St-St-St---Stress

 

Driving is stressful, there can be no doubt, driving a big truck more so. One of Company's training modules states that a driver's blood pressure goes up just getting behind the wheel of a truck. I don't know the validity of that claim, but I can believe it. What toll is this taking on my long term health? Say Levine, I don't have the luxury of worrying about it.

Driving a big truck in the snow is exponentially more stressful yet. I recently woke up in the morning from an endless round of restless driving dreams and realized that I'd been stressing because snow was predicted for that day. Another time, even more recently, I woke up in the middle of the night thoroughly stressed for the same reason. On top of the fact that it was forecast to snow heavily my first stop of the day was at the customer where I couldn't get traction to get out of their parking lot last year and had to be pulled out. Being early I didn't expect that they'd have plowed yet. Fun and games to look forward to! I couldn't get back to sleep. I tensed my body, shaking, and screamed, venting steam. The cat, who sleeps at the foot of the bed took off lickity-split and didn't came back.

So what happened? The day was a nightmare, but not because I had to be towed out of that lot. I never even made it there. In fact I never made it past the gate at Electrolux. I dropped the trailer. It slid right off the back of my tractor and landed with one foot on the pavement and the other on the grass, smack in the middle of the exit lane. I'm just glad that it fell off there, before I'd gotten onto the street.

The load was light but still the landing gear wouldn't work to raise it. The warehouse manager said that if it weren't snowing he could bring a forklift out to take some of the pressure off the legs so that I could lower them, but as it was there was nothing that he could do. I had no choice but to call it in and get a tow truck to come out and help me, which meant that I'd also have to jump through all the hoops that Company would require of me.

I'd done my safety check. I'd pulled on that sucker hard doing the tug test and I'd looked to make sure that the release arm for the fifth wheel was retracted. I'd even driven from the back of the lot up to the gate with no problem. Still it was my fault, I must admit. I'd done my safety check, but not quite a thorough one. You see, you're supposed to get up underneath the trailer and shine a light into the jaws of the fifth wheel to inspect the actual locking mechanism. It's something that practically nobody does. I'd done it for years and finally decided that if the release lever was retracted then the lock must be in place, no need to contort my body and run the risk of getting grease all over myself. Yet I'd been warned, had I not (see Culpability below)! I should have done the extra step, and believe you me I will from now on!

Company wouldn't let me hook back to the trailer until I'd had the fifth wheel inspected. I took off in the snow heading for the International dealer even before the tow truck arrived. The guy at the service desk there said they'd “work me in” and that I should have a seat in the driver's lounge. Fortunately I had a book with me and no other drivers showed up to turn on the TV for quite awhile. Seven hours later they called my name.

I was hoping that they'd find something wrong with the fifth wheel. I mean, there must be something wrong with it, right? If there was an obvious problem then I'd be off the hook. They didn't find anything wrong with it.

The bill there at the shop was $150.00. The tow truck was probably at least as much again. Fortunately there was nothing wrong with the trailer itself so there was no expense there. I felt responsible, I felt like I should pay. I was trying to decide how much I wanted them to take out of my check each week when my supervisor called to tell me that I'd been charged with a preventable collision and that I was on probation for six months. Preventable, yes, but a collision? No one was hurt, no equipment was damaged. This wouldn't go on my license, but it would go on my DAC report and might jeopardize my ability to get another driving job. In light of my long service and near spotless safety record I thought that a little harsh. “So to hell with them,” I decided, “let them pay for it. They can write it off on their taxes anyway as an operating expense.”

I also had to do several on-line training modules and be “instructed” by my supervisor, a guy who's never driven a truck before in his life, on how to properly connect to a trailer. It was humiliating, but Jeff's a nice guy and didn't try to lecture me, but only had me go through the steps while he watched. It was just something that Company required him to do as well.

So what did happen, why did my trailer fall off the tractor? I don't know, it remains a mystery. The official reason was that I was “high hooked,” something that cannot be the explanation. In that earlier post, Culpability, I describe how the trailers there at Electrolux are often high and I always lower them before hooking. Could the locking mechanism have already been closed before I backed under the trailer? Possibly. A part of relying solely on the release arm being retracted as an indication that the locking mechanism is engaged is that I always check, while lowering the trailer, that the release arm is extended to begin with. I might have inadvertently missed that step, what with the snow and all. But then why didn't that become apparent when I did the tug test, and how did I drag the trailer all the way from the back of the lot up to the exit gate?

We'll never know, but a 30 year veteran driver I met in the driver's lounge there at International offered a possible explanation. He said that if too much grease builds up in the fifth wheel then it can become viscid in the cold and prevent the fifth wheel jaws from closing completely. You can do the tug test and you can pull the trailer and everything seems fine but in actuality the jaws are creeping back open under the continued pressure. It sounds like a reasonable explanation to me, though it fails to explain why I almost lost a trailer that earlier time which was during the prolonged Indian Summer, before the cold hit.

I'm gun shy now. I check the fifth wheel incessantly and still I'm afraid to pull out. I wonder, would I have noticed anything wrong had I done the visual test that morning? I don't know, I certainly wouldn't have been as diligent as I now am trying to detect any slight opening in the fifth wheel jaws. And I have to wonder if there isn't some fault in my fifth wheel that International didn't detect. Is this going to happen again, regardless of my renewed diligence? Will we finally find out what actually happened when it fails again, with possibly fatal consequences? I'd rather it remain a mystery.

Another thing that I have to wonder is why oh why am I so fucking devoted to my job? The roads were terrible that day. Every other driver on my account called off that morning due to the weather, which was fine by Company. But not me, no. Like the damn Post Master General I felt I had to do my appointed rounds, regardless of the toll it might take on me or others. Maybe it's time for a career change. Does anyone know of a less stressful job I can do that will let me pay my bills? No? Perhaps I'll become an Artist.

 

A River Runs Through It

 

Mississinewa, Salamonie, Eel, Tippecanoe, Vermillion, Sugar, Big Raccoon; further downstream the Embarras, White, Patoka, and Little Wabash: these are the major tributaries to the Wabash River, before she flows into the Ohio. Her channel defines Indiana's southwestern border and her watershed covers most of the state. No wonder On the Banks of the Wabash is the Indiana state song:

Round my Indiana homestead wave the cornfields,
In the distance loom the woodlands clear and cool.
Oftentimes my thoughts revert to scenes of childhood,
Where I first received my lessons, nature's school...

Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the breath of newmown hay.
Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming,
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.

I hadn't realized that all these rivers are one, I just enjoyed crossing them, upstream or down. In the far southwest the valley is so wide you don't even know that you're in one, but upriver the gentle hills along the watercourse are extraordinarily picturesque, like being inside a Currier and Ives print from yesterday. I became interested because when going through Logansport on IN 25 you cross the Wabash twice, or so I thought. I looked at the map and realized that you only cross the Wabash once and then cross the Eel just upstream of their confluence. Looking further I saw how all these little rivers flow together. I wanted to tell you how pretty they are so I did a little research which proved quite interesting.

Rivers; who can tell which is which? According to Wikipedia the early French maps had the Ohio as a tributary to the Wabash. It was a trade route thing. I thought the same thing when I looked at a map of Pittsburgh. “The Allegheny should be the Ohio.” It extends way further at divided highway status on the map while what is labeled the Ohio takes a tight turn and dies. But who am I?

When driving I like the signs that tell me what body of water I'm passing over. Crossing the NY Southern Tier on Interstate 86 one traverses the Seneca Nation. Bridges over the Allegheny there have signs that read Ohi? Yo. So I was right after all. (the question mark stands in for a glottal stop, which I couldn't find a code for)

The Wabash is a blessing to Indiana, hard won, apparently. Illinois and Ohio, her immediate neighbors, have beautiful rivers of their own, but not with such an articulated system. They are mostly flat, broken only periodically, while Indiana is graced with extensive gentle hills, covered in hardwood, even in the glacial north of the state. Again according to Wikipedia the Wabash Valley was created when a massive proto Lake Erie (Lake Maumee), filled with glacial melt broke through a pile of rocks that Papa Glacier had shoved there. Cataclysm (the Maumee Torrent)! And hence our serene valley.

And it is pretty. The Wabash Valley is a blessing to me, that's for sure. I can even take a moments rest from the stress of driving in the snow to appreciate how lovely the hills are covered in white. Yes, Indian Summer was long but winter has hit with a vengeance, and shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. I'm sure I'll tell you more about that later.

