I shouted in surprise but, unfortunately, the noise also startled Kitty, who then sunk her claws deeply into the flesh of my thigh. With extreme difficulty, I harnessed my natural instinct to stand up and yell an expletive. I then got to the task of gently prying Kitty’s claws from my flesh while I navigated the icy curve with a fidgety four-wheeler beside me. Happily, we came out of this situation unscathed but, despite the reading of seven degrees on my outside thermometer, I realized that I had broken into a sweat.
Both Kitty and I have also had some winter adventures that, in retrospect, seem comical. I once let Kitty out at a rest area in Montana to play in the snow. The sun had been out the day before, causing some of the ice to melt before the temperature dropped back below freezing. This resulted in a thin sheet of ice covering the snow. After her initial intrigue, Kitty decided that she didn’t like the ice that crackled beneath her paws and caused her to sink. She was, in fact, meowing in angst, and I couldn’t help being a bit amused by her plight as I retrieved my camera to memorialize this event. By the time I’d snapped a couple of photos, her panic had escalated past funny, and I rescued the frightened feline from her icy mire. As I held her in my arms, Kitty shot a searing gaze at me that conspicuously appeared to be a “screw you” look. I guess I couldn’t blame her.
The occasion on which I was, literally, the butt of the joke happened in Ohio. It was snowing heavily when we arrived at our shipper, and when I asked the Shipping Clerk where he wanted me to put my empty trailer, he vaguely replied, “Down at the end.” Well, there was nowhere to put it "down at the end" so, I turned to circumnavigate the building in an attempt to find the "end" to which he might be referring. It didn’t take long to see that this had been a mistake—there were snow and ice everywhere! I, sadly, recognized this too late, and I was doomed to be stuck while attempting to back out. After a series of failed efforts to dislodge the truck from its bog, I had no choice but to call for a tow truck.
While waiting for help to arrive, I could no longer ignore the need to heed nature’s call, so I went into a wooded area to attend to business. The woods were not very dense, and there were railroad tracks very close to my chosen spot. It should not have surprised me to hear the rumble of a train as soon as my pants were around my ankles.
I pondered the irony when I recalled that, not so long ago, I had complained to my landlord about the broken blinds in the bathroom of my upstate New York apartment. Now, I was perfectly comfortable in flashing a vertical smile to a passing train while squatting like a Bluetick hound.
My metamorphosis into a trucker was complete.
Week 7: Bear Creek, Egypt, and Kitty
We began this week early as we left on Sunday morning to return to Jackson, Tennessee; the home of the world’s most famous railroad engineer, Casey Jones. We would be picking up another load of steel to deliver to Baldwin, Florida, a small town about 19 miles west of Jacksonville.
The delivery to Baldwin would have gone splendidly if anyone had told me that I was supposed to back out of the unloading area to exit the plant. I drove straight through, expecting there to be an exit in the back of the facility—there wasn’t! I had to perform a series of Cirque du Soleil maneuvers to get back to where I had entered. Many customers and shippers post signs to direct the driver or, the guard will provide verbal instructions. Others could not care less. I was in a foul mood when I arrived at the Jacksonville terminal to spend the night.
On Tuesday morning, we went to Savannah to pick up a load at Gold Bond, and we ran into Ringo for the first time since I’d gone solo. He had a new trainee in tow, and we would both be delivering to Bear Creek, Alabama the next morning. It hurt my pride a little when he chided me for taking so long to get to Baldwin so, I was inwardly amused when I beat him to Bear Creek by almost an hour.
Bear Creek’s claim to fame is that their Phillips High School football stadium was the first in the state to be lighted.[6] To an outsider, this might seem trivial, but in Alabama, where football is a religion, anything pertaining to the pigskin is a big deal. After Bear Creek, Ringo and I met again at the Bridgeport terminal, but our ways then parted as his next delivery was to Jacksonville and mine was to Saltillo, Mississippi.
