Spirit of the Road

by Rick L. Huffman

  Almost everyone is abysmal at 45-degree angle backing to start, and I was no exception. Alan even resorted to mathematical equations to crack this puzzle, but it didn’t seem to help either of us. As we pondered the mysteries of this elusive skill, another student approached us to provide unsolicited mentoring. I cannot recall his name, so I’ll just call him Douchebag. In addition to vacant green eyes, greasy brown hair, and a set of British teeth that probably made Alan homesick, Douchebag possessed a conviction of his mastery of 45-degree angle backing. Since the beginning of the school, Douchebag leaped at every chance to offer unwelcome insight to both students and instructors. By this time, most of the students attempted to avoid his tutelage, viewing him as more pest than mentor.

  In truth, backing a big truck is more art than science. The only way to improve is through sheer repetition. Unfortunately, there was a limited amount of time and opportunities to practice before our road test. Concern arose among many of the students. We didn’t see how we’d possibly be ready in time.

  Enter Pat.

  Pat was another yard instructor; a petite middle-aged lady with closely cropped blonde hair and a forceful presence. She was a seasoned veteran of the road, having traveled many miles with a loyal canine companion named Zip Code.

  “I named him that because he’s been in every zip code,” explained Pat.

  She said the course in the yard was set up exactly the same way it would be for the test. Then, she pulled a Joe Namath moment out of her hat:

  “We’ve done this week in and week out with hundreds of students, and I guarantee I’ll have you ready for your test.”

  She spoke with such confidence that I didn’t write her words off as bluster—I believed her. True to her word, she showed us tricks that yielded immediate results. The skills she taught us wouldn’t have helped a bit at the dock of a crowded shipper, but they helped immensely in learning to get the trailer between the cones on this course.

  This brings up a point. A two or three-week trucking school is, essentially, a boot camp toward getting a CDL. Given the short time frame, the student is crammed with the essential knowledge to pass the test…period. There is no time to perfect or hone any of the basic skills. Make no mistake; a student fresh out of CDL School is NOT prepared to be on the road in an eighteen-wheeler. That is why, upon being hired by his first company, a new driver will spend, on average, six to eight weeks with a driver trainer before going solo. The role of a CDL school is to whip a student into shape to pass the CDL test. That’s it.

  In the meantime, we had been going out in groups of four with other instructors to drive on a low-traffic route in Decatur, Alabama to learn how to shift through the 10 gears. Donny was the first instructor to endure the comedy of errors from my group. Donny was a laid-back country boy with rugged features, for whom sitting at the helm of an eighteen-wheeler seemed as natural to him as putting on his pants in the morning. Donny was as cool as a cucumber and remained supportive despite our beginner mistakes. For the first couple of days, there was more grinding taking place in those trucks than in a Starbucks factory.

  Another instructor I rode with was Rick, a compact and vigorous black man. He possessed the hyperactive energy of a sugar-buzzed motivational speaker who had just swum fifty laps in a pool filled with coffee and Red Bull. Rick earned the nickname of "Boom Boom" because, his method of instruction for the proper time to shift gears was:

  “Okay, get ready—BOOM! Get ready—BOOM!”

  Boom Boom relayed countless road stories to us, and his irrepressible personality made him the most entertaining of the instructors.

  Finally, the time to take the road test arrived. We would go, in small groups, to the testing facility in Hartselle, Alabama over the next five days. I would test on the second day, and Alan would test on the fourth. Everyone was nervous, so I guess Alan just needed a laugh when he approached Douchebag and asked, “Do you think you’re going to pass?”

  “I KNOW I’m going to pass!” boasted Douchebag proudly.

  Douchebag failed on his first two attempts.

  The test consisted of four parts: first, the student would provide a verbal commentary of an inspection of the truck and trailer. Next would be straight-line backing followed by 45-degree angle backing and, finally, driving on the road with the evaluating officer.

