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...