 

Dual Exhaust

 

And here I thought maybe they were going to cancel winter entirely this year, it's been so warm; as if global warming were a good thing. But no, the first real snow of the season is falling right now (wee hours of Saturday morning). I haven't actually had to scrape frost off the windshield yet but it was cool enough to see your breath late into the morning, this morning (Friday, no snow). I didn't notice, in my heated cab, but I was up in Northern Indiana, near Shipshewana, in Amish country. It was the carriage horses' breath that I found interesting; like twin streams of dragon breath released to the rhythm of a coal fired locomotive gaining steam. Those proud creatures make it look so easy but come to think of it, if I were pulling a ton of conveyance at a trot I'd be breathing heavily too.

 

Culpability

 

A beautiful November morning here at my woodland homestead; foggy. It's easier to be up before dawn on the weekends now that the days are shorter, the nights longer. Then again I went to bed at a reasonable hour last night as well, even though it was Friday night. I was beat. They've been running me ragged at work, the stores I service gearing up for Black Friday. Things should quiet down from here on out, with only the Winter to contend with.

Yesterday morning was interesting. I crawled along looking for my load but none of the company trailers were mine. There was one more at the end of the row that had to be it, but unfortunately a Roehl driver (the name of another trucking company) was backing under a trailer sitting right next to it. That made it difficult as the spacing there at Electrolux is tight. I'd have to back in at an angle so that our mirrors wouldn't clash and I wouldn't be able to pull out until after he left or the tail of my trailer would take the nose of his tractor off.

I was waiting till he got hooked to back under my own trailer. I saw it happening, the white of the halogen yard lights flooded in offset intervals by the flashing amber of our four-ways. The trailer was too high on its landing gear, as they almost always are there. I think they raise them to better accommodate the docks. I back slightly under the nose of the trailer, get out and raise the landing gear and then back all the way up till the locking mechanism in the fifth wheel snaps around the kingpin. Of course I'm there every day and know how it is. But that's something that every driver has to watch out for, every time they hook to a trailer.

If you don't catch it, either by sight or feel as you ease backwards it's usually not a big problem. The fifth wheel bumps the king pin and you know it's not right by the sound, so you do the “tug test” and your suspicions are confirmed. The problem is easily solved by lowering the trailer and trying it again. Sometimes, however, the trailer is so high that the fifth wheel completely passes the kingpin. This is a problem because the back of the fifth wheel springs up so that the leading edge is down, the better to get under and lift a low trailer. Once you’ve gone too far the fifth wheel has to be manually held down somehow (and often the trailer raised which can be especially difficult if the load is heavy) to clear the kingpin again; a dirty greasy job, in tight quarters, and one you want to keep fingers and other body parts well away from.

This is what I saw happening, in the periodic amber flashes. Roehl was going too far. By the time I even thought of grabbing the CB mic to warn him it was too late. I went ahead and very carefully, as he might well be out of his tractor and vulnerable, backed under my trailer, then got out to help.

Long story short: we were successful, of course. It only took about five minutes. Roehl broke his broom handle but oh well, it would have been greasy anyway. All in all it was an easy fix; it's a good thing that the loads there at Electrolux aren't generally heavy.

What happened next is a mystery.

We both went about the business of hooking to our loads. I raised the landing gear, gently backed to click the locking mechanism, then did the tug test where you pull against the kingpin with the trailer brakes still engaged to make sure you're attached. I was very careful throughout since Roehl was out there somewhere doing his inspection and I didn't want to rock the trailer; to frighten or hurt him. During my inspection I noticed that the tandems were too far back (we've talked about this before) so I pulled the pin release lever and waited until I saw that Roehl was in his cab before I pushed the trailer backward, got out to reengage the pins, then gave the rig another little tug to make sure they were locked.

I'm proactive with my paperwork so in a flash I was ready to go, but Roehl was still sitting there. This is what I was afraid of. I was eyeballing the clearance to see if I thought maybe I could make it when Roehl pulled out. “Sweet,” I thought. It wasn't that I was in a hurry exactly, but I didn't have much time to spare and I'd already given some of that away. I started to pull out but something didn't sound or feel right. I wondered if maybe the tandem pins hadn't engaged so I got out to check but they were OK. My sin then was in not being thorough and checking other things that might have been the problem. I tried to pull away again but stopped when there was a loud clang and a jolt to the tractor.

“What the hell!” I yelled, frustrated. It had sounded just as if the tandems had slid all the way to the stops at the end of their rails. “I checked that!” I said as I jumped out of the tractor to see what the hell was happening. The tandems were fine. In fact they were sitting exactly where they were before I tried to pull out, both in relation to the length of the trailer and to where they were positioned in the parking lot. The trailer hadn't moved at all, but my tractor had. The nose of the trailer was completely off of the frame of the tractor sitting on the rubber of the rear drive tires and the air and electrical lines were stretched almost to the breaking point. It could have been a lot worse.

Grrrrr, grumble grumble, work work. Like I say, it could have been a lot worse. It's a damn good thing the loads there at Electrolux aren't heavy. A quarter hour later I was on my way. Roehl was still there, pulled off to the side. He'd been kind to get out of my way and now he must have been deliberating over his route or log book or something. I got on the CB to ask if he'd seen what had happened to me but he didn't have it on; so it wouldn't have helped even if I'd tried to warn him of his immanent danger earlier. Oh well, I thought it somehow interesting that we'd both had kingpin troubles but while I wasn't in a hurry before I was now. I did the (within reason) aggressive driving thing and made my first stop in the nick of Electrolux's guillotine time.

How does that happen? I was so careful! Was I too careful? Was I so concerned about that other driver out there that I didn't actually do the tug test, but put it off till later, then forgot that I had? A visual test is standard as well, didn't I do that, in the confusion of the moment? Then what about when I set the tandem pins? I had originally pushed the trailer too far backward for my preferences so I know that I would have pulled forward to test the setting, another definite tug. How in Goddess's name do I protect myself from the inexplicable?

I'm loath to admit it but I make quite a few mistakes. Most are inconsequential, minor errors of etiquette or operational complacency, though even those are potentially dangerous. Maybe if men were meant to move goods they'd have been given horses. I'd have joined the Teamsters if Reagan hadn't deregulated transportation. But I digress.

Most mistakes that become apparent I can definitively account for, and promise myself to do better. This one I can't. There's another event that scares me even deeper that I'm unsure of. It happened in relation to an experience that I've shared, but haven't yet found on the blog here to link to. I was in central St. Louis doing a side run for the Aurora account. I was turning left in afternoon traffic when I saw that the signal turned yellow. I'd waited through the entire light with nary a break so I was just thinking of getting out of everybody's way and started to go but the nearest oncoming car didn't yield. I stopped and let him pass then popped the clutch get it done but the next car coming down the pike was still moving like it was a green light. There was a moment of confusion but I was already committed. She followed me down the next road and made it certain that I knew her displeasure.

What the hell? The light was yellow, wasn't it? It was an odd intersection, remnant of a time before the internal combustion engine, but how odd could it be that a left turn lane would get a red light with a green for the oncoming traffic? The best I can figure is that I imagined that the light had turned yellow. Can I trust my own senses? If man was meant to move he'd have been given two legs. At least I'll know now to double check the light with a glance the next time the oncoming traffic refuses to yield when I think they ought.

 

Wearing Blinders

 

OK people, I've got an idea: how about instead of treating driving like a competition with everybody struggling to get ahead of everybody else and denying them passage, why don't we acknowledge just how dangerous and stressful it really is, and help each other out like we're on the same team? I do it all the time, opening holes for people to enter, changing lanes to get out of someone's way or slowing down when fools cut in way too close to me, instead of riding their ass like I sometimes feel like they deserve. It's actually quite painless and I always get to where I'm going (knock on wood). What do you think, any takers?

I swear it's getting worse. People seem ruder than ever (oh, courtesy, what a quaint old fashioned notion), more self centered and less aware. And it's not just the four wheelers, the “professionals” are just as bad, which equals worse because they should know better.

I remember once back in the nineties when I noticed a similar qualitative change in the way people drove. It was as if they had blinders on, as if their peripheral awareness was blocked. It occurred to me that perhaps it was true, that the scope of their awareness had shrunk from the size of a television screen, seen across the room to the size of a computer monitor, seen up close. Could it be that people are now functioning on a field of awareness the size of a smart phone?

I was working downtown at the time that I'd noticed that shift, at the art store. I was on my way to lunch while I was having those thoughts. It was a rainy day and as I emerged onto Kirkwood from the alley a woman said, “Did you see that? That guy acted like I wasn't even here. He drove through that puddle like a mad man and got me all wet! People just aren't aware of their surroundings anymore!” Having said that she swung around in such a way that I literally had to jump back to avoid getting hit in the face by her umbrella. She stalked off, blissfully unaware.

