When We Were Soldiers
1985 They Said We Wouldn't
A bunch of them had left Asgreta, located Concha 39, the last time all Bilbao taxi drivers were gathered in a single Association. Phone /Radio systems were about to be installed and a guy called Navalon thought there were too many people there to do good business, 200 would profit much more than 500. They created RadioTaxi, with huge success. The remaining drivers in Asgreta voted to set up a new Phone/Radio company but the very next day mass defection started to the already running and succeeding company and Asgreta looked set to disappear.
What to do then, when you are outnumbered and odds are against you. It's a matter of personality.You stand or you bend.We stood.They said we wouldn't. Wouldn't we?
"There were some one hundred people you could trust to the end" says The President, on the left in the picture. "We just threw to it. We believed in ourselves, for that and beyond". Eighty guys would do, but a hundred and ten put the first money. Bought the equipment, paid the license, climbed to Berriz with an antenna, screwed it to the floor with their own hands and TeleTaxi first broadcasted early spring 1985. It was just a superb display of pride and self esteem. "We believed ourselves to be unbeatable at the time"
They told us then, and we've heard it many times through the years, that we had no future, but, Navalon was right and 200 do profit more than 500. But it was never a matter of how much we would get of out it. It was just a tale as old as Time, that of David against Goliath. In the picture, Fidel and Pedro, or, if you want another version of the same story, say they are Travis and Bowie sitting in El Alamo. For pictures of Santa Ana please visit RadioTaxi's page.