  On my test day, the diminutive Ray and another student named Jerome accompanied me. Jerome was missing most of his front teeth, but that didn’t stop him from flashing an endearing smile. The poignant circumstances leading Jerome to CDL school had me, along with everyone else, in his corner rooting for him. The scuttlebutt among the instructors, however, didn’t give him a snowball’s chance in hell of passing. On this day, Jerome’s smile was missing and he was nervous to the point of trembling. It helped to relieve some of my tension as I offered encouragement to him as best I could.

  Ray was the first to test and despite being barely big enough to reach the pedals, he passed on the first attempt. Next was Jerome. Pat was the instructor who had accompanied us and she didn’t seem optimistic. Jerome, however, rose to the occasion and shocked everyone. He got what held up to be the highest score of anyone in the class.

  “I didn’t see that coming,” is all Pat could say.

  Now it was my turn. We were two for two today, and I certainly wanted to keep the streak intact. I breezed through the inspection because Alan and I had unmercifully drilled each other on this until we had it down cold. Straight-line backing didn’t prove to be a problem either. Then, it was time for the dreaded 45-degree angle backing. After my heart had skipped a few beats, I set up the way Pat had showed us, and I slowly maneuvered the trailer between the cones. It was perfection! I was dead center perfect! My confidence soared as I got out marveling at my trailer which sat neatly across the first chalk line. It was already a passing grade! However, I thought that I could back a little closer to the rear cone to improve my score. I returned to the driver’s seat and backed up just a little. Then I rushed out to observe my mastery, knowing that I’d just sent my score into the stratosphere.

  My life flashed before my eyes in horror as I found the rearmost cone lying horizontal as if it were a bowling pin toppled with a Brunswick from the hand of Walter Ray Williams Jr. I looked at the officer with an imploring appeal but, as the fallen cone lay there like a slug, he had no choice but to fail me.

  I was devastated. I moped to the curb and sat down with my head in my hands. Our roles reversed, Jerome came over to offer encouragement. I was pissed off at myself because my ego had caused me to fail. I’d just been trying to run up the score. I deserved to fail, and I knew it. Jerome didn’t allow me to feel sorry for myself for long though.

  “Git up and go take that Muthafucka again!” he insisted.

  “I know you can do it an’ I’m gone kick yo’ Muthafuckin ass if you don’t go take that Muthafucka again!”

  His words were blunt, straightforward, and to the point. I decided to go and take that Muthafucka again.

  This time, I collected myself and left my ego at the door. I backed the trailer between the cones and got out three or four times to assess my progress. When the rear of the trailer was across the first passing line, I looked at the officer and asked, “Is that passing?”

  He could not conceal an amused grin when he said, “Yeah, that’s passing. Do you want to go for a higher score?”

  “No, sir!” I stated with conviction.

  The road test went well and, after the emotional roller coaster ride of today, I could rest easy now—I had passed.

  The majority of the class did not pass on the first attempt. Even Alan had to take a second stab at it. Nevertheless, everyone eventually got a CDL—even Douchebag. I was going to miss many of these guys, especially Alan, but it was now time to find my first trucking job. I decided to take my first job with a flatbed company out of Savannah, Georgia. I’d be running southeast regional and working out of their Bridgeport, Alabama terminal. After going through orientation
in Savannah, taking a physical and signing a ton of paperwork, I met my trainer—and Ringo was his name-o.

  Training with Ringo

  Ringo was an imposing grizzly bear of a man with a thick, gray-flecked forest of a beard and, despite his thinning hair, he continued to grow steely, shoulder-length locks. He looked like an oversized caricature of Hank Williams Jr. The piercing resonance of Ringo’s thunderous baritone voice implied that he probably did not own any wine glasses.

  When he arrived to pick me up in the red, white and blue Mack, I loaded my gear into the truck in anxious anticipation of my first week on the road. As I began to settle in, I observed, in horror, only one sleeper berth. Did they expect us to share? Having recently seen the movie Brokeback Mountain, my butt cheeks instinctively tightened and my anus puckered into an impenetrable fortress. Ringo sensed my panic and released a powerful belly laugh.