 

Buried Treasure

 

I do wonder sometimes what motivates people, in the way they drive. Here's two examples from opposite ends of the spectrum that I experienced the other day. It was just after five in the morning and I was bob-tailing, driving my tractor without a trailer attached. Out on the highway a car came up from behind going considerably faster than me, until he came alongside me. He then slowed down and traveled with me. Traffic was light, the rest of the road wide open. Why would this person choose to put himself at risk by staying close to a big truck? I had to slow down to get rid of him.

That same morning, in a construction zone on 465 another truck, pulling doubles (with two trailers attached) merged onto the highway. He got into the middle lane and came up behind me. It was obvious that he wanted to pass me so I moved over into the granny lane to let him. Sure enough he came barreling past just as we were entering a lane shift; the narrowest, most dangerous part of the construction. I let off the gas to get it over quickly and thought, “Couldn't you have waited just a minute?” Then, back out on the straight away it turned out that he didn't actually want to go any faster than I was originally traveling. We continued down the highway at the same speed. He just wanted to be first, to be out in front. It was that important to him that he would risk both a wreck and a ticket, I was going 10 mph over the posted speed limit to begin with.

My contention, my theory, is that much of what people do when they drive is unconscious, and that it is largely ego driven. The first guy was a pack animal, afraid to be alone. He felt safer being with another vehicle, even though in reality he was at a much greater risk. Had I not slowed down he probably would have stayed right with me even if faster traffic came up from behind and wanted to pass. What I call an “Indiana roadblock,” although the behavior is not limited to this state. The second guy was just an asshole, with a childish need to be first. Unfortunately the second behavior is by far the more common one, and it often happens that the aggressor not only doesn't want to go the same speed in the end, but slower. It happens all the time.

Ha, ha; when we got onto I-65 and the speed limit went up it turned out that my truck was governed faster than that other guy with the doubles and I passed him back. I admit, there was some satisfaction there. I can be a childish asshole too, sometimes.

Let's see...Oh, that cloud ceiling that I found so lovely the other day continued to be a delight long after the pyrotechnics of dawn. Though not violent the air was turbulent, and varied so that the overcast was made up of many different kinds of cloud. There were archipelagos of cloudlets off the coast of continents, there were ripples, like sand beneath the waves, and sometimes great sweeps seeming to rush across the sky, though stationary. From behind it all the sun sent his beams radiating through the rifts. At one point there was the shadow of a light rain on the horizon. The angle of its descent was perpendicular to the shafts of sunlight making an X in the sky. On the other side another rain was falling precisely with the angle of the beams. The windshield of a truck is wide-screen.

X marks the spot. Treasure be buried here. I found myself reflecting upon treasure, and how the best things in life are free. Now Tutankhamen had some treasure; such beautiful things. The civilizations of the Americas too, the jewelry and those tiny golden figurines. And to think that the Spanish melted it all down to make what; coins? They deserve to lie at the bottom of the sea.

 

high morning light

 

The sky was so beautiful this morning I wanted to cut it like a cake and eat it. A mid-high ceiling, pretty solid, but broken enough that when dawn came there were multiple layers of phenomena, both vertically and horizontally. Vertically through the rifts and the mini-cumulus tops of the cloud, horizontally along the long flat bottom to the horizon.

The sun rose. I was heading east but the cloud shielded me. I have spoken before about how light suffuses mist, a cloud on the ground. The same is true aloft. There is no “edge” to a cloud. What we see is generally not a reflection off of its surface, but the accumulation of its density as the light passes through it. The rarified is incandescent, each particle spectral; the drudge an infinite variety of grays.

It was so beautiful. "Watch the road Fool! Check your mirrors!"

 

Morning Light

 

It never rains but it pours, or not at all it seems. Earlier I wrote about the deluge we experienced here in Indiana; I haven't told you about the subsequent drought. I think Monroe County got the worst of it. While I was out and about in the region getting rained on occasionally my friends here at home were watching the satellite images track the storms as they split and left us high and dry. I heard that from at least three different people independently. I believe it's true. While the entire region is parched Bloomington and environs are desiccated. I was just up in Michigan, above Lansing and we have more early color here than they, only ours is because the leaves are drying up and falling from the trees, not because of the turn of the season. The eastern end of Griffy Lake, where the boat launch sits, is dry. My neighbor was out on his riding mower to chop up the fallen leaves and I could barely see him through the cloud of dust he was kicking up. I thought it was Pig Pen (Charlie Brown). One can reasonably ignore those warning signs in the bottoms that say “do not cross when flooded.”

That's not to say that it's not still Beautiful around here, it is, always. Green is still the dominant color though the corn is amber and the soybean plants are turning their end of season yellow. It's been a good summer for me, despite the drought. Usually it seems that summer is over before I've had a chance to really experience it, but this year I don't feel like I've missed anything. Perhaps that's because I was out in it on my bicycle, in contrast to all those years I only saw it from the cab of my truck. Still I hate to see it go, and I'm apprehensive about how the fall will turn out, it being so dry, though it will undoubtedly be beautiful, regardless.

I sit writing this in the gray half light of dawn. I see dawn almost every day, but from the cab of my truck. She always comes in beauty, revealing incrementally the landscape I'm passing through and renewing my vigor as she paints the sky with delicate colors. Until He rises as a challenge, demanding action, if I happen to be heading east. How novel then, how wonderful to experience this enchanted interlude here in my own home. On my days off I usually stay up late then sleep in. I might waken shortly after dawn, but the light is generally broad by then.

So what am I doing up at this hour at home? Grrr, we're touching on a can of worms there. I'm just off of a three day weekend, for Labor Day. True to form they couldn't let that happen without making life difficult in some way. They scheduled my first trip back as a load to Owasso, Michigan, which meant that I either had to drive on the holiday or leave out hours earlier than usual. I set the alarm for 1:00 AM.

The route is over 600 miles round trip, just what can be fit into a trucker's eleven hours of driving for a day. So if there was any delay, in a traffic backup, say, or for a mechanical breakdown then I might run over the fourteen hours of my “tour of duty” and thus be unable to make it back to Electrolux at 5:00 AM to get a normal load the next day. In the past on this run I've been given follow up loads that could be picked up late, or with open delivery times. I'm not sure if there wasn't such a load this time, of if it's just a function of my new fleet manager's incompetence, but I wasn't given any load for today. I was just told to be ready by the phone this morning, an hour ago.

Oh yes, I stayed up late last night, which was nice, and I'm enjoying my time here with you in the still soft but strengthening light, but I can't really afford another short day. What's the use of getting a longer than usual trip (I get paid by the mile, plus stop pay) when I get a shorter than usual trip the next day? And the paid day off was nice, but the rate isn't generous. Oh well, I'd better stop myself before I start boring you with my complaints, and I do have more things to complain about.

As the sun rises, shining through the foliage, a soft pattern is thrown onto the western wall of the living room gently moving behind the still, sharp outlines of the houseplants in the window. The light is orange. Birdsong replaces the insect cacophony of the night.

 

Natural Light

 

Sweltering; our heat wave has come back, with a vengeance!

So whatever happened with my feral friends, you may well ask? Well, I captured four of the five kittens and took them to the animal shelter. It's unlikely that they survived; found homes. They were both too old and possibly too young. Too old because they were unsocialized, and I really don't know how many weeks they were, but there's a minimum, and the shelter was already over capacity. Like I said, I didn't ask, just hoped. But what was I to do? I was lucky I had that time to deal with the problem as it was.

I knew that I'd never capture Momma again, but I tried. I took the owner of the trap's advice and put a tarp over it to disguise it and make it look like a secret tunnel. I checked once and saw that the trap was sprung but when I removed the tarp it was empty. She's a smart one, a survivor. Still I tried, putting out no food except that which was bait in the trap, and left it out overnight. In the morning the trap was sprung and I heard rustling inside as I approached. “I've either caught Momma or the last kitten,” I thought, but pulled off the tarp to reveal a opossum. Ugh, the thing stank.

I saw Momma again, just before I was to leave for Chicago. She sat just beyond the deck and looked at me through the railing. I could read no thought or emotion in her gaze but I had to wonder what she thought of me. She'd once trusted me, but then I'd tried to trap her and stole four of her babies. I relented and set food out, away from the trap. She wouldn't even eat that. It was as if she'd raised her middle claw and shook it at me.

My problem is solved though, in any case. Momma took her last kitten and split. Neither hide nor hair of them has been seen since I got back from my trip, lo these several weeks ago. They're someone else's problem now, I guess.

I had a perfectly marvelous time in Chicago with the kids, though whenever I was alone I found myself grieving for the kittens. I'll miss them, and Momma too. They were sooooo cute bouncing around the back yard, climbing trees and tumbling over one another. There's no doubt that they had to go. I'm not home enough to care for kittens, but they were a joy to observe through the back door window.

