly. “Hackie 2: Perfect Autumn” is his second book-length collection.

Pontiac's world is small and local at a time when intensely local is where it's at – especially in Vermont where the entire state is small and local. People in Vermont take the “localvore challenge” and pursue the “small-mart revolution.” His brief, straightforward vignettes concern the subtle adventures that occur within his cab. Luckily for us, his cab is a microcosm of the world.

“It's my job to drive people safely. It's not organ replacement surgery, but it's what I do and I take it seriously,” says Pontiac.

The author is not into any form of aggrandizement, so hold-ups, violent crimes, and chase scenes rarely, if ever, take place. There are, however, a litany of characters that come from central casting. There are the co-eds who really should know better when they go to a party in the sleazy part of town. The ne'er-do-well, alcoholic son of a father who ne'er does wrong. The little lady from South America who works two menial jobs, sends home money to Brazil, and still thinks America is great. The vulnerable runaway teen. There are also lots of drunken college students. An unfortunate fact of a hackie's life is that the most active time for fares is when the bars disgorge their patrons at 2 a.m., creating an instant cab shortage.

Pontiac loves Vermont, and Burlington is his place. Like so many of us, he is a weather junkie and most of his pieces contain a brief report: “Despite the bright sun, my window was tightly shut. It was one of those bitter Burlington January days – close to zero with a relentless wind shrieking off the lake. The first thing that struck me was the insufficiency of the taller girl's jacket.”

Pontiac's observations are augmented by frequent, but spare, doses of humor and wisdom. “I've never met a cliché I didn't like,” he confesses. And he uses them well.

He also is not averse to waxing philosophical, such as when he describes the alcoholic son mentioned previously: “Extended substance abuse does a number on the human core. I've heard the phrase ‘soul murder' used in this regard, but I don't buy it. I don't believe the soul can be killed. But it sure as hell can be hijacked and held hostage.”

His cab becomes a window to a larger world. A fare to the Ethan Allen firing range leads to a discussion with his rider, a gung-ho soldier, and vintage hackie conclusion: “Though I didn't see things his way, I was actually glad, for his sake, to experience the man's certainty. Everyone in the country has a stake in this issue, but for a person who might be called upon to serve in Iraq, it's literally a matter of life or death.”

Pontiac pontificates frequently on the eternal battle of the sexes. He says “The relationship bonding of a man and a woman in a positive way for longer than 72 hours is, to me, one of life's genuine miracles.”

He is not, however, immune to the allure of the fair sex, and his powers of observation dominate his libido. Thelma, short and “utterly curvaceous,” wears a mini-skirt and a “skimpy, scarlet camisole” that “does everything it was designed to do.” Pontiac puts the situation into perspective, saying “like Jerry Lewis on his Labor Day Telethon, a woman can oversell the appeal. Thelma was trying way too hard. When the bid for male attention goes to these extremes, it's probably a safe bet that it's not about sexual desire.”

Jernigan Pontiac does have one flaw as a writer; he often takes the reader one thought too far. In one haunting episode he brings a young street person named Janice to a rendezvous with a “man in a van” they are to meet in the parking lot of Shaw's on Shelburne Road. On the short ride between downtown and Shaw's, Pontiac captures the girl's desperate plight through simple observations. Her worldly possessions are contained in a frayed back pack.

The situation in the parking lot suggests trouble. They find the van. It is driven by a tattooed man 15 years the girl's senior. As she grabs her backpack, the girl asks: “Do you think he's a good person?”

Suddenly, Hackie is in a moral and ethical dilemma. Should he become part of the drama, or should he remain the observer? He is neither counselor, parent, judge or even friend. He is the cab driver. Here's how Pontiac the writer handles the scene:

“No Janice, I don't think so was the answer that popped into my head. But I suppressed that and said, ‘How can I say? I've just met him for two minutes. Just take care of yourself, whatever happens.'”

He then notes: “The saddest look washed over her face. For travelers on the wings of fate, unfortunately, mercy can be hard to come by.” As she reaches for the tattered backpack the girl says: “I hope he doesn't hurt me.”