  “The company’s gonna give us a condo next week,” he explained between chuckles. “We’re stuck in this flat top this week so, we’ll just have to do the best we can. You can have the sleeper the first couple of nights ‘till you get settled.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief and Ringo continued to chortle for the next few miles. Ringo had recently returned to the company after spending a year driving for a private owner. I was his first trainee. This would be a new experience for both of us.

  Over the next six weeks, we traversed the southeast together and Ringo displayed patience and understanding that belied his, sometimes, brash personality. Ringo could be described as many things, but boring is not among them. He regaled me with road stories and death-defying tales from his youth during our six weeks together. I never knew, with certainty, how much truth these stories contained but, oftentimes, an allegorical truth is just as enlightening as a literal one. Ringo was, without question, a bard of the open road. He also had a habit of bringing interrogative closure to many of his observations with the query, “You know what I mean?” I didn’t give it much thought to begin with but, after a time, I started to wonder if Ringo were channeling the ghost of the late Jim Varney. To his credit, however, he did find time to provide me with training between yarns.

  Since we were running southeast regional, we would get to go home on weekends. However, I would soon discover that the company’s idea of a "weekend" was often displayed by getting the driver home late Friday evening and then, dispatching him on a load that required him to leave on Sunday morning. The "trucker’s weekend" was not something for which I’d been prepared.

  The first couple of weeks were hard, because my body was not conditioned to this pace, this type of work, or these long hours. I lost most of the feeling in the tips of my fingers, and I had aches in places where I would have sworn I didn’t have places. My former sedentary job was a world away as I wrestled with 130-pound tarps, threw straps, climbed atop towering loads, and stretched bungee cords to secure the tarps. Sometimes, this had to be done in cold, wet, or muddy conditions but, gradually, my body began to adapt to the rigors of its new duties. My road-toughness would not approach the level of Ringo’s during the six weeks I rode with him, but I would eventually get it to a standard that I would have formerly thought impossible.

  Ringo also introduced me to some places on the map that make a new driver sweat. One such place was the Green River Gorge on I-40 in North Carolina. I had already heard some horror stories pertaining to "The Gorge" and I have, since, seen the aftermath of a rollover while driving through it. However, I came to realize that The Gorge is nothing to fear so long as it is approached with respect and common sense. Accidents happen there because, quite simply, some drivers go through it too fast.

  I was, nonetheless, a bit tense the first time I descended Monteagle in Tennessee. I would later view Monteagle as little more than a bump in the road after traveling through the Rockies, but I attempt to never have a cavalier attitude toward descending a mountain in a big truck. I have never forgotten the words of Boom Boom in trucking school concerning this:

  “You can come down a mountain too slow as many times as you want. You can come down a mountain too fast, once!”

  We were taught to use the proper combination of downshifting, tapping the brakes and utilizing Jake brakes to minimize air brake usage. A Jake brake is a mechanism that uses compressed air in the cylinders to slow the vehicle. If you’ve ever heard a loud and sudden deep guttural growl from a big truck that causes your heart to leap into your throat and your chicken McNuggets to go a’flyin’…that’s un-muffled Jake brakes. However, in most places, the law requires them to be muffled nowadays. A driver merely flips a switch to engage them. Still, if you are hauling a 40,000-pound load on a 6% or 7% downgrade— trust me—you’ll have to use the air brakes.

  I have smelled the acrid odor of smoking brakes more than once while descending a mountain and, each time, I prayed that the smell wasn’t emanating from my truck. This is an olfactory experience that every driver fears. I rarely speak for others, but I feel secure in saying that any driver will admit he’d rather whiff a fart brewed from the intestinal fermentation of cheap beer and pickled eggs than to smell his own brakes smoking while descending a mountain.

