After a couple of lineup changes, we named ourselves Lightfoot, and we settled in with Daryl, Mack, myself, a husband and wife that played bass and piano and another guitar player who also played fiddle. He had a collection of guitars including a Flying V, which seemed funny to me since we were mainly playing country. We had some fun playing pretty much every weekend. The crowds at The Palace Saloon started to increase, so the owner expanded the stage area, and more people came. A guy everyone called Dancing Bear shuffled along the dance floor all night long holding a mug of beer. He was a hit with the increasing crowds.
Usually once every weekend there would be a fight in the bar. It’s just the way it always happened. A lot of the fights would be between women, and a few times if a fight broke out between two girls, the band would play some goofy jam and Mack would start calling the fight on the microphone like a boxing announcer. He was the comedian in the band and kept people laughing between the songs and sips of beer. My first wife and I were living our volatile relationship when one night a woman sitting at one of the tables close to the stage was looking at me the wrong way. That was all it took. My wife and this girl got into a shoving match and Mack cheered them on.
“The grand prize will be our drummer!” he announced.
The girl who had been staring escaped toward the exit door and just as she made her way out, my girl threw a long neck beer bottle like a rocket that smashed on the doorframe. The whole bar, almost a hundred of people, went silent as Tammy Sue ran out the door to catch her nemesis. Everyone in the band hit the door followed by about half the bar. Shit, this was going to be a good one, and like everybody else, I didn’t want to miss it. The bouncer got to them before any real damage was done, but it was really fucking exciting there for a moment. An Arkansas Saturday night.
My parole was going well, with music and work seeming to occupy my time and keeping me from getting into any trouble. I worked several different jobs trying to find one to match my passion for music and my need to fill my pockets with dollar bills. I gave a shot at everything – welder’s helper, finishing sheet rock, painting, and restaurant work. I worked for almost a year reading water meters for the Little Rock Water Company, walking on every street in the city. And then I got a job driving.
It was a delivery truck for a chicken and meat distributor. The pay was good, and when I was first hired, I drove a small pick-up style delivery truck. After a couple of months I moved into a Ford 9000 tandem-axle bob truck that had a 10-speed transmission and topped 25,000 gross weights, the maximum allowed weight that particular vehicle can weigh when fully loaded. Driving throughout the state taught me how to work a clutch in a large diesel-powered vehicle and shift a 10-speed connected to a dual axle. I shifted that truck a million times a day.
It was a lot of hard, tiring work that wore me out most days, but I was never too tired to spend the night playing music. Who knew those two things would match up so well throughout the rest of my life?
Epilogue Wheels On The Ground
Life has been described as a highway. I’m not really sure what that means. I do know for me that I’ve discovered it takes the highway to get to where life actually is. It’s been the stops along those roads that added up to a life for me.
I’ve learned firsthand what great countries America and Canada are. My chosen career path has put me on the many roads that connect the towns and cities in North America. I’ve traveled all types of terrain, and I’ve met thousands of people along the way. I’ve discovered the common threads of human behavior and figured out many of the reasons for my own. What may be a small or momentary interaction to some have significant meaning to me and have contributed to who I am.
Life on the road, hopping from one place to another in short amounts of time, suits someone like me well. I’m a bit of a loner who doesn’t like being that alone. I’m a bit of an individual who really enjoys working on a team.
At a young age, I ran from the many meanings of life, searching for a life only to realize that life IS about being a searcher.
After becoming an adult, I tried to avoid my parents. I spent a lot of effort shutting them out of my life. I didn’t feel like either one of them had offered me much or that either of them had put me on a path of success. I went in search of it on my own. As a youngster and an adult, I didn’t want their influences in my life.
My dad was a good man. Not being that close to him throughout my life and only seeing him occasionally, I saw how the world beat on him over the years. He never seemed to fight back. Many years passed between the few times I saw him. He kept trudging along. No matter the events surrounding him, he just went on. He didn’t complain much when I saw him. He lived from paycheck to paycheck his entire life and never seemed to care much if he had financial security.
One day before he died, we talked about how much time we had actually spent together over the years. We narrowed it down to less than seven years. He was then in his 70s. Fifty years of my life and only seven years in my father’s actual presence. What a loss I felt and still feel for that matter. He retired from the military after 25 years of dedicated service to our country. He then worked in the civilian world before retiring again. Four months after retiring from civilian work, he found out he had cancer. A year later, he died.
As I got older and my own family began to develop, the memories of my abusive upbringing began to subside, and I made efforts to communicate more with my mother. Michelle played an important part in that reconnection. Mom would come to family dinners, and she started participating in the love that our family shared. I believe she saw that it was possible to have disciplined and respectful children without forcing it upon them with abuse.
