Labor Day Picnic

 

Fuzzy landscape, fuzzy head. A drizzly fog covered the countryside and I was operating on too little sleep. I had to get up earlier than usual but that wasn’t the problem. I’d gone to bed soon enough the night before then woke up again shortly after midnight and couldn’t get back to sleep. I don’t know what was wrong. My thoughts would begin solidifying into dreams, but something always brought me back to the surface again. I tried reading myself to sleep but the story became exciting. I wanted to keep going but knew I had to try and get some more shut eye. I finally gave up a half an hour before the alarm was set to ring and started my day.

No biggie. I had to be over in Columbus at 8:00 for a delivery. It being early on Labor Day there was hardly any traffic and with the wet roads and the fog nobody that was out was in any hurry. I was, kind of, because even though I’d gotten up early I’d dawdled, then couldn’t find the trailer on the yard at first and ended up running late. I didn’t hurry though. I thought, “Tough, I’m laboring on Labor Day and it won’t matter if I’m a little late.” I only hoped that the workers, who were also laboring on Labor Day weren’t waiting for me.

There was no cause for concern on that score though. When I got there the place was deserted. I walked around the entire property just to make sure. When I got back to the truck I checked the load information on the computer and sure enough the appointment was set for Tuesday. I was wondering if I’d screwed up so I listened to the voice-mail message that had come in Saturday about the load. There was my boss saying, “I need you to be in Columbus at 8:00 Monday morning to make a delivery.” I’d saved the message because it had the trailer number on it, just in case the info wasn’t on the computer for some reason.

I guess he meant the other Monday.

 

Indiana Dreamin'

 

I used to scream in frustration, “Get me back to the Big Road!” Then just the other day I had to take I-70 from Indianapolis over to Terre Haute and I thought, “What a boring ride, give me the little road any day.” I mean, think about it, I’ve been driving for a local company out of Bloomington. If you’re going to leave from Bloomington to anywhere you have to take small state highways, the four lane to Indy being the exception, everything else winds through the countryside. While I was once placated with the picturesque qualities of Northern Indiana and the Wabash Valley, Southern Indiana can be down right Beautiful. It also helps that I’m being paid by the hour now, and not the mile.

[Process note: It originally took me four paragraphs to say what I just said in half again as many sentences.]

So now I’m supposed to tell you about what it’s like driving a big truck across the small highways of Southern Indiana, but the subject is too big. I’ll have to whittle it down. I mean, the State’s grown exponentially as I discover how much industry there is tucked away in odd corners everywhere. At the same time it has shrunk as I pass signs to places I’ve been from the East, again from the West, then end up returning to from the North or the South. Don’t let me deceive you though; paths cross, but there are few straight lines.

No, there’s too much to tell. I’ll say but one word and can’t begin to address it properly either. The word is Limestone. Hey; I work for Stonebelt Freight Lines right, though stone is only a fraction of what we haul.

Forget the highways. I take off with an eighteen wheeler and travel roads that may or may not have a center line, but there sure ain’t no shoulder. I’ll travel over hill and down dale, through forests and farms. Sometimes vistas will open across the “Little Smokies,” the Karst topography of my region, then suddenly I’ll come upon a desert; a strip mine. They call it a Quarry.

They’ll load me up with near 50,000 lbs of stone and I’m supposed to go back the way that I came, lumbering back to civilization. It’s funny I should use that word; lumbering. This stuff is Deep Indiana. I figure the only way I could get deeper, work wize, would be to go off road and haul Timber.

I doubt that will happen, but still there’s so much more to tell about limestone, and everything else...