It's a searing moment. These are the mean streets of Burlington. Perhaps they are not as mean as Detroit, Calcutta or Bogota, but it's new territory for people whose Vermont-view is dominated by black and white Holsteins and red and gold maples. After bringing this gritty scene to its natural conclusion, Pontiac dissipates the drama by editorializing on the personal impact of the girl's statement.

But, this is a small, technical criticism that does not diminish what is remarkable, and enjoyable about “Hackie” in general, and “Hackie 2: Perfect Autumn” in particular. Every other week Jernigan Pontiac finds a way to bring us behind the wheel to see a new sliver of life that can't be experienced anywhere else but in his domain. For that he deserves entry to the pantheon of the Vermont Hall of Letters. We can only hope that Hackie keeps truckin'.

From The County Courier
 "The Weekly Journal for Northwestern Vermont"
September 6, 2006
By Jessie Forand:

“Hackie 2” Takes Readers For Another Great Ride

"Vermont is so boring." "Everyone here is exactly the same."

These phrases have been grumbled from time to time, especially by young adults, all over the state. In his latest collection of columns from Burlington's alternative 7 Days weekly, "Hackie 2: Perfect Autumn," Jernigan Pontiac proves that exciting people can be found anywhere, and that a little interest is all it takes to learn more about them.

Pontiac is a Burlington cab driver, a “hackie.” His book is filled with short stories about different folks who have entered his cab. The fares he speaks of vary greatly, ranging from the rather old to college kids, just starting to be on their own. In fact, Pontiac becomes a respectable philosopher discussing college students. He writes, "Sometimes I forget how young they are, the college kids...The guys are mostly bigger and stronger than me, and the women are vivacious and womanly as they stride around with purpose and intent. But really, they're only kids, barely out of high school, just flown from the protective nest of family and home." As a college student, this rings true to this reader. It's tough sometimes to be an "adult," yet be only 18 or 19.

Pontiac's writing makes him sound like the type of person one could have a truly unforgettable conversation with. He is respectful, yet speaks his mind to those in need of a reality check. For example, when two young men speak ill about what they refer to as "flamers," Pontiac gives his opinion – more or less that the guys are completely wrong – and while not rude, he is poignant and honest. He describes this part of his personality: “Am I droll or obnoxious? It's a fine line I lost track of long ago. In any event – like the song says – I gotta be me.”

Quite possibly the best thing about Pontiac is the fact that he truly cares about his clients, especially the older ones. The relationships described sound amazing, the kind that most people strive to have. In turn, those who regularly enter his cab seem to care equally about their beloved driver, knowing that he'll be there for them if they need help.

The book is a great read for those without the time to read novels on a regular basis. The short-story aspect makes it move along quickly, and provides a greater impact on the audience. Sometimes fewer words make the message stronger than long rants. Pontiac uses no filler, and it is greatly appreciated. He is a truly gifted writer, and from the impression given in the stories, a truly gifted person.

Even though everyone interacts with many people, including complete strangers, each and every day, most think nothing of it. Pontiac is able to appreciate these chance meetings. He takes no one for granted. “This is what I've come to believe: every exchange with another matters,” he writes. If everyone gave more thought to the strange acquaintances made on their daily travels, the world would be a lot better off.

Jernigan Pontiac is the type of person that everyone needs to meet; a genuinely good soul with the insight that just might be what someone is searching for. While anyone can read the book and be affected by it, the truly lucky ones are those who get to actually have a conversation with him and be reassured that good people, rare as they may be, are not extinct.

From the Colchester Sun/Essex Reporter – July 6, 2006
By Cortney Sturtevant:

Picking up hundreds in his cab, Jernigan Pontiac meets more people in a single day than the average person meets in a whole month. For Jernigan, his job as a cab driver not only pays the bills, but gives him plenty of material to choose from for his fortnightly column “Hackie.” In turn it has generated two published books, “Hackie: Cab Driving and Life,” in 2004 and the newly published, “Hackie 2: Perfect Autumn.” Eighteen of his readers flocked to the Book Rack in Essex to hear him read from “Hackie 2,” June 29.

