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.

*                 *                *

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.

Fumbling Identity

 

It's been winter; dark and cold. I sank into my depressive phase, becoming unproductive as the layers of gauze wrapped themselves around me. It's more like a straitjacket than a cocoon; there's no emerging ready to fly away on gossamer wings. Rather, I poke my head out and look at the mess that I've allowed to accumulate around me and just want to draw the frayed ends of the gauze up to my chin like a comforter and go back to sleep.

Ack; No; Enough! Throw back the covers and arise! It's Springtime!

Oh, I've had adventures, things that I could have written about. It's been a hard winter, with lots of snow. I got stuck in the snow with my big truck three times. Twice I got myself out but I had to be pulled out of an icy parking lot on a hill that I just couldn't get any traction on. Fortunately one of the workers there had a bad ass pickup truck with 300+ turbocharged diesel horsepower under the hood and huge tires so I didn't have to involve the company and call a tow truck. Another of the workers sidled up to me as the guy with the pickup truck was attaching the chain and said, “He's been bragging about how his truck could haul a semi, I guess we'll find out.” I got the feeling he sort of hoped the pickup wasn't up to the task.

The whole crew came out to watch. Bets were probably placed. Then, with tires spinning and the pickup truck veering from side to side at the end of the taught chain we were up the hill and out onto the four lane highway, coming to a stop in the middle “turn only” lane to unhook. The only trouble was that I was now pointed in the wrong direction. I guess we should have communicated a little better before we started. With workers stopping traffic I just naturally assumed we'd be turning left, the easier turn for a big truck to make. When I realize we were turning right I thought, “Shit, I hope this guys knows that I need to go way out before starting the turn or I'll just end up in that snow bank!” I'm fortunate that the oncoming cars were just let loose from the stoplight because that hadn't been taken into account and there wasn't anyone on that side of the road to stop traffic. The driver saw what was happening though, and in his spinning swing back left kept going into the oncoming lanes and I was able to clear the turn. I don't know if the other workers were cheering or not, but I was. The situation was resolved early enough for me to make my next appointment on time, even given that I had to go many miles out of my way to get turned around. On a snowy day like that I might still be sitting there waiting for a tow truck.

My superiors know nothing of that event, or of the other times that I was stuck, or of many things, like the time that my air line came unhooked, and I don't want them to. I'm sure that allowing a worker to pull me out like that was against company policy, and probably for good insurance reasons, but it sure made my life a lot easier. Not only would I have had to wait for the tow truck, and then been late for my next appointment and probably not have gotten back in time to go home that night, it would have gone into my employee record as an “incident” and I would have had to do online training and receive “counseling.” Like it was all my fault somehow .

I would expect them to understand the heightened stress of driving in snowy conditions, however. There were many snow days and I was only late to an appointment once. I called that time from three miles away from my destination, with fifteen minuets to go before I was due, to say that I was in a traffic backup. At least I wasn't charged a service failure for that but through it all did I receive a single “Thank you,” or “Good job?” No. < >I'd left the house four hours early in order to be on time for that traffic backup, absent which I would have made the appointment, like I made all of my other appointments on equally bad or worse days.

Bitter, are we? I hope my bitching is at least amusing?

“Foobar,” that word from Saving Private Ryan to indicate the ineptitude of bureaucracy. The Company has had this account that I'm on for several years. The account requires that we have lift gates on the back of some of our trailers. The customer pays more for a lift gate delivery. The lift gates are powered by batteries that are charged from the truck alternator through a plug tandem to the plug that powers the brake lights and turn signals. Only none of our trucks dedicated to the account have that second plug, until recently. When the batteries would run down the trailer would have to be put into the shop for them to get recharged. Foobar. What a waste.

I don't know how much I've told you, if at all, about the replacement Fleet Manager who was fired. He was a little inept, but in a likeable way. He was just sort of fumbling, which cost him his job. He, however, managed to finally arrange for our trucks to have the “stinger kits,” those second plugs to recharge the lift gate batteries, installed. Now...if I'd had my last B Service done in Louisville, like it was supposed to have been done (see below) then I would have had a stinger kit on my truck. But we all know how that turned out.

The years have been hard on those poor batteries and this winter harder still. I would have to take my socks off to count the times that I've had lift gate deliveries where the lift gate wouldn't work. The other drivers on the account tell me that even with the stinger kit the batteries are sluggish. But does the company want to replace them? Hell no, not after the “expense” of installing the stinger kits.

So anyway, I'm still low man on the totem pole at this account. I'm the one with the sleeper cab even though some of the places we service are too tight for anything but a day cab with the 53' trailers we pull. The reasoning is that with a sleeper cab I can do the long distance runs, rather than pay for a hotel room for the driver like most regional delivery companies do.