  Ringo and I would sometimes enjoy one another’s company and, at other times, merely endure it. Overall, Ringo was an excellent trainer. He provided me with the necessary tools to fly solo and he often gave encouragement when I struggled with my confidence. We remained friends after my training, and later circumstances required me to ask some favors from him to which he eagerly complied. I still think highly of Ringo and wish nothing but the best for him and his family.

  Finally, the six weeks of training drew to a conclusion, and it was time for me to be assigned my own truck. I’d pick it up at the company terminal in Mobile, Alabama. I hoped to make Ringo proud by dashing from the starting gate like a well-conditioned thoroughbred. Instead, I stumbled through the chute like a three-legged mare.

  The First Delivery

  Ringo and I said our goodbyes after spending the night at the Mobile terminal and I was left to pick up my truck, a 2001 flattop Mack with over 600,000 miles on the odometer. It was missing almost all of the necessary equipment and I spent the better part of the morning rounding up my gear.

  Finally, I was off on my own. I was nervous, but I was excited too. I had evolved into a safe driver on the road, but my backing skills were still reprehensible. In general, flatbed drivers do less precision backing than dry van drivers because, more often than not, they are loaded and unloaded via forklift out in the open as opposed to in a dock. Precision backing is, nonetheless, required from a flatbed driver too. Ringo once equated my backing skills to “a monkey screwing a football.”

  My first load assignment had me picking up a load of shingles in Mobile to deliver to Upchurch Building Supply in Greenwood, Mississippi the following day. My message indicated that I had a pre-loaded trailer so, I bobtailed to the shipper only to discover that my load was at the Mobile terminal. Unbeknownst to me, Ringo and I had spent the night sitting next to my load.

  I made a wrong turn on my way back to the terminal and wound up taking an unscheduled tour of Mobile. Eventually, I found my way back and began the arduous task of hooking up to my load and securing it. In training, Ringo and I had worked together with the tarps, straps, and bungee cords but, alone, it seemed as if I were wading through molasses. I was painfully slow, but I wanted to make sure that my load was secure. When I was satisfied, I pulled out to embark on my first solo trip.

  By the time I got to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the heavens had opened up and the rain was pelting down in torrents. It gave me a scare when I stopped at a red light and saw smoke billowing from beneath my trailer. I pulled alongside the road to investigate and decided that this was merely a heat exchange between the rain and the rear trailer tires. I, nonetheless, kept a wary eye behind me as I forged ahead but, as the rain subsided, the steam from the rear tires also lessened. I rolled into a rest area on I-55 near Winona, Mississippi and spent the night
there.

  I drove to Greenwood the next morning and looked for Upchurch as per my directions. After passing through the entire city, something seemed amiss. I stopped at a convenience store which, luckily, had room for me to turn around and asked a security guard for directions. Upchurch was supposed to be next to Shoney’s and, while the guard was unfamiliar with Upchurch, he told me how to get back to Shoney’s.

  I found Shoney’s but still, saw no Upchurch. However, I saw a True Value hardware store so, I pulled in front of it and asked a man, who was going inside, if he knew where Upchurch was.

  “This is it,” he replied, “The name has just changed.”

  I had gotten my first taste of trucking company efficiency in providing directions. The difficulties notwithstanding, I had finally located my first customer. All I had to do now was pull around back to be unloaded. Piece of cake!

  It was with a combination of dismay and denial when the cartoonish image of a monkey humping a football entered my mind, upon realizing that I had turned down a dead-end alley. The only way to get out would be to do a blindside backing maneuver into the street, with a ditch on both sides. I had promised myself to remain an optimist in my new job, but I suddenly felt that the glass half-full/glass half-empty axiom did not apply to me. I was convinced that life had served me up with a dribble glass!

  I was furious with myself for making such a stupid mistake, but I concentrated my efforts on the seemingly impossible task of getting myself out of this mess. My slapstick antics captured the attention of an elderly white-haired man who looked to be in his seventies. As he ambled toward the site of my comical frolic, I could tell by his expression that my driving skills seemed about as natural to him as a supermodel who had just combed her hair with a rock.