Jernigan greeted an enthused crowd and offered thanks that his stories have not been in vain, that “stuffing them in bottles and throwing them into the sea” have gotten them to a destination – his loyal readers.

In his first published book, “Hackie,” Jernigan claims that his blood runs yellow. Growing up in Brooklyn, he impatiently waited until the day when he could hop in a taxi and claim the streets of New York City. When he visited his sister at Goddard College in Vermont, he realized that not only did his blood run yellow, but green as well. In 1975, he claims to have fallen in love twice, once with his now-wife and once with the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Jernigan has been driving cabs since the seventies and loves every minute of it. He coined the term “hackie” (note from Jernigan: I made no such claim) derived from the word “hack,” an old-fashioned word meaning literally “driver.”

In the introduction to his first book “Hackie,” Jernigan writes: My life’s journey has been anything but a straight road. The one constant has been hacking. I keep coming back to it. Taxi driving has been my therapy, my Zen retreat, my finishing school. It’s where I’ve learned who I am – perhaps the hard way

“I need to have a job where I feel like I’ve accomplished something.” he said. “I do something that people did for a living 3000 years ago. I like the sense that every night I go out, I take my job seriously. People need to get home, and I drive them. It’s a sense of accomplishment…My whole life, taxi driving has been a part of me.”

Back in the ’80s, Jernigan pioneered the use of vans by starting MORF, a popular taxi service still used today. It grew to a nice sized company by the time he sold it in 1989, he said. Now he’s an independent taxi driver.

“I’m back to my roots with just one cab,” he said, “and it works for me right now.”

As with any job with public interaction, Jernigan’s ride brings him to meet some of the best – and worst – of human nature. Lucky for him, it gives him plenty of fodder for his column, “Hackie,” in Seven Days. When he sits down to write, he selects a jewel, a certain person or experience that struck his fancy, and writes about it. While he tends to see the good in people, he said he doesn’t try to keep it cheery and focuses more on the true spirit of human nature.

“I hope that when people interact with me, they’re seeing the best of me,” he said. “All of us are looking for the same things. I have aspirations to see the deeper part of each other.”

In his new book, “Hackie 2,” Jernigan toggles with the many differences in people. He talks about the tough ones in the chapter called “Lost Souls,” people who have lost their way. In the “Pride and Prejudice” chapter, he deals with racism, misogyny, and homophobia, and other evils he runs into every day.

In one chapter called “Nine Eleven,” he touches the horror of the reality of what happened after September 11, 2001. In “Homecoming,” he writes about an intense man he picked up who struck him as obnoxious at first. Jernigan said his first reaction to this man was negative. But in his quiet way, Jernigan searched a little deeper and found out the guy had just come back from Iraq and lost his best friend to a 50-calibur round.

“There are reasons people act the way they do,” Jernigan said. “The older I get, the more I want to focus on what binds us as human beings. We all have the same yearnings for connection, for home…for meaning.”

When Jernigan decided to publish his first book, he approached Elaine Sopchak at The Book Rack in Essex. Sopchak jumped at the chance to help him out.

“I always wondered if [Hackie] would make a good book,” he said. “It was nerve wracking. I had no idea if people would buy it.”

“He wanted to start with 200 copies,” said Sopchak. “He really underestimated. We told him he should print at least 1000.”

Sopchak, a fan of Jernigan’s column, said she reads the column almost religiously.

“He finds something to take away from every situation,” she said. “It takes a special kind of person to take away something meaningful from each encounter.”

When choosing which stories to publish in the books, Jernigan said that it is a fun part of the creative process.

“I went for a broad range of columns, usually ones with the biggest responses,” he said. “I revise them and arrange them by chapter. My wife really helps me out with it. We lay it all out on the floor and see which ones fit together.”

Since Jernigan started writing years ago, he tried different newspapers like the Burlington Free Press and was rejected. “Luckily I was thick-headed or new enough not to be chastened by it,” he said.

When he sent his column in to the Vermont Times, he scored.