The delivery in Saltillo went fine except for a daunting steep hill followed by a subsequent drop-off to get into the receiving area at the customer. Aside from being a little scary, it was a painless delivery. Then we were off to Macon, Mississippi to pick up a load of lumber going to Millwood, Kentucky.
On the way out of Macon, I passed through a Mississippi community called Egypt. I immediately burst out laughing with the knowledge that I had now, officially, arrived in Bumfuck, Egypt.
The remainder of the week was without incident, and we got back to Bridgeport late on Friday evening. Upon arriving home, Kitty had come to expect her weekend reward—a jar of baby food. I had begun a tradition, which still continues, of treating Kitty to a jar of Gerber as a homecoming bonus. I realized that I was attaching anthropomorphic characteristics to an animal, but it was difficult to do otherwise when I spent far more time with my cat than with any other human. Besides, she often displayed human-like characteristics.
For example, I once made the mistake of buying a cheaper brand of baby food for Kitty’s reward. She sniffed it, turned her nose up, and met my eyes with a disgusted glare. She may be only a cat, but it was apparent that she was capable of discerning quality. From that point on, I purchased only Gerber.
Aside from having to fight with my driver manager again to get home, this week had gone pretty well. The next week, however, would provide me with the most frightening moments that I have experienced since I’ve been a truck driver.
Week 8: Mountain Man
The first delivery of a new week returned me to Huntsville, Alabama. Although I lived in Huntsville for almost twenty years after I got out of the Navy, it was only recently that I finally visited the facility that Huntsville is most famous for—the Space and Rocket Center. Huntsville’s Space and Rocket Center is home to the world-famous Space Camp. I recall, as a little boy, being mesmerized by watching the sky over Huntsville transform into an array of kaleidoscope colors as engineers tested rocket fuels. This dazzling display set the wheels of imagination and dreaming into motion in a young boy’s mind.
As a middle-aged man, I still harbor hopes and dreams with the firm belief that we are never too old to pursue them. As age progresses, many tend to write off dreams as silly or inconsequential because the odds are stacked against us. However, if dreams had favorable odds, they would probably be called "likelihoods" or "favorable chances." I, for one, don’t think that I have ever felt a magical surge of hope and anticipation that compares to the thrill of reaching for the stars. I believe that life’s richest moments are attained by reaching for an unlikely goal. The journey, in fact, may prove just as enlightening as the reward of reaching the destination. While it is true that we cannot make a crater every time we shoot for the moon, that doesn’t mean that we should stop trying…perhaps it’s just a sign to adjust our aim a little. With that, I’ll close the chapter on my road-apple philosophy for today.
Leo, the forklift driver in Huntsville, had a terrible cold today. He said that it was probably from working in the chilling rain from when I’d been there two weeks prior. I can still feel my soaked gloves and socks from that day—Yuck!
After Huntsville, we were off to deliver to Stallings, North Carolina and then, we went to pick up in Prosperity, South Carolina.
Prosperity formerly went under the name, Frog Level. The most popular legend of how the name originated tells of a pond infested with innumerable frogs. A local man is said to have become intoxicated and fell asleep while lying at the end of the pond. When he awoke, the frogs were croaking and he, still being in a drunken stupor, imagined that they were crying, “Frog level.”[7] The old name must still hold a bit of influence because Prosperity now holds an annual "Hoppin’ Festival" in which a Hoppin’ Pageant Queen is elected.
Regardless of the distinct honor that it would have been to meet the reigning Hoppin’ Queen, I had to pick up my load to deliver to Vonore, Tennessee. This is where things got interesting.
On the way to Vonore, I missed the road I meant to take and, from looking at my map on the fly, I devised a "Plan B" that would prove worthy of its own wing in the Bonehead Hall of Fame. I ascertained that I could follow US431 through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg and then, cut across on Highway 73 to get back to my road. If I had taken the time to study my map closely, I would have seen the folly of this decision. What I did not know, at the time, was that the path I had chosen would take me directly toward Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in Tennessee!
