One thing you can say about Don Wells is that his life is certainly not boring.

A transplant from California, Wells has done a lot in his life. Born in Georgia and raised in Tennessee, Wells has flown Navy jets, been a photojournalist, edited newspapers and magazines, been a cabdriver since 1974, been a columnist, written four books and is working on his fifth.

“Life is a game, so you have to enjoy the trip,” Wells said.

DON WELLS

While in the U.S. Navy, Wells was trained as a photographer and a jet pilot. After an eight-year stint flying jets and instructing new pilots, Wells decided he wanted to learn more about photojournalism, so he got a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri.

After working for several newspapers and editing the Memphis Magazine, he decided to move to California to be closer to his son. After several unsatisfying jobs in local newspapers, he started driving a cab in Palo Alto.

“It was love at first sight,” Wells said. “Driving a cab is the next best thing to taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier at night.”

Besides he said, driving a cab gave him a chance to meet people and get ideas for stories.

“As a newspaperman, you hear all the great stories,” Wells said.

He drove a cab in San Francisco, while living in Palo Alto. He started writing a newspaper column called “The Midnight Cabby” that recounted all the strange and odd tales he heard from his fares.

Then he got robbed by one of his customers. That got him so mad, that he wrote his first book, “The Anatomy of a Robber,” a guide on how to survive a robbery. Ironically, he got robbed for a second time.

“That book saved my life the second time,” he said.

After driving a cab for 23 years in California, he decided to move to Pensacola, Fla., in 2003. While driving a cab there, he went online to a dating Web site and tried his luck at finding a mate. He struck up a relationship with a woman from Slidell. At first, things didn’t look too promising, but then they agreed to meet at a halfway point in Gulfport, Miss.

“It was love at first sight,” Wells said.

He and his girlfriend have been living together in Slidell for the past six years, except for seven weeks, when Hurricane Katrina forced the couple to evacuate to Pensacola, where he drove a cab.

When he first moved to Slidell, Wells drove for the two local cab companies. About seven months ago, he decided to go solo and now owns Don’s Taxi. He said business is good and he specializes in driving people to the French Quarter and the New Orleans airport for flat rates.

He is still busy writing about life and making observations of people and society. He has started what he calls the Institute on Violence, where he tries to figure out the who, what and where of violence. As a cab driver, he has seen a lot of violence, and it has made him angry, which turned into another book called “Anger Rides the Streets.”

Wells has his own publishing company, and even binds his own books, a skill he learned from a press operator in California.

Currently, he is trying to finish a book he has been working on since the seventies.

He discovered the philosophical writings of the Jesuit priest named Teihard de Chardin. The priest was a scientist and philosopher.

“He bridged the gap between science and spirituality. He was not well liked by his colleagues, because he believed in evolution,” Wells said.

He has been writing letters to de Chardin and put them together with his photographs that express his idea of what the priest was talking about.

The title of the book expresses what Wells has been doing most of his life: “The Search for Truth.” He is hoping to finish it soon. He said he only has two chapters to go.