It's kind of like the Rainbow family that squatted here when I was over the road. I told them they could “crash” at my place for a month while I was out on the road, before my brother in law was to move in. Instead they moved in, furniture and all. With three young children and winter coming on they figured rightly that I wouldn't kick them out and Bart agreed, finding other arrangements. There was no question but that they had to go, come spring. I have to admit, though, that it was awfully nice having children and pets around the place again, especially when I first got home for my monthly shore leave, when they would greet me so sweetly.

As for my trip to Chicago to see my own, grown daughter and son in law, I had a great time. If I'd written a couple of weeks ago I would have told you many stories. Now, however, I'm out of time and the stories grow stale, don't seem so much worth the telling. What, we played scrabble with Shoshana's boss, went to movies, cooked out? We were supposed to go canoeing but Shosh had a cold. She works at the Shed Aquarium where thousands of school children rub their grimy hands on the glass and railings weekly and so is susceptible.

But I will tell you about one morning when I took a walk by myself to the big lake, while the kids were still abed. Just as I was cresting the little rise atop which the endless water came into view a swallow arced down and away in front of me so close that I could feel the wind of its passage. Looking around I saw the air crowded with hundreds of dancing dragonflies, and scores of swooping swallows, all in constant motion.

OK, I'm bragging now, but in a few months the Shedd is sending Shoshana to the Bahamas as part of a team to collect coral spawn. She's SCUBA certified now and will be part of a global effort to help save the coral reefs. They grow coral there at the Shedd. Indeed, the roof is lined with skylights letting them use natural light, which helps.

 

Heat Wave

 

“Always choose beauty over money.” That was my motto, my maxim. I coined it when I'd had a chance to cross I-80 at night, to get my load off early and thus set myself up for another load, and more money. It was peak autumn and with plenty of time on the load I chose to sleep through the night and run the highway in the daytime. I'm glad that I did, it was sooooooooo beautiful; across the “endless mountains” in their autumn glory.

So I was torn when, after single stop load to South Bend that got me back to Plainfield early, at noon, I was given the choice to take a North Vernon load, or not. There was an angel and a devil sitting on either shoulder whispering in my ear. Then I remembered my motto and chose the angel. Hell sank in disappointment, defeated.

I'd been wanting to take a bike ride. I'd meant to over vacation but was so busy with those cats that I never did, other than just up and down the road. I didn't want to leave the trap for too long, in the midst of our heat wave, which has thankfully broken. I got home and set out on two wheels. But damn, it seemed like I was working awfully hard. It was an effort to pedal the bike on the flat let alone the hills. “I'm really out of shape!” I thought. “I didn't ride far last week, but I did ride, what's up?”

I was disappointed but figured I'd better not get off the ridge top or I might have to walk the bike back up, so I went every which way except out on the highway, turning around each time at the brink of the hill. It was a nice ride, and I explored the side roads that I usually pass. At some point a light went off in my brain and when I got back home I checked my tire pressure. Both tires were 20 lbs low. Duh. I told you I was a novice rider.

It was too late then to go back out for an extended ride so I mowed the lawn. Both heaven and hell feel a little better for having gotten that done. Whew, with the heat and humidity I nearly overdid it though. I might have had to walk the bike up the hill anyway.

But like I say, the heat wave has broken. The palpable humidity, that a chainsaw wouldn't cut, has relented, and I just got back from a nice little ride. Funny; the trash truck is in my neighbor's drive. It passed me way back on North Shore Drive. It took this long for him to work his way around to here. But my point is that it's sooooooooo beautiful! The corn is high and the wildflowers in riot abandon. With all the rain we've had GREEN is still the color of the day, and the neighbors have a right to be proud of their gardens. For those of you that don't know the area let me assure you there is a lot of mature hardwood 'round these parts.

My vacation was very nice, just what the doctor ordered, but I'll come back to tell you about that, perhaps...

 

Enhanced Topography

 

I remember another random observation I made: The corn is high, but not in the low lying areas that were flooded. The deeper the depression the smaller the corn until the plants are just little anemic stalks, and finally bare earth in the lowest areas, so the natural topography is accentuated into rolling hills of corn.

That's all. I captured two more kittens so I've got to run...

 

Feral Friends

 

I wonder; would Monet, were he alive today, have done a series of canvasses studying wind generators? All white they are the perfect foil for changing light, and with their curved form, particularly the aerodynamic twist of their blades, they are a study in gradations of shade too, especially while in motion. Of course the motion part would have been a challenge even for Monet's brush, so we'll leave that up to the once and Futurists.

Verdant grass, chicory blue and the intense amber of a mown wheat field, all under an indistinct sky; The light was just there, like it came from nowhere, the colors muted. A high fog, I guess.

Those are a couple of the random thoughts that I remember having. There were more, and a story I wanted to tell, I went back to Shipshewana, but that was way back last week. I'm on vacation now. I have the whole week off. I either had to take the time, just the money, or lose it all. I'll take the time, and the money, thank you. I need it. Friday my boss called and asked if I'd work Monday. I considered it but I was afraid my car was on its last legs. I couldn't commit. I'd already given up going to a pig roast in Indy on Saturday. It turned out that it only needed a tune up; duh. I could have called my boss and volunteered, but chose not to. He called today, Tuesday. I didn't answer the phone.

The pig roast was a year unspecific reunion of the art school I went to, back in the seventies. I'm sorry I missed that but it way worked out. Sarah, a Northern Jersey girl that spent four years here in college and who worked at the Pub back then, was back for a visit, eight months pregnant and happily married. Betsy's band played at the Player's Pub; oh they of the horn section. We claimed half the bar. Sometimes the stars align and beautiful memories are made. I feel like I already know that baby, she had to have been dancing in the amniotic fluid.

Then, Sunday, a real musical treat. My friend Chris Little has had a Sunday Jam, where who knows who will show up with their instruments and play, for about as long as I can remember. Me, I'm not a musician. I bang on bottles with a stick or slap my thighs, and occasionally sing, but it's all good. The only trouble is that with my job I can't stay up that late Sunday night; but hey, I'm on vacation! With a recent rain everybody was indoors (we're talking the deep woods here, the end of Hash Road, on the border of Brown County, with a pond and everything), in the middle of a song. The damn door stuck, swollen with the humidity and I felt like a fool charging in. “Steve Levine!” They stopped the music. It felt so nice to be welcome.

I'd seen Chris since Allison died, at some show at Jake's. I'd hugged him, told him I loved him and that I was looking forward to the songs he was going to write, the seeds that grow from this ground. As things were breaking up Sunday he told me to hang on and disappeared for a minute. He came back with a copy of the Randys' last cd, with Allison on the fiddle and vocals, and a home burned disk titled Songs to Allison in magic marker. I am both honored and humbled.

So...I've got a problem. I am home so little through the week, and so hassled playing catch up on the weekends (which I never do, we just play tag) that my neighbor had to tell me that I have a feral cat with kittens living under my deck. So that was the strange bird I'd heard in the early morning: kittens. I'd seen the momma before, so rail thin I thought she was a male, certainly not nursing. What choice did I have but to feed her; them. Well, my other neighbor tried target practice with his pistol, but that's not my choice.

That was a couple of weeks ago. I borrowed a trap from Vanessa. This is my project for the vacation. I caught two of the kittens without even baiting the trap; took them to the shelter. They're probably too old to ever find homes, but I'm not going to ask, just wish. I didn't set the trap again until this morning. I kept them hungry over night and baited the trap. Snap, I caught momma. Problem solved; only when I picked the trap up it tilted forward, the door swung open and the cat was gone in a flash. I didn't know that was something to watch out for!

Now what am I going to do? Is she ever going back into that cage? They have a program here in Monroe County where they'll spay a feral cat, called “Feral Friends.” That was my plan. How do I explain to her that her life depends on going into that cage? My next best option is to borrow the true neighbor's rifle. I just can't have feral cats multiplying like rabbits in the neighborhood.

I couldn't get so lucky as to have the coyotes come by and clear them out. In fact it's interesting how in charge she is of her space. I've been putting food out for two weeks and haven't seen a trace of raccoon or opossum. Nikity, my ex-wife's fat, declawed, eighteen year old cat that's come here to retire mostly stays in the front yard, feral momma in the back. Every now and then there's a skirmish though, and I rush outside to protect Nikity. The other day I heard a confrontation and rushed out just in time to see Nikity giving chase to the young survivor. I'm sure that my backup plays a significant role in this social order, but see, we've got that settled: Queen Nikity. Now how do I convince momma to go back in the cage?

