He's an old-world charmer who speaks in euphemisms, addresses the ladies as "Ma'am," and can use the word dapper and make it sound natural.

He's been driving for 33 years in his hometown and has witnessed the stages of life through his rear-view mirror, including two births and a marriage proposal.

"If you want tall tales, I could build you a ship."

For example, there was the time he drove a man to Sarnia, who was due to walk his daughter down the aisle in a few hours. En route to his destination, they passed by two female hitchhikers, and both being single men at the time, decided to stop and pick them up. Unfortunately for them, the car had other ideas. It was out of brake fluid.

"I tried to stop but the brakes weren't working. When we slowed down to a halt, we decided the best thing to do would be to urinate in a flask and put it in the brake fluid reservoir."

He never picked up the girls, but got to the wedding safely.

In one of the births, the mother was so far in her labour that the baby wasn't going to wait for anyone. After screeching to a halt in the emergency driveway of the hospital, Howell raced back out with a wheelchair.

"She dropped that baby between the car and the wheelchair."

It was a boy. The other birth he assisted in was a girl and he had to pull her out the old-fashioned way in the backseat of his car.

Howell, who drives a Crown cab, has tried the office job and dabbled in the corporate world. After a few years at the University of Western Ontario, where he studied chemistry and physics, he became a buyer for Sears. He worked in Japan and Taiwan, living in hotels for nine months.

"I knew I hated sushi before anyone even knew what it was." But in the post-Vietnam war period, he says tensions against "round eyes" were high.

"When two buyers at the same hotel disappeared one night, I knew I overstayed my welcome."

So he came back to Canada and started driving for his father, who owned a taxi. He stuck with it because of the people and the flexibility. He believes in customer service, offering his early morning passengers newspapers.

"Considering 20 per cent of my income is from tips, I'm quite jovial," he says. "I tell the ladies how attractive they are and the gentlemen how dapper they look. Having a silvery tongue does help."

As for muggings and holdups, Howell's a "man of the street," and isn't easily fazed. He's got a favourite line for suspicious characters: "I just got out of Milhaven (jail) yesterday and I feel like I should go back. I miss the food."

Silvery tongue indeed.