How sweet it is to be loved by James Taylor!
The legendary folk singer yesterday came running to the rescue of a California woman forced by Port Authority cops to hand over her iPod to a cabby after the taxi’s credit-card reader declined her card.
Taylor promised to send Natalie Lenhart a brand new music player filled with his songs, as well as a personal note.
The 20-year-old college student was thrilled to learn she’s got a friend.
“I can’t believe he knows who I am!” she said.
Taylor is convinced that only a tourist like Lenhart – who had been in New York visiting friends – would have complied when the officer told her to hand over the $140 iPod in lieu of the $49 fare on Dec. 8.
A New Yorker, he said, “would have never put up with it.”
Taylor may not be a New Yorker, but he’s a veteran of many Big Apple taxi rides.
“I once was in a cab that ran into another cab at full speed,” he recalled
What happened to Lenhart, the veteran singer/songwriter said, is “like frontier justice.
“They sort of had the policemen make the decision about what was appropriate payment on the spot. It’s weird.”
The bizarre case unfolded on Dec. 8, when cabby Mohammed Islam’s card reader rejected Lenhart’s plastic at Kennedy Airport.
The cops, whose names have not been made public, told her she had only two choices – be taken “downtown” or pay her fare with “something of value.”
Her only valuables were a laptop computer and the iPod.
She chose to sacrifice the iPod Nano.
Taylor read about the case in The Post, which broke the story Wednesday, quoting Lenhart saying she’s a big fan of artists like Taylor and The Beatles.
In fact, she said, she had recently bought a signed copy of Taylor’s album “Gorilla” – featuring hits like “How Sweet It Is” – on eBay.
Taylor may have seen fire and rain, but he “was amazed when I read it.”
“I wanted to reach out a little bit. It seems like I probably reacted to the story like everyone else – it was surprising.”
Asked what kind of device he would send his young fan, he hinted she could soon be the owner of an iPhone.
“I need an upgrade, too, and everyone’s trying to talk me into the iPhone,” he said.
“It’s a brand new day and they say I should get with it. We’ll see.”
Taylor recently tripped and fell over a guitar case in the bedroom of his home in Lenox, Mass.
This caused him to be “attacked” by a wooden parrot that flew off the top of his bedpost and hit him in the eye.
He had 50 stitches removed yesterday – but still found the time to shop for a music player for Lenhart.
This one, he said, will be filled with his albums and will include a personal note.
Lenhart, in fact, may wind up with two music players.
Islam, apparently not as big a Taylor fan as his onetime passenger, has offered to send back her iPod in return for his $49 fare.