Suffice it to say that this Smokey Mountain trail was not designed with eighteen-wheelers in mind. The truck laboriously crept up the mountain in second gear as the hairpin curves made my stomach churn. It was now obvious that this had been a mistake of epic proportions, but there was absolutely nowhere to turn around; the only thing I could do was keep crawling skyward. Kitty also sensed the tension of our predicament and hid beneath the seat. I would have liked nothing better than to crawl under there with her, but I knew I had to get us out of this mess somehow.
I finally came upon a small guard shack, but the mountain appeared to continue its ascent beyond the shack. My heart sank to my shoe soles when the guard told me that the road dead-ended at the top, and there would be nowhere to turn around. What the hell was I going to do?
Fighting off the urge to start blubbering like a little girl, I began to study my immediate surroundings. A small grassy area behind the guard shack was flanked by a double row of ditches. Flared metal poles inserted into the ground at uneven intervals peeked perilously above the grass like leaden cobras. Under normal circumstances, I would never have considered taking a truck into a precarious space like this, but it appeared to be my one-and-only option.
I said a little prayer and the guard wished me good luck. To make matters worse, the automatic transmission on the Mack was beginning to overheat, and it was increasingly difficult to get it to lock into gear. I would be glad that my next truck would not have an automatic transmission. As I warily entered the grassy area, I knew there was no room for error. The deep ditches on both sides of me promised a severe penalty for blunder. If my trailer went too far into one of them, at best; I would be stuck, at worst; the truck could roll over! I don’t think I had trembled and sweated this much since I’d gotten my first real kiss from a girl when I was fourteen.
I destroyed the metal pole sticking out of the ground to my left as I rigidly maneuvered the truck between the two ditches. The guard, who was watching with nervous anticipation yelled, “Don’t worry about it man! Just do what you have to do!”
By the time I had negotiated the narrow course and brought the truck safely back to the mountain trail, I had made innumerable vows to start attending church and to never again forget Mother’s Day, the birthday or anniversary of any of my friends, Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, Groundhog Day, or even National Kazoo Day. Despite knocking over most of the guard’s cones, he ran up to my window and let out a hearty “WOO-HOO!”
“Damn!” he panted, “I never thought you were going to make it!”
“Neither did I,” I conceded as I mopped the perspiration from my forehead with an equally sweaty arm.
I attempted to get out and help him set his cones upright, but he waved me off. He was probably just as glad to get rid of me as I was to get out of there. I decided that I would never do another "on the fly" route change in an unfamiliar area again.
I arrived in Vonore about an hour late for my appointment and had to sit for an additional two hours to be unloaded. The customer in Vonore had a "Row of Shame" to which tardy drivers were directed to go sit and wait. I didn’t even care. I was just happy to have emerged intact from the mountain fiasco. After Vonore, we delivered to Simpsonville, South Carolina and then, we went back to Camak, Georgia to pick up more lumber. In Camak, I would meet another driver who possessed all the charm of a bull shark with hemorrhoids.
The flatbed driver who was behind me in the loading line, apparently, took offense when I didn’t move to allow him into my spot before I secured my straps. I had waited for the guy ahead of me to get his straps on, so I didn’t see any reason why I should move before I had mine on. But Mr. Sunshine did not share the same sentiment because he pulled ahead of me in the cargo area in an attempt to block me in. He was as pissed off as a hornet with a blunted stinger, and I was getting pretty cranky as well. Nonetheless, I had no desire to go to jail today for planting my ratchet bar across his teeth so, I got back into my truck and eked past him despite his best effort to prevent my progress. I’ll admit that it gave me infinite delight as I watched his eyes widen in horror as my trailer edged past his tractor with a dime’s-width clearance. I offered him the bonus of a one-fingered salute as I left the yard with a devious smile of satisfaction plastered to my face.
