‘My most famous fare was a trip from Miami to New York.’

Curtis Ogle, 76, logs 1,000 miles a week driving around San Diego County in his taxicab. The miles add up when you consider that Ogle, of El Cajon, has worked for the Yellow Cab Co. for 31 years. A Kentucky native, Ogle is famed in cabbie circles for his hat, which is decked out with jewelry and lapel pins. He wears it “every single solitary day” he works. He has seen countless faces in the back seat of his taxicab in the three decades he has worked here in San Diego, as well as the five years he drove a cab in Florida. A man who describes himself as “quite a talker,” Ogle encourages any of his customers who do not already live in San Diego to move here immediately. A self-appointed “persuasion committee” of one, Ogle sees a lot of out-of-towners in his line of work and feels compelled to promote San Diego’s great weather, beaches and people to anyone who will listen. Times staff writer Kathie Bozanich interviewed him in his El Cajon home, and staff photographer Barbara Martin photographed him in his taxicab.

I’m lucky to be working. I retired once when I was 65, and I just couldn’t sit still. I stayed retired for a few years, and then Reagan said that if you’re 70 and you can still work, then you can go back to work. And I did. It’s better than sitting around.

My hat, it’s my conversation piece. I started with a few pins that I found in my cab. Then people I met along the way, and people I knew, just started giving me others. I’ll be at a hospital or going to the airport and they’ll say, “Hey, do you want another one?”

One time they wouldn’t let me out of the elevator at the hospital until they could look at this hat. It’s caused quite a sensation. People have tried to buy some of these things, but there’s no way I’ll ever part with any one of them.

My favorite fares are the people going to the airport. After my hat, the first thing they talk about is the weather. I tell them this is the nicest place to be in the whole world.

If they’re from out of state, we compare the different ones. It seems like everybody is from the Midwest. I ask them where they’re going, and they usually tell me they’re going to Ohio or Indiana or some place like that. Most of them are from Ohio. I tell them the Midwestern people must have settled this country, because that’s all I ever pick up.

There are about one out of 10 that don’t want to talk, and if a customer doesn’t want to talk, I’m polite enough not to force the issue.

My most famous trip was when I was working in Florida. I took a fare from Miami to New York. This person just got in the cab and said, “New York City, please,” showed me he had the money to pay for the trip, and that was that. I guess he was real desperate to get there, because it cost him $500. Today it would cost something like $1,800.

I didn’t know whether I still wanted to drive a cab or not when I got to San Diego. But I decided to go down and see them. They were doubtful, but I told them I had experience, and they decided to take me on.

I was the No. 1 high booker for years, but I got tired of working 14 hours a day. I just put in nine hours a day now, five days a week.

I’ve never been robbed. I think you can provoke the situation. They ask me, “Have you ever been robbed?” and I finish the conversation right there. I say, “No, and I’ll kill anybody that tries it.” They shut right up. They scare you with their words and their threats, so you’ve just got to scare them right back.