And I'm going to Chicago to see Shoshana and Amir on Thursday.

 

The Merits of Agressive Driving

 

To make a long story short I was in a hurry. I called to say that I was going to be half an hour late, but hoped to shorten that. Traffic was terrible, not only was it Friday rush hour, but a holiday weekend as well. I took the left lane because an insane motorist had pulled right in front of me, it was my best option. Since the light turned red I figured this was a good time to get ahead of that truck in front of me that's heavier, starting slower. It would have been easy except the pickup truck in front of me was texting. Once I got going the other driver thought I was trying to be bad and gunned it. We had a regular drag race on main street. At 10 mph above the limit, slightly above my running speed I let him win. I really wasn't in competition.

Traffic soon worked in my favor and I pulled ahead of him. I admit there was some satisfaction there. Later I was way ahead of that guy, but had some bad timing at further lights. I can't be sure it was the same truck but I think he got in line behind me as we waited for the green arrow to turn left on Ameriplex. There's the merits of aggressive driving for you.

When I got to Electrolux, at 20 minutes past, the gate was closed. So why did I just bust my ass and endanger the general public?

* * *

Oh sacred Valley of the Beanblossom River, under the spell of a summer morning. I do like bicycle riding through the neighborhood. It's work getting back up on the ridge top, but worth it, and it gets easier. I'm still a novice rider; not ready for the Hilly Hundred yet.

Taking a break I sat on a bridge parapet and watched the water below me. The ripples released by the water bugs expand concentrically from a fixed point, even though the water itself is moving. I found that interesting.

Watching those ripples reminded me of one morning a few weeks back. I was hooking to a trailer at the Electrolux yard in the predawn darkness. There were some ducks causing a ruckus on the pond so the reflections thrown onto the trailers were complicated. At one point there was a very clear interference pattern. Light displaying the properties of a wave.

Oh, and by the way, there are fish in that pond, I've seen them.

Let's see, what else? I've told you about the alley that I have to back into off of main street in downtown Madison before. It's a sight side, thank goodness, but the hole I have to enter is insanely narrow. I noticed that I wasn't just holding up the cars, but that a pedestrian was waiting to cross the alley too, a young woman. I was going to apologize but as I came abreast of her she said, “Awesome! That takes some skill!” So I thanked her instead. You've got to take recognition where you can find it.

IU moved their fireworks display out to the fairgrounds, damn them; you can't watch from in town any more. I got invited to a private display on a farm outside Ellettsville. It seems that Brad, one of the cyclotron rats, has a fireworks license. It was the real deal, man, it was awesome. They started with some medium sized rockets while it was still light out, which was interesting, then they waited until the Ellettsville display was finished, which could be seen over the tree tops, before starting with their big ones. Boom, I love it when the ground shakes.

I guess I know where to go on the Fourth (or third) of July now. It was a great party too, with a huge potluck spread in one barn and a cash bar in another, port-a-potties and a hay-wagon shuttle back and forth to the road. To top it off I could take the back roads all the way home, except for a half mile stretch of 37. On my way home there was a ton of traffic coming the other way. Oh yeah, someone does fireworks out at Lake Lemon too, that's right. Maybe I'll check that out some year.

 

Green Revolution

 

Let me start with the rivers, the recipients of the runoff, the conduits of motion. There have been lakes where there should not have been lakes, swamps amidst the cornfields, crop damage, a drowned teenager. I crossed bridges with the water so close I could have dove in. We've had a lot of rain.

It's subsiding now, the sandbars begin to reappear and the snag that was causing all that turbulence reveals itself (White River). Further downstream (Evansville) there are still unmapped lakes and the rivers are wide. I crossed the Ohio today, with the sun shinning. The weather has broken and now we are in paradise here in Indiana.

The agriculture follows the curve of the earth. What was it my Dad used to say, “Knee high by the Forth of July?” Up north the corn is at least thigh high; down south ten foot. The Green Revolution.

Green is the color, the setting. The bright yellow mustard fields of spring gave way first to ripened wheat, and now to haystacks as well. The grasses yellow too. Flowers are sprinkled everywhere.

Happy Independence Day!

 

Rain, Rain, Go Away

 

Thunderheads on the horizon, alive with flickering lightning like pregnant alien abdomens from late night science fiction. It's a good thing that I left early that morning, for no special reason, because halfway around I 465 it began to deluge and traffic slowed to a crawl. “We'll come out of it,” I thought; “We're just expecting isolated thunderstorms. Traffic will improve once I hit I 70.”

Well, yes, it did, but the rain continued to fall like it was trying to float Noah's ark. I was heading east, trying to outrun the storm. It rained heavily all the way from Indianapolis to Richmond, for about seventy miles. Isolated my eye, that storm had to be massive; it couldn't have been moving that fast. I had it floored, running 65 mph, when I could. I made it to my stop just on time.

That storm was on Tuesday. I've had a bunch of adventures this week. Monday was a particularly hard day. I'd done my usual Sunday laundry ritual and was just about to leave the bar when a surprise band started playing. It was Rooster McCabe out of Minneapolis. They were good. I couldn't leave. It was the summer solstice. A whole tribe of young hippies in tie die took the dance floor. I thought maybe they'd come with the band, but no, they just appeared. A friend said he thought he was having a flashback. I danced, if you want to call it that.

I don't know what time it was I finally flopped into bed. I didn't bother to set the alarm, but of course I always wake up. I drug my sorry ass to work and all went well. I drove very carefully; there was no getting in a hurry that day.

Three times this week I had to use all of my driving skills. Twice simply because the places that I delivered to required it, not being built to accommodate a truck my size. Like having to do a blind side back from off of a busy four lane street in Dayton, Ohio. I was shaking by the time I'd safely accomplished that. The other one is too complicate to explain, but there's no real problem going in, it's backing out again that's tricky. And then there was a construction zone in downtown Peru, Indiana that wasn't wide enough for my rig. “Relax people, I'll be out of your way as soon as I can. Does it look like I'm having fun here? Do you want to try this?” I ended up having to take a detour through a residential area, trimming the trees as I went.

Most interesting, though, I went off the beaten track again to deliver some refrigerators to Amish or Mennonites in Illinois, “The first left over the Kaskaskia River.” The area wasn't nearly as intensely populated by them as it was up in Shipshewana. I only saw one buggy. This time I asked more questions though. These places are factories. They buy the refrigerators and convert them to propane. I asked what they did with the compressors, once they'd been removed. “We usually buy them hollow. These have compressors so we'll probably end up tossing them.” A very disappointing answer, I thought.

 

Lift

 

It was a large hawk this morning. I saw it sail into a fence row so I slowed down, quiet. I misjudged its landing place. He was invisible until he jumped the air and flew across so close I could almost have touched him. Maybe if I'd been a hunter-gatherer.

 

Summer Solstice

Like winter the week days drag on and like summer the weekends evaporate before you're done with them. But no, we're in the midst of it, the time is now, this brief glory. It's both my weekend and the zenith of the year.

Right now the fields are green. Surely they have been this green before, but to my eyes they are really green. Like the sun at midday I cherish this moment.

 

Rock and Roll

Yeah! I had something other than driving to write about. Family squabbles.

Driving driving driving, all I do is driving. Concrete and asphalt, mile after mile; the time goes by in my head or on the radio, but the landscape is tops. It's OK if the hills are small, they're beautiful as hell. And then there's that ocean of gas in the sky, with the cinematic clouds.

But it's work, a lot of constant work; checking while droning, and making adjustments. Got to pilot this beast. The closer you are to the city the greater the demand. Turn the radio off and pay attention. But usually you can listen. Rock and Roll goes great downtown, through the canyons. The Big Dig deprives future generations of 91 through Boston. That was Rock and Roll!

I say that as a tourist, of course.

Party Down, Dude

 

The stars have come down from the heavens to twinkle in my back yard, giving me a moments beauty as I leave for work. Once dawn breaks green is a far better color to cover the earth than white, I tell you. Moisture in the air softens the landscape but it hasn't been hot enough for the humidity to be oppressive. In fact it's been absolutely gorgeous, mostly.

Rain was predicted for the day of the party. I kind of hoped that it would rain. I admit it, I was pissed. Miles started calling about mid morning. I didn't answer the phone. Then, about a half an hour before people were supposed to arrive I left the back door unlocked, took my laundry and went into town. “Let them shift for themselves,” I thought; and if I'm lucky maybe they'll clean the vines off of the deck.

I didn't hurry but did my standard Sunday ritual at the Upland, shuttling between the laundromat and the bar. I even stayed a little longer than usual. Not just to emphasize my passive aggressive statement; there were people there I hadn't seen in a long time, I was having a good time. Jackie was unable to make it so I had no one that I'd invited to be there for.