This load was scheduled for delivery in Bartow, Florida. I knew that this would run me over hours and eliminate my weekend so; I called my driver manager and told him I would drop it in Savannah. I didn’t ask him if I could—I told him that I would! I was rapidly losing the wide-eyed gape of a rookie, and I was getting fed up with the end-of-the-week antics of the company. My driver manager argued, but he finally relented.
I dropped my load in Savannah and picked up another one to take back to Bridgeport. Even so, it was after midnight on Saturday morning before I got back. This crap was getting old! It’s not what I’d signed on for, and it’s not what I’d been promised. I was already beginning to question my future with this company.
Week 9: Trucking, Fort Rucker, and Einstein
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger; who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
-Albert Einstein
The beginning of the ninth week of my trucking career sent me to Swansea, South Carolina. Jesse James is said to have attended a church service at Sharon Crossroads Methodist Church near Swansea. Witnesses have attested that Jesse wore his sidearm in church and sat with his back to the wall during the service, fearing some type of ambush.[8]
Like Jesse, I also felt backed into a corner when I got a first look at the freight I'd be picking up. It was a massive array of steel girders, piled to the sky. The beams, being of different lengths and widths, made it appear that this "top-heavy" load might suffer some stability issues. To alleviate my concerns, I secured it using every single strap that I had on board. We spent the night at an abandoned store in Ulmer, South Carolina and then set out at 1am the next morning. This load was headed to a military base at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
Fort Rucker is the primary flight training base for Army Aviation and is home to the U.S. Army Aviation Warfighting Center and the U.S. Army Aviation Museum. Fort Rucker is often referred to as "Mother Rucker." This serves as both an insulting pseudo-homonym and defers to the birth of an Army Aviator's career and his or her constant return to the post for continued training. It is common knowledge in an Army Aviation career that "Everyone returns to Mother Rucker." [9] My first visit here would, indeed, prove to be a "Mother Rucker" for me!
Upon arrival, the gate guard instructed me to “Keep straight and you can't miss it.” There were two things wrong with these instructions: First, I didn't know what the heck "it" was. I assumed the steel would be going to a hangar, but there were hangars all over the place! Second, he should have said, “Veer right,” because when I “kept straight,” I dead-ended into a road with no place to turn around.
I sat directly across from the Flight School building and, since I had no idea where to go, I got out and walked toward the school to ask someone for directions. Before I got to the door, a white pickup truck stopped alongside me and spat out a hyperactive little old man, who looked to be at least 70
. He raced toward me with flailing arms as expletives spewed from his mouth like a geyser.
“I've got to talk to that fucking guard!” he exclaimed. “You're the second truck this morning to come down here, and there's no place for you to turn this son-of-a-bitch around.”
Tell me something I don't know, I thought.
He was the project manager for the new hangar that was under construction, and I couldn't prevent being amused by his Einsteinian hairstyle. His twig-like frame and agitated manner added the finishing touches to a comical portrait. However, I was not pleased with taking another dive into the all-too-familiar "pickle-barrel" once again.
“How are you at backing?” he shouted.
“Well,” I said, “I'm not the best, but I always get the job done.”
His ears, apparently, shut down after he'd heard "I'm not the best..." because from that point on, he began shouting instructions at me on how to drive my truck. He launched the commands in zealous blasts, and my initial amusement with this hyperactive Einstein look-alike quickly altered into a desire to plant an E=MC square-toed boot up his backside! To this point, however, I had humored him and held my tongue.
Finally, when I could endure no more of his verbal assaults, I asked him to get off of my truck with forced politeness. “I’ll get it where it needs to go,” I assured him through clenched teeth.
“You'll never get it through that gate with your trailer way over there,” he submitted. “You weren't listening to me!”
“I appreciate your help,” I answered sarcastically with a reddening face, “but I think I can get it in there if you step out of the way.”
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