They gave me advance warning on Friday, bless their hearts, that I would have an over the road load the following week going to Iola Kansas, about sixty miles southwest of Kansas City. I didn't know why I was to deliver a load so far away but I kind of figured it was because the customer had asked for a lift gate. I was right. You can guess what happened. I'm the only one without a stinger kit, but the only one with a sleeper cab. Foobar. Fortunately the lift gate worked long enough to get the two huge side by side refrigerators off the back of the truck because the ramp that we had to use to unload the rest of the trailer was narrow and slippery with the early morning dew. Someone could have been hurt. There was more heavy stuff to come but the ramp had dried off by then.

After I got back to Plainfield the hours of service regulations wouldn't let me drive until well after all of the Electrolux loads were scheduled to leave the yard. My fleet manager said he'd find something for me to do, move some trailers around or maybe a “bottle run” or two for the Pepsi account, something so that I could make a little money. I dropped my trailer and waited. He called me and said there wasn't anything except a multi-stop load going to St. Louis for the Aurora Trailer Parts account that he also manages. He said they really needed help covering the load and asked if I was willing to do it.

St. Louis? I could make it there and back in a day, but not in time to go home that night. I'd have to spend another night on the truck. Part of me wanted to take the day off but I really need the money so I said I'd do it. I had actually packed an extra day's clothing just in case something like this happened. My cat has towers of dry food and water but I called my neighbor and asked if they'd give her some wet food and clean out her litter box.

So it was all good, but when the dispatch information came through I saw that although the first three stops were in the St. Louis area, the fourth stop was in Springfield, Missouri, and the final stop all the way down in Joplin, on the Oklahoma line. “Sorry, I had to give you a little bit longer load,” my fleet manager said. Like hell, he knew all along what the load was. “I'll give you something extra for doing this, we really need the help,” he said, “and I'll dead head you back so you don't have to worry about a back haul.” I suppose I could have refused it, but I didn't. Instead I called my neighbor back to ask if they could take care of Nikity on Friday as well.

Oh lord, I had some adventures on that run. The first two stops were inner city St. Louis. One on the south side, one on the north. The inner city is always fun with a big truck, I assure you, but I did get to drive right beneath the Arch, my favorite piece of public art.

The last two stops were scheduled on the following day, Thursday. I got to the first one outside of Springfield a half an hour before the place officially opened. My fleet manager sent me a message saying, “Since you're getting such an early start we should be able to get you a back haul.” Now how did I know that he was going to renig on his promise to dead head me home?

Truthfully I didn't mind. It seemed just a little too wasteful to drive all that way, consume all that fuel and release all that carbon for no other purpose than to get me home.

Now, I'm not a proponent of Murphy's law, but I couldn't have used my subsequent experiences as an argument against it. First of all, getting to a receiver early is no guarantee that they will unload you early. I had to wait both there and at the final stop in Joplin. Then, the back haul picked up in Coffeeville, Kansas, another ninety miles west. On the way out I crossed several bridges with weight limits and calculated how heavy my load could be and still let me take that direct route back. You guessed it, the load was twice as heavy. I had to go way down into Oklahoma and jump on the Turnpike to get pointed back in the right direction.

Then again I actually can disprove Murphy's law, here and now. The law states that “If something can go wrong, then it will.” Simple logic. If that were the case then there would also have been weight limits on the highways that I chose to take, or I would have knocked mirrors with a passing truck on those narrow roads, or my “Pike Pass,” a transponder ez pass for the Oklahoma Turnpike, wouldn't have worked (I'd often wondered why they put a Pike Pass on an Indiana based regional truck. “I'm never going to drive this truck in Oklahoma,” I said to myself. Never say never.) and I didn't have the cash to cover the toll. Hell, I would have run over a bus full of school children and survived the resultant fiery crash so that I could live the rest of my life in remorse. That's the reason that no matter how bad things get on the road truck drivers never say, “What else could go wrong.”

Or I wouldn't have made it back to Plainfield in time for my weekend and the neighbors would have had to take care of the cat for another day. No, it was Indianapolis Friday rush hour by the time that I got back, but I did make it. There was actually a point to all of this besides bitching. This was supposed to be a lead in to a reflection on life over the road, both how I miss it, and how I'm glad as hell I don't have to do it anymore, except for these small exceptions. More importantly, I was going to reflect on how so much of my identity is still involved with being a driver. I laid The Reluctant Trucker to rest, but yet I continue. The only trouble is I'm pooped after all this writing, and you're probably pooped too, if you've read this far. Perhaps the question will inform future posts? We can only wait and see.