The yard was full of cars when I got home. Miles strode forward to greet me as I rounded the house. “Steve, it's good to see you,” he said. “We were wondering where you were.”

I grabbed him in a hug and said, “Don't ever do that again” into his ear, then released him.

“Whaa...?”

“Don't ever tell me I'm having a party two days beforehand. Don't ever tell me I'm having a party period,” I said and walked away.

I made sure that everyone knew that I'd had no advance warning on this thing, for the benefit of the others in the planning committee, and by way of apology for my lack of preparations. No one was offended. I don't think anyone even noticed. And that was that, the rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent having a good time by all, including me. Good people, good food and gorgeous weather. It wasn't Morris' sister who was coming, it was Betty, Morris' mother. That was a nice surprise. Miles was so contrite for the rest of the day that I almost felt sorry for him.

As the guests were leaving someone turned and said, “Thanks for hosting.” I had to smile to myself because I didn't host. But then I looked at the back yard and realized that I had, after all. It wasn't bad, several of the women had cleaned a little and Betty had done a sink load of dishes against my objections, bless her heart, but there was still work to do. The vines never got cleaned off of the deck either. We just didn't use the deck.

 

You're Invited

 

I was invited to a party yesterday. The party is tomorrow. It's at my house. Miles called me and said that James was going out of town and if I was going to be around they were thinking of having a get together out here. I said, sure, of course, thinking this was a last minute play. So I called James and never did hear about his move; I became preoccupied once I found out that the plans have been in the works for weeks. So I'm just an afterthought? I didn't cancel the party, but I canceled my housework. I'm not hosting. What you see is what you get.

There are two bright spots. Morris, the dude that was laid up with the motorcycle wreck, will be here, possibly with his sister from Indy. I quit worrying about Morris when he won 98% on the pool table against his brother and I. I'm merely average but his brother carries a stick. And Jackie, a Barmaid at the Pub, will finally be able to bring her sweetheart, my near neighbor whom I've never met, to a fire in my backyard.

Jackie's the only one that I invited. I just hope my resentment doesn't spoil the atmosphere before they arrive. I love this group of people and I'm glad they're going to be here at my house but I am a little put out.

There's a hole in the bottom of the sea...

Early this morning, while it was cool and the mist was rising, a deer crossed my path. On two wheels I was silent, the wind in my favor. She was grazing, a mere fifteen feet away, pointed the opposite direction. It was when I turned my bike that she got my scent and eventually bolted. I rode with her as she crossed the road.

Glory, glory, glory! There's nothing like Midsummer!

 

City by the Bay

I almost forgot; two weeks ago I was in Berkeley, California. Already it seems months ago. My dad and I flew out so that he could visit his sister, my Aunt Charlotte. They hadn't seen each other in fifteen years. Whomever of the cousins that could make it did. It was nice.

The weather was cool and breezy, overcast in the mornings and sunny in the afternoon. Our hotel was next to the Marina, with a small nature park on the other side. The restaurant had floor to ceiling windows overlooking the crowded masts. Beyond the Marina a long pier stretched out into the Bay.

Our mobility was limited with my father in a wheelchair. I chose that hotel because I wanted to know I was on vacation, but more than that I wanted the calming influence of the water for Dad; he's eighty four. We got both. I believe this was the most relaxing vacation I've ever had, even though Dad needed medicine around the clock, and help getting up, down and around. I didn't hardly go anywhere. I never made it into the City, just looked at it from across the bay.

Oh, sure, we went some places. we went to Dan and Valarie's, twice. A beautiful little house in Rockridge; compact, cozy, with skylights, art on the walls, and a private garden out back. We had a cookout. There were chickens next door. We went to restaurants too. The real highlight of the trip, besides seeing people, was the food. There was soooo much good food. And various errands took us to Berkeley, mostly just to the drugstore, though a couple of restaurants were involved.

One of these drugstore outings was particularly enjoyable. A friend of mine from college, Karl, who I hadn't seen since the early 1980s lives in the West Bay. He drove over for a visit. We talked for an hour or so while Dad played around in the hotel computer room, then I drug him off on an errand. They had only given us enough of Dad's primary medicine to last half the trip so we had to go get some more. After that mission was accomplished we strolled through a flea market we'd passed on the way there. The sun had come out.

It was definitely a California flea market, there were at least three massage booths, all with lines. There was some nice merchandise too. Some of it was junk, of course, but much of it was interesting. I particularly liked a classic picnic basket and an art deco table lamp; there was African art and hours could have been spent looking through the vintage vinyl, but that would have left Dad hanging. Amidst the din a drum circle provided a background beat. One of the vendors came out to give Dad some attention. He did a handshake ritual with him which Dad ad-libbed well, then he turned to me. After the third grip I slid my hand out to do the finger snap but his fist stayed tight expecting something else. We're so passe in the Midwest. It's all good.

After the flea market we parked in a trendy area and strolled through the shops, ending up at an outdoor cafe talking and people watching. Then it was time for Dad and I to get ready for our planned events and for Karl to get back to his busy life.

That was the most touristy thing that we did; no art, no music, no museums. Dan and Valarie were full of suggestions, but Dad just wasn't up to it. But it was good, it was very good. Like I say, it turned out to be a relaxing vacation, something practically unheard of when visiting a city.

Off the Beaten Track

 

Ye-haw! Ride 'em...farmer?

I have this image of a horse drawn plow: a bent over farmer plodding behind a single horse guiding his plow up and down the field, upturning one furrow at a time. Maybe some poor peasant or sharecropper did it thus once, but that's not how they do it in contemporary Amish country. The Amish farmer has a wide plow to open many furrows at a pass, and he doesn't plod anywhere; he stands atop a box in the center of his plow wielding the reigns not to a single horse, but to a team of horses.

I was just driving past and couldn't count the blades on the plows, but the horses were easy to count. The first team I saw consisted of four horses all in a line, which I thought was pretty cool, but then I saw two more teams that had eight horses each, in two lines of four. They could really move too. It looked like fun, though I'm sure that if I tried it my furrows would be all over the place, not in nice parallel lines with a smooth arc at the end of the row leading into the next run. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would have thought a tractor had plowed those fields.

They sent me to Shipshewana, Indiana. I knew that I was in Amish country by the wide paved shoulder of the road bearing the marks of carriage wheels. Sure enough before long I passed one of their black buggies, the proud horse in full canter with its head and tail held high. In town there were several more buggies. One looked like it was going to pull out in front of me but it turned and took the shoulder before I got to it. I slowed down and gave them a wide berth. I'm glad that I did too because just then I noticed a cop sitting in a parking lot a few hundred feet ahead. I don't think he'd take too kindly to me endangering the Amish citizens.

My directions had me taking a left at the four way stop, going about a mile and a half, then turning right at County Road 850W. I'd already seen more Amish than I ever had before, and now I was going out into the Amish countryside.

The first thing that I noticed was that there were a lot of horses out in pastures, and I mean a lot. It seemed they were all black, or dark brown to match the buggies I suppose. I don't know my horse breeds but these were all those sleek specimens that pull the carriages. The work horses I saw pulling the plows were bigger, and light in color. I didn't notice any of them out to pasture, but then I was just driving by and had to watch the road as it was very narrow.

Then, of course, there were lots of buggies. I was lucky and didn't get behind any, though there were ample road apples to mark their passage, but there were buggies pulled up in front of every house and barn, it seemed. Once there was a field full of them; a Buggy Works or something, I suppose. I got a kick out of the Bulk Foods store, with buggies filling the parking lot like cars, the horses waiting patiently for their masters.

Another common conveyance was the bicycle. There were a lot of bicycles parked about and I saw a woman riding one in her long skirt and bonnet. The bikes all had a large basket attached to the fronts of them.

And the Amish people themselves were present, all dressed alike, somberly, the men in their hats and the women in their bonnets. There were more horses than people, that I saw, but there were plenty of people too. I passed a school, the children out for recess. They were dressed just the same, little replicas of the adults. The school yard was packed, lots of kids all divided up into different groups playing different games, volley ball and basket ball, etc. It was kind of funny to see a girl in her long skirt doing a layup.

I was a novelty in my big truck and the heads of many of the children turned to watch me as I passed, those not directly in the games. I waved but got no response which I thought was strange. My experience with the Amish has been that they are quite friendly, always waving when you passed them on the road. Maybe I was now on their territory? Nobody bobbed their fist in the air asking me to blow my horn either.

So I was wondering what kind of a place it was I was going to, out there in Amish country. The name of the establishment was EZ Freeze, and I was bringing them 25 refrigerators; appliances that run on electricity. The Amish are off the grid. It was still America though, of course. I mean, I passed several cars going the opposite direction, so there were more than just Amish that lived in the area.