“Shay Totten at the Vermont Times liked them a lot and said ‘Let’s run three of them and see what the reaction is.’ We had a really nice response,” Jernigan said.

Since then, Jernigan moved to the Seven Days where his bi-weekly column is read by his avid readers.

Jernigan is asked to speak at writing classes a lot and his advice is sound.

“You got to keep writing because that’s the only way to get better,” he said. “Keep creating new stuff and send it out constantly. You have to have thick skin – it’s all about the rejection letter.”

He added, “My feeling is you have to write about what you care about the deepest…about what’s important to you. Write from the depths of your experience, not what you think people want to hear, but what you find most meaningful. If you write honestly about your true experience of the world, that will have resonance for other people. They may not see it exactly your way, but they’ll see the universal truth in it.”

From the Burlington Free Press - July 4, 2004
By Matt Sutkoski:

"Hackie" sees wonderful world from behind steering wheel
 
Everyone who gets into a taxi has a story.

Tourists, teenage moms, business people, stalkers, drunken college students, celebrities, battered women, happy retirees, and weirdoes have all piled into Jernigan Pontiac’s cab.

Jernigan Pontiac is the nom de plume of a local taxi driver. He writes about his experiences on the job in a column in Seven Days, which are now collected in his debut book, "Hackie: Cab Driving and Life.

Patient cabby that he is, the author cruises serenely (mostly) through the congestion, along the open roads and past the crashes, enduring obscene gestures and enjoying the friendly waves we all encounter out on the highway.

Burlington and environs are to Pontiac like a special and loving, if eccentric, relative. He warmly observes human nature as much as he watches the road. Usually, he likes what he sees, and judging from "Hackie", there’s hope in this crazy world.

Some of the author’s favorite passengers are the ones with a childlike wonder mixed with self-awareness. One of his favorite fares was Anna, an older woman from Oklahoma. Anna and her friend, Georgia, had always wanted to come to Vermont, but Georgia couldn’t for health reasons.

He played springtime Vermont tour guide for Anna, and she was obviously grateful to ride across much of northern Vermont with him, savoring every moment. "I see that Anna taught me a s soul lesson, a lesson in gratitude," he writes.

Not all days and nights on the job are as pleasant as that day with Anna. Our taxi driver gripes humorously of the nights when people vomit in his cab, which is about the worst thing short of a robbery that could happen to a cabby. Usually the perpetrator is some drunken oblivious guy. "Yelling at him would have yielded all the satisfaction of reprimanding a flounder," Jernigan says.

Then there are the heartbreaking cases: The teenage mom with remarkably poor parenting skills and the indecisive battered woman in a Hinesburg trailer, the refugee from Rwanda whose family was dead and her options had run out. "How can thee be a God?" she asks. "I was a Christian, a devout little girl. I had my rosary, said all my prayers . . . What God takes away your entire family?"

Despite these encounters with tragedy, Pontiac sees mostly hope. He recognizes the college student whose friends rib him as a successful ladies man as just that, because the guy genuinely likes the women he dates instead of seeing them as simple conquests.

The author is impressed with the insightful kid he plays catch with, the Italian tourists living the good life, the fun trip with Toots, of Toots and the Maytals.

The view through the author’s windshield is also rich. He marvels at the spontaneous oddities that crop up out of nowhere - the nude bicyclists, the entourage surrounding the drag queen Cherie Tartt, and the Jeep full of possibly drunk frat boys who got what was coming to them.

The tone of his excursions through the lives of his fares is relaxed, like tales told over a beer after work.

Like most people, Pontiac has bad days, but he seems genetically incapable of holding onto his anger.

He was in a foul mood the day he picked up four New Age type nurses who sensed his darkness and offered to cleanse his aura.

He’s game, so he subjects himself to the treatment, in which the nurses move their hands in a rubbing motion about two feet off his body. The work lasts five minutes, and Pontiac feels immensely better.

"The world is continually conspiring to make me happy," he writes.


