10.30.2012
My early trucking moved quickly from reefers and perishables to dry vans. While the freight was not subject to fluctuations in temperature, some of it was highly valuable, a target for thieves. Furs traveled in innocuous trailers, with one feature noticeable to those in the know. Furs must travel on hangers, suspended from poles built into the van, spanning the width, the round plugs running along the length of the trailer high up near the roof. These plugs identify the cargo as hanger goods. Other garments travel packed in boxes, with rare exceptions. Add to the appeal of high-priced merchandise a leased power unit and one petite blonde behind the wheel, and, well, you don't stop for anything between New York and Chicago. Period.
Traveling at night, only the "serious" drivers are out - truckers, shift workers, bears hunting DUI's and the like. So it's easier to spot a tail. Unnerving, but pick up a couple fellow travelers along the route (you need a few, so when one stops to answer the call of nature, you still have a few spares), kept awake by mildly suggestive jokes and can-you-top-this story-telling over the CB radio, and you are less likely to get run off the road, or forced off a remote offramp.
809 miles, according to the road atlases in use at the time. Pennsylvania was the roughest, applying sorely-needed federal funds to erecting a state-of-the-art scale house one year rather than do something about the concrete Interstate which was surely awarded to some out-of-work brother-in-law who poured 30-foot driveways for a living. Exiting onto Ohio's toll-road was such relief that one's stomach muscles would noticeably relax, and the danger of dozing off rose.
After running two, occasionally three of these rounds a week for about 6 months, I took a few days off. Compelled, according to the boss. Chatting with the driver who would be taking over my rig, I decided to leave my radio installed rather than bother ripping it out. He would appreciate the stereo and I would save a bit of time and trouble. I was ridden hard and put up wet after maintaining this grueling schedule, including some local work around Jersey City between runs. Burned out.
On my return to work about a week later, I discovered my radio and a few other items gone, and a detective keenly interested in my route under such valuable loads. Seems the truck had disappeared shortly after picking up a load in New York, found a few days later with the hubodometers smashed, and no trailer. Gone was the radio, and the driver's tale of attack at gunpoint was disbelieved despite numerous cuts and bruises - essentially because it beggared the imagination to think someone would stop to grab a cheap radio when they already had several million dollars worth of negotiable furs.
Evidently the detective decided I really had nothing to do with this adventure, only clean laundry and a thin bank book testimony to my meager vacation holed up at a local motel. Who knows if that driver was involved? Perhaps I really dodged a bullet. The possibilities for misadventure on the road abound. Proof I live a charmed life, if you will.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
10.08.2012 Narrating A Life Written On The Road: Sublette County, WY
10.08.2012
Those long winter nights, snow illuminated by moonlight, the feel of the road transmitted to my hands through the wheel, I spent hours entranced by the unfolding panorama before me. River valleys, narrowing, then widening into isolated ranches and fields, wildlife and livestock scarce under winter's weight, only the nocturnal denizens alert as the quiet miles passed.
So quickly did a spectre appear against that backdrop and instantly evaporate again that I momentarily pondered whether it actually happened. Sublette County, Wyoming is home to several varieties of owls, the Great Grey Owl one of the largest with a wingspan of up to 5 feet. And man, does that fill up a windshield! Silent, fleeting, startling, the owl jolted me from my revery. I instinctively clutched the wheel, broke fragile traction for a moment before I overrode the reflex and gently guided the rig back on course.
I wondered how I missed hitting him. Surely an impact like that one would have taken out the windshield. I waited for my heart rate to return to normal.
Since I left driving behind me many years ago, I have been waiting for my life to return to normal. My favorite stretch of 2-lane remains in my memory, however, beckoning me to return on 2 wheels or four, share this secret beauty with someone worthy of life's journey. It resides behind my eyelids, the familiar sanctuary from interstate traffic, the narrow ribbon of asphalt a fragile strand between rugged peaks. And each year, I promise myself, hoping against hope that my picture hasn't faded, cracked, that it's still just as I recall it, still awaiting my return, just once more.
Those long winter nights, snow illuminated by moonlight, the feel of the road transmitted to my hands through the wheel, I spent hours entranced by the unfolding panorama before me. River valleys, narrowing, then widening into isolated ranches and fields, wildlife and livestock scarce under winter's weight, only the nocturnal denizens alert as the quiet miles passed.