The building was fairly new and looked more like a factory than an appliance store. Other than a small sign bearing their name there were none of the usual brand logos that help me pick out a customer's location amongst the cacophony of signage that usually predominates, not that that was a problem here. The woman who'd given me directions said that I'd be able to turn around in their lot so I pulled right in. It was pretty narrow, and with a tractor parked next to the building I didn't think that I'd make it, but I did. An old dog lying beside the office door stood up to observe my progress. She came over to greet me while I opened the doors to the trailer, then sauntered back to her nest by the door.

All was quiet after I backed in, not a soul was around. I went into the warehouse and there wasn't anyone there either. I went back outside to enter through the office door, rather than taking the liberty of wandering through their building. Inside there was no office, though the word “Office” was above the door, but rather what looked more like a factory floor. I'm still not exactly clear about the status of that place, what all goes on there.

An Amish man was on the other side of a work bench carefully applying some kind of tape to the strange coils of a type of refrigerator that I'd never seen before. He meticulously finished his task before he looked up and acknowledged me. I waited patiently as there was no-one else to be seen. I was then told that I'd find “Him” down that way, toward the warehouse. “I think he's on the phone just now.”

Sure enough there was another Amish man, albeit sans the hat, standing in the doorway of a cubbyhole of an office talking on the phone. I turned my attention to more closely examining these odd refrigerators that seemed to be the main stock in trade of this establishment while I waited. If they'd been talking secrets the guy wouldn't have had to lower his voice in my presence; I could hardly understand a word. It sounded like one of Garrison Keillor's Swedish Farmers more than anything else.

After the phone conversation was over and I'd been greeted I asked about the refrigerators. “They're propane. We sell them to the Amish, and for back country cabins, off the grid.”

“Ah, yes,” I thought, and wondered again what exactly was going on here. Was this guy Amish, or did he just sell to them? He looked Amish. He'd shed his hat and coat but had the same black shoes, loose gray pants upheld by suspenders and white shirt; he had the same close cropped hair, clean shaven upper lip and full but modest beard around the jaw; and an accent, not counting the unintelligible conversation that I'd just overheard. Yet there was a tractor parked next to the building and electric lights burned overhead. Was this Amish assimilation?

As curious as I might be there was work to do, and the way he moved it had to be done quickly. We worked together unloading the truck and did it well, passing each other in the narrow isles of the warehouse with our hand trucks loaded and empty. We never did shake hands, but he looked me in the eye and it felt like a handshake.

Here's a satellite image from Google Maps of where I was. It might have looked like a tractor had plowed those fields from my position on the ground, but from the sky there are some wonderfully organic things happening. I encourage you to zoom in and if unable to in this image by all means go to Google Maps or Google Earth and start from Shipshewana, IN, then search northwest.

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Leaving out early one morning, maybe 7:40 GMT, I tuned into the middle of a BBC interview with an oil company spokesperson lauding president Obama's decision to open up off shore drilling. “We have an almost perfect record of drilling in the Gulf,” he said. Recorded prior to the present crisis, no doubt.

Drill Baby, drill!

 

Log Book

 

Endless work dreams. Do I need to log these hours?

Hey, guess what. I got my truck back from B Service where they'd installed my “stinger kit,” the plug to power the lift-gates with the truck alternator. Um, the only problem is that they installed the wrong kind. The stinger kit has a single post plug while our lift-gates require a double post. I guess it really was too much to expect that the issue would finally be resolved.

 

Silly Goose

 

I thought maybe the geese were gone, flown north for the season. They were back this morning though, waddling through the parking lot, honking up a storm. I got to the yard later than usual and they were quite active. I usually see them in the predawn darkness floating quietly on the water. When I come back from my run in the afternoon gaggles of them mill about the lawn or saunter across the driveway in front of me. I haven't seen as many of them lately though.

I don't know why but builders quite often leave ponds of open water along the periphery of these newer industrial sites they construct these days, and the yards that I use in Plainfield to park my truck and pick up my loads are no exception. I'm told that the pond by Electrolux is actually stocked with fish, though I've never seen them. The water attracts geese, ducks and one morning there was a raccoon on the edge of the water just below me when I walked around the trailer to do my safety check. The ducks are pretty skittish but the geese and that raccoon seem pretty used to humans.

Others blessings provided by the water are the way it reflects dawn, when I'm late enough to see that, or moonlight, often with a mist rising off the surface. The pond at Electrolux reflects the security lights from the next warehouse over sending ripples of light dancing across the sides of the trailers. It's a calming influence, as I start my stressful day. With a little imagination I can imagine that I'm packing a boat for an early morning fishing trip; don't I wish!

Open Road Tolling

 

It was a hard damn week. It started Monday with a load that had to leave early in order to arrive on time, but that's normal. Friday loads are always long and Monday loads are always early. You'd think they begrudged us our weekend or something. But Tuesday I had to deliver the Chicago load. Usually one of our drivers drops a load on the Chicago yard overnight and a local driver makes the deliveries the next day. Local must have called in sick or something. The first stop was way on the far North side, so of course I had to go all the way through traffic to get there. The good thing is that the next three stops worked me back around to the Southwest side, closer to home. I actually did make it home that night, just in time to go to bed, though I was prepared to sleep on the road.

Rock and Roll music; concrete and asphalt arcs converging and diverging; lines of mass in motion; cars and trucks staccato. Man, open road tolling keeps the momentum flowing. The fenced industrial yards of the city become open earth works beyond the suburbs.

The rest of the week I had long loads with multiple stops as well. Hey, that's fine, that's a good thing; I'm making money. What made it particularly hard was that my fleet manager quit. They don't have a replacement yet. The top guy, the boss of all the local bosses is handling those accounts, temporarily. So even if I didn't use up my hours I'd still have to be back on the truck 10 later, after my break. Scott used to manage it so there was a flow that was easier on the driver. There's no malice involved; Adam just doesn't have the experience to recognize the conflicts. There was one load that except for extra effort on my part would have been impossible to deliver legally (aren't I special). The good news is that the boss of all bosses is getting experience now, and listening to Driver's concerns. At least I'm voicing some of them.

Then, on top of that, the evening gate guard moved away about a month ago, and the morning gate guard went in for surgery over the weekend and is out for recovery. I'll let you imagine the scenarios. I smile as I think of the remarkable woman who filled in for Holly; but the story would be too long to tell just now. I never even got her name. That's how impersonal it is. You aren't introduced as a person, but as a capacity. There just wasn't time.

Sun and Shade

 

Isn't the world pretty in its spring garb? My focus today, though, was on the sky; a broken ceiling of cloud mottled kaleidoscopically with yellow, orange, blue, and purples with plenty of blue sky and sunshine streaming through the breaks. Occasionally a pattering of rain would fall. Looking across the panorama of the skyscape these areas of light precipitation appeared as locks of hair caressing the Earth with just the lightest of rains. Occasionally the sun would break out in full force and the emerging emerald of the landscape would glow, accented by the white and pink of buds and flowering trees. The temperatures were cool after the cold front and its attendant thunderstorms moved through last night. There was something about the crispness of the air that reminded me of morning in the mountains, somehow. It was a pretty morning.

 

You Say It's Your Birthday?

So now that Murphy's Law has been debunked what about Karma? I don't have the slightest idea, but if it does exist I have to ask, “What did I do to deserve this?”

It started Wednesday. It was the last day of the month and for some reason Electrolux wants all of the orders loaded that day out the gate and off of the yard so that they can count them as shipped. I don't understand it. If the loads don't count toward the numbers shipped on that month won't they just pad the numbers for the following month? Or couldn't they just count the trailers loaded, not necessarily picked up? But it's not for me to question.

So the last day of the month often involves moving trailers to the Company yard on the north side of the city, on the other side of the hellish construction zone, in rush hour traffic, at the end of a long day. Or, like this day, waiting around for trailers and/or your assignment for the next day to be finished loading. I hate having to sit around and wait for a load more than anything else about this gig. It's uncompensated time and takes away from my home time.

Electrolux was running behind and there were no loads ready to be moved. In fact there weren't even any Company trailers in any of the doors to be loaded yet. My fleet manager wouldn't let me leave even though it looked unlikely that anything would be ready before my 14 hour tour of duty (DOT hours of service regulations) was up. Several other Company drivers who'd started their days before me had already left. Tick tock, tick tock. Adding insult to injury my time expired and the load still wasn't finished. Either my fleet manager would find some other driver to take it to the yard up north or I'd just have to pick it up there at Electrolux in the morning.