She never understood what I did in my profession or why I did it until she came to a concert while I was on a tour in the summer of 2003. When the tour came through my hometown, she was able to experience what I had escaped to. In a wheelchair, suffering from breast cancer and leukemia, she was able to see the respect by my co-workers and success I had found in my life. Sitting front row at that show, I think she felt the power of the love the entertainer I was traveling with at the time was putting out to the masses.
I saw her experience the love of the crowd that the entertainer was soaking up. I know she took in a little of it just as I do each time. Surrounded by people who were cheering and happy, I think she realized the positive, love-filled power that music, crowds and the touring industry had had on me.
Several months later she died. I was at home and able to say my goodbyes to her in the hospital before she passed. I learned an important lesson about forgiveness that day. While she didn’t provide the most loving atmosphere in my life, in a twisted way, she showed me the important challenge of offering and encouraging a loving, nurturing and upbeat home for my own family, and by doing so, perhaps future generations have been changed.
I have made many good and bad choices in my life. Choosing to work on the road turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It lifted me out of the downward spiral I was headed toward had I never left Little Rock. Getting behind the wheel and learning how people live and interact from all walks of life and places saved me from a life of despair and destruction.
It affects me greatly when I think about the distance and separation that my job brings my children and me. But it also inspires me to make the time we spend together filled with quality. I try to make that time as special and meaningful as possible.
I enjoy home life, but I’m an adventurous soul who can’t seem to sit still for any length of time. The constant drive behind the wheel is the only chance to be still for a moment and think. These days, I enjoy the simple pleasures of home while making a living on the road and enriching my life at the same time. I look forward to where the road takes me next.
One of my best friends and mentors said it best, “No one ever said the life of a rock and roll bus driver was going to be easy.” It can, however, be very satisfying.
THE END
Contributing Writers
Jillian McGehee of Little Rock, Arkansas, is a professional writer and editor with a Masters of Arts Degree in journalism. She has earned awards from the Associated Press and Arkansas Press Association.
Richard Duke is a writer and journalist who lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. He has been honored by the Associated Press and the Arkansas Press Association.
Editor
For 30 years a freelance writer, Marcia Camp’s stories, essays, and features have appeared in books, magazines, and literary journals. She is the author of You Can’t Leave Till you Do the Paperwork: Matters of Life and Death, and The Charity Letters of JoAnn Cayce.
Table of Contents
Tales from the Trails of a Rock ’N’ Roll Bus Driver Book Information
About the Author
Author's Note
Foreword John David Nixon
Prologue Stealing the Magic
Part I
Chapter 1 A First Time For Everything
Chapter 2 A Wet Dog and A Clean Carpet
Chapter 3 A Taste of Meat and a Future Life
Chapter 4 The Power Of A Woman
Chapter 5 Stealing The Star
Chapter 6 Rolling With Rock Royalty
Chapter 7 The Lip-Syncer In The Hat
Chapter 8 The Short Strange Trip
Chapter 9 Tricks Of The Trade
Chapter 10 Americans Vs. Russians
Chapter 11 Breaking In The New Guys
Chapter 12 The Power Of The Politician
Chapter 13 Not Ready For Prime Time
Chapter 14 The Missed Beat
Chapter 15 Run For The Border
Chapter 16 Brotherly Love
Chapter 17 Dealing With Divas
Chapter 18 Crash
Chapter 19 Flashing Before My Eyes
Chapter 20 Wrong Number
Chapter 21 Love And Lewd
Chapter 22 Sex Show After The Rock Show
Chapter 23 A Hero Breaks His Sword
Chapter 24 Home Away From Home
Chapter 25 Get A Grip
Chapter 26 The Road Is A Harsh Mistress
Part II
The Road Taken My Path To The Driver Seat
Chapter 27 A Calling
Chapter 28 The Stage Is Set
Chapter 29 A Driver Is Born
Chapter 30 Trucking Tycoon
Chapter 31 Jeremy
Chapter 32 A Broken Family Tree
Chapter 33 Seeing The Future Through Television
Chapter 34 Testing The Limits
Chapter 35 The Departure Of Dad
Chapter 36 Planning An Escape
Chapter 37 Music Makes An Entrance
Chapter 38 Private Lessons
Chapter 39 The Not So Great Escape
Chapter 40 Another Home Wrecked
Chapter 41 The Crimes Continue
Chapter 42 A Carnie's Life For Me
Chapter 43 Some Fun Now
Chapter 44 Getting It Together
Chapter 45 Fubar In Hawaii
Chapter 46 A Match Made In Music
Epilogue Wheels On The Ground
Contributing Writers
Editor
Tales from the Trails of a Rock ’n’ Roll Bus Driver Page 29