So quickly did a spectre appear against that backdrop and instantly evaporate again that I momentarily pondered whether it actually happened. Sublette County, Wyoming is home to several varieties of owls, the Great Grey Owl one of the largest with a wingspan of up to 5 feet. And man, does that fill up a windshield! Silent, fleeting, startling, the owl jolted me from my revery. I instinctively clutched the wheel, broke fragile traction for a moment before I overrode the reflex and gently guided the rig back on course.
I wondered how I missed hitting him. Surely an impact like that one would have taken out the windshield. I waited for my heart rate to return to normal.
Since I left driving behind me many years ago, I have been waiting for my life to return to normal. My favorite stretch of 2-lane remains in my memory, however, beckoning me to return on 2 wheels or four, share this secret beauty with someone worthy of life's journey. It resides behind my eyelids, the familiar sanctuary from interstate traffic, the narrow ribbon of asphalt a fragile strand between rugged peaks. And each year, I promise myself, hoping against hope that my picture hasn't faded, cracked, that it's still just as I recall it, still awaiting my return, just once more.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
10.07.2012 Narrating A Life Written On The Road: Are You Smarter than A 10-Year-Old?
October 7, 2012
One fellow I met on the road told me how he got involved in over-the-road driving. The lesson in logic has never left me.
Growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, he dreamt of escaping the hardscrabble existence facing the modern small farmer. Viet Nam offered only a lateral Hell, so upon returning to civilian life, he employed his skill as a truck driver. He took the first opportunity that presented itself, a route with a septic tank pump truck.
Rural Fond Du Lac County features mid-range to large-scale farms, supplied sparsely by municipal sanitation systems. Even trailer courts operated on septic systems, and the story unfolds here.
Winter in Wisconsin means subzero temperatures for months on end, the very earth frozen to a depth of several inches or more. Emptying a cistern of several hundred gallons required removing an access cover with a heavy gaff, then breaking up the frozen surface crust with a sort of wrecking bar so the contents would fit through a large-diameter hose dropped into the hole.
As the driver went about his work, he was joined by a resident of the place, a young boy morbidly curious about the hole, as only boys can be. Observing the slow progress, the lad asked the driver, "Do you like your job?" The driver admitted "No, not particularly...what's to like?"
Watching awhile in silence, the lad next asked, "Does it pay a lot of money?" Smiling ruefully, the driver confessed "No, not a lot."
Some time passed. Finally the precocious youth posed that fateful last question: "Is this the only job you could get?"
That the driver went out the very next day and got a REAL job only underscores the feeling we often have that our choices are constricted. That the 10-year-old clearly saw that fallacy reminds us to risk...or rust.
One fellow I met on the road told me how he got involved in over-the-road driving. The lesson in logic has never left me.
Growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, he dreamt of escaping the hardscrabble existence facing the modern small farmer. Viet Nam offered only a lateral Hell, so upon returning to civilian life, he employed his skill as a truck driver. He took the first opportunity that presented itself, a route with a septic tank pump truck.
Rural Fond Du Lac County features mid-range to large-scale farms, supplied sparsely by municipal sanitation systems. Even trailer courts operated on septic systems, and the story unfolds here.
Winter in Wisconsin means subzero temperatures for months on end, the very earth frozen to a depth of several inches or more. Emptying a cistern of several hundred gallons required removing an access cover with a heavy gaff, then breaking up the frozen surface crust with a sort of wrecking bar so the contents would fit through a large-diameter hose dropped into the hole.
As the driver went about his work, he was joined by a resident of the place, a young boy morbidly curious about the hole, as only boys can be. Observing the slow progress, the lad asked the driver, "Do you like your job?" The driver admitted "No, not particularly...what's to like?"
Watching awhile in silence, the lad next asked, "Does it pay a lot of money?" Smiling ruefully, the driver confessed "No, not a lot."
Some time passed. Finally the precocious youth posed that fateful last question: "Is this the only job you could get?"
That the driver went out the very next day and got a REAL job only underscores the feeling we often have that our choices are constricted. That the 10-year-old clearly saw that fallacy reminds us to risk...or rust.
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