I rushed home. I had to be back in Plainfield in 10 hours. With an hour commute each way that didn't leave me much time. I put off showering, again, and had a simple meal, did the dishes and some other chores, did my email and social networking, then went to bed to read myself to sleep. It would all get better tomorrow. It looked like a hard day ahead with three stops, two of which would require me to tailgate product and one of which was absurdly hard to get the trailer into, but Electrolux was going to be closed for Good Friday so I was going to get an extra day off, albeit unpaid, and it would be my birthday! That's right, I'm an April Fool.

I overslept. Apparently I hadn't set the alarm. “Happy birthday, Steve,” I groaned as I rolled out of bed. I rushed out the door and got to my first appointment on time, over in Lima, Ohio. My heart sank after I'd broken the seal and opened the trailer doors. The trailer was loaded to the very end with refrigerators prone loaded on top of others loaded upright on the floor. It was going to be a long day. “Happy birthday, Steve,” I said again. At least I had that extra day off to look forward to.

A message came in over the satellite while I was en route to my second stop. It was my fleet manager telling me that when I was finished for the day I was to pick up a load going to Owasso, Michigan for delivery the next day at 10:00 AM. Whhaaaat!? That not only meant that I wouldn't be getting that extra day off, but I wouldn't be going home that night either. I was going to have to grab the load and high tail it north, getting as far as I could before shutting down, if I wanted to get home again for the regular week end. I relaxed and smiled to myself; surely this was an April Fools joke, right?

No, it was no joke. “Happy Birthday, Steve.”

My last stop, in Fort Wayne, is usually a breeze. They have a regular truck dock and a clamp truck. All I have to do is set the appliances up for the clamp truck to grab and he drives right into the trailer to get them. The driver is good, too. He can take a stack of dishwashers three wide and three high, with only inches of clearance from the roof and get it out the door unscathed; those top washers jiggling as he clears the hump. Only the trailer was packed tight and those prone loaded refrigerators kept coming, so setting the product up was harder than usual. On top of that the regular clamp driver wasn't there and the kid unloading me was awkward and unsure of himself. It took for frigging ever to get unloaded. When I finally got back to Plainfield and hooked to the Owasso load it was 4:30 in the afternoon, just in time to play in rush hour traffic. I had to go back up I 69 too, through the most notorious bottle neck in the Indy metro area. “Happy Birthday, Steve.”

After I'd cleared the crowd I checked my available hours and calculated how far I could get that day. It looked like I'd just be able to make the truck stops at exit 157 in Fremont, on the Michigan border. That was good because that's where I was going to have to fuel and I had shower credits there. After working so hard and already having put off showering I really needed one. It was unseasonably warm that day too, which made it unseasonably warm in the trailer, and me unseasonably stinky.

I kept the fuel pedal hammered to the floor to get that extra 2 mph above cruise control and settled into the drive, listening to All Things Considered on the radio. When I got to Ft. Wayne I rechecked my progress. “Shit, how did that happen?” It seemed that I'd be lacking 15 minutes. In the old days I wouldn't have worried about it but these days they watch us like a hawk watches it's prey, from way up in the air (satellite). I was passing the last reachable truck stop so I jumped off of the freeway. It wasn't until I had the rig parked that I remembered that I did have that extra fifteen minutes, I'd just panicked. Well, I didn't have them anymore, I'd wasted them getting into the truck stop. I was stuck there.

It's a good truck stop actually; an old school independent place with character in the building and decor rather than the ubiquitous slick banality of franchise spaces. And it's roomy, with plenty of wide parking spaces, whereas if I'd gone on up to Fremont I might have had to struggle to find a spot. I'd always wanted to try their restaurant as well, but first things first; I really needed that shower. Fortunately I always keep some extra clean cloths in the truck, just in case. I packed up my shower bag and went in to see how much it was going to cost me. I hadn't fueled there and so had no shower credits; I was going to have to pay. I asked if they gave showers away to people on their birthday; no such luck. It cost $9.00; say Levine.

There was an extensive delay between the control and the water delivery so it took a long time alternating between scalding and freezing to find the sweet spot, but once found I had an enjoyable shower. Feeling much better I slung my shower bag over my shoulder and headed for the restaurant. Truck stop food is notoriously bad, and the service worse. When I was on the road I kept food on the truck and seldom ate out. This truck stop was independent though, as was its restaurant, so I hoped for something better than the norm. Still, something about it seemed unappealing so I passed the entrance and walked right on out of the building to look around and survey my options.

It didn't look promising. Other than some fast food joints on the corner I seemed to be in a vast industrialized area; wide streets lined with truck dealerships, lumberyards and warehouses. A truck stop employee was picking up trash in the parking lot so I approached her to ask if there were any restaurants or bars in the area. “There's a sports bar down that way,” she pointed.

“How far?” I asked.

She thought for a second then said, “Half a mile?”

“Thanks.” Just the ticket. I realized that what I really wanted was a beer. I'd had a long hard day and it was my birthday, after all. Of course the entire proposition was a gamble. First of all what did “half a mile” mean? People in cars have a distorted sense of distance. I'd be on foot and only had a few hours till I had to be back to the truck and in the sleeper. Secondly, what kind of a “sports bar” was it going to be? Would there be any food, other than fried? More importantly would they have any good beer or would I be forced into that dilemma of choosing to drink Heineken and seem pretentious, or drink Budweiser and be accepted by the natives. Either way I'd be disappointed.

I put my shower stuff away, grabbed a long sleeve shirt and headed out. When I got out to the intersection I was confused though. I knew it wasn't back toward the interstate that she'd pointed but which of the other three directions was it? From where I stood I couldn't see the side door we'd been at to orient myself; the Golden Arches were in the way. Each street seemed to recede indefinitely, lined with wires, warehouses and billboards, without a sign of life. I shrugged and started up the shoulder of the road I'd first thought I should go.

By the half mile mark I hadn't seen anything more interesting than Lumber Liquidators. I want to check out that bamboo flooring. Another quarter of a mile up was a stoplight with a gas station on the corner. I figured that I'd ask there but lo and behold the sports bar appeared. It was a small building set back behind its parking lot, glowing into the dusk with the welcoming colors of neon.

It was a local joint, lacking the sophistication of the franchise package; adequate but clumsy. Sparsely populated at that relatively early hour the acoustics echoed, the patrons who were there loud; young bucks asserting themselves humorously. The four taps were all American products so I moved down to examine the cooler. I saw Heineken, but no Sam Adams, the most common alternative. I was about to resign myself to a Budweiser when I spotted Sierra Nevada. That would do nicely.

The food was standard bar fare; burgers and wings. I ordered a chicken breast sandwich. It was OK. By the time that I'd finished eating more patrons had arrived. It was a young crowd, some of them didn't even look to be over 21. One young woman was spinning on her bar stool like a child. The jukebox was all over the map, alternating between rap, country and rock. The bartender seemed to like me. She'd come stand by me and smile when I'd look up from my food, then scoot off to get someone else a beer.

One of the loud jocks that had been there when I'd arrived was deserted by his companions. He picked up his little pitcher of beer and moved to the seat next to me, to talk to the couple sitting further down the bar. I threw some comments into their banter and soon I was in the conversation. Sean, the jock next to me was also friends with the bartender so she was in the mix quite often. I enjoyed myself but alas, duty called and I must off to bed. The bartender bought me final beer; I couldn't refuse that.

So I guess my luck had changed, or I'd paid off my karma, back when I'd panicked and gotten off the highway sooner than intended, even if I had to shell out for that shower. I've parked in Fremont before and I know there are no bars in the area. It still being Indiana they don't sell cold beer in the convenience stores either, even if they would have stocked anything worth drinking. It was my birthday, after all.

I was sweating it the next day though. No, not at all hungover; this was a lift-gate load (see below). I'd been to this receiver twice before when the lift-gate wouldn't work and they weren't at all happy about it either time. They always have large, heavy loads too. I checked the bills. “Yikes, 22 washing machines, 17 gas ranges!?” all the heavy stuff that would have to be unstacked and slid down a 2x6 if the lift-gate wouldn't work. But my luck held and the gate worked flawlessly all the way to the end of the load.

Coming back down I 69 there were a lot of cars heading my direction with little green flags attached to their doors. Michigan State was playing in Indianapolis for the final four against the hometown Bulldogs. That increased traffic caused some backups at that 69/465 bottleneck, something I was hoping to avoid since it was Good Friday, but hey, the Bulldogs ended up winning so I don't mind. No, Saturday turned into a nice day after some morning rain, and today looks pretty nice too. Spring has begun to unfold in earnest, the redbuds and forsythia are blooming, the trees budding everywhere.

Happy Easter.