 

From The County Courier
 "The Weekly Journal for Northwestern Vermont"
December 9, 2004
By Mathias Dublier:

‘Hey Cabbie, tell me a story’ - Pontiac’s ‘Hackie’ far from hackneyed
 
Hail a cab in Burlington some day and you just might step into the cab of Jernigan Pontiac. Beware; you are now potential material for one of his stories on the life of taxi driving, or hacking, as it is called in the industry.

Pontiac is a life-long hackie, whose stories appear regularly in Seven Days, Burlington’s weekly newspaper. Earlier this year, Morris Publishing released a collection of his best stories, "Hackie: Cab Driving and Life."

Pontiac’s cab is a mill through which a wide variety of passenger grist grinds. Pontiac doesn’t let a single grain escape unobserved and unappreciated. From the mundane – a pair of gentlemen whose profession he tries to guess by their dress – to the almost ineffably touching: a story about an annual, seven-hour trip he makes with a heart-on-her-sleeve, mentally disabled woman. At trip’s end, he concludes, "As a person who is confounded daily, it seems, by the challenge of merely recognizing, let alone sharing my emotions, I was profoundly moved by Jackie... I contemplated the layers of filter, doublethink and flat-out repression that seems to permeate my emotional life. Jackie has something which I don’t, or perhaps it’s something I once had, but then lost: Jackie has an innocent heart."

All people’s lives share a few similar truths, and thus sketching them in less than a thousand words runs the danger of coming off as hackneyed. But Pontiac has the emotional acuity and linguistic flair to present us with such intimate portraits of people that our interest in "the old verities and truths of the heart," as Faulkner called them, is renewed with each story in his book.

As we might expect from a hackie, he is often a champion of society’s marginalized and an acerbic critic of the rich when they display their arrogance. But what makes his stories so insightful is that Pontiac displays the non-judgmental magnanimity we might come to expect of a wise judge or monk. As much as all of his stories entertain us with encounters with the famous (Toots and the Maytals,) the disgusting (as in the inevitable gastric explosions,) and the sad (the 16-year-old mother who is recklessly abusive to her two-year-old daughter), most of Pontiac’s stories end up comprising various points on a moral compass. Pontiac writes of honesty, prejudice and tolerance.

He avoids slipping into the didactic by confessing his own moments of not admitting to an overpayment, or the time he drove over a fellow hackie, or the hilariously self-deprecating story about the time he was called on the carpet by the city’s Licensing Committee for having "calmly, evenly, very softly" told a self-righteous jerk in a parking dispute to eat... well, you will have to read one of the book’s few expletives yourself.

For a hack, we know that Pontiac’s daily language must be liberally sprinkled with such expletives, but in his book, he uses a diverse vocabulary palette to paint an array of images of Vermont’s beauty. His broad command of vocabulary seems incongruous with the numerous errors in grammar and punctuation. One wonders why at least the book’s copy editors didn’t correct such egregious errors as confusing "it’s" with "its."

There is another element to Pontiac’s book that is so unique and valuable that it makes the book deserving of a slot on the shelves of the Special Collections in the University of Vermont’s Bailey/Howe Library, which is dedicated to capturing Vermont’s history. Jernigan Pontiac tells of Burlington in a way that nobody right now is telling it. His stories portray the Queen City on her warm, clear sunny days, lounging on the shore of Lake Champlain, and on her cold, slushy-dirty winter nights.

Pontiac tells of the city’s vitality that emanates from artists, musicians and students who come to study in Burlington, play and drink in the city’s bars and barf in his cab. And he tells of "locals" – a term he reserves for only those born and raised in Vermont. He tells of a dishwasher who speaks with a Vermont dialect that makes it impossible to distinguish whether pronouncing the late restaurant "Carbur’s" as "Crabbers" is a sardonic witticism or simply as Vermontese as pronouncing the name "Charlebois" like "Charley-boys."

Don’t miss the book’s dedication page, on which Pontiac writes, "Dedicated to the soulful people of Burlington, Vermont – the ‘Queen City,’ my hometown." That is quite an assumption of asylum by a Brooklyn-born flatlander. But Pontiac is granted this asylum because he so abandonly embraces and accurately portraits Burlington’s people and places.