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.

*                 *                *

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.