Spirit of the Road

by Rick L. Huffman

  Gerald was an apple-cheeked man with a face marked by laugh lines and partially covered by a thick, white Santa Claus beard. His cheerful and untroubled nature was often replaced with a look of concern as we rode together to Cox Medical Center South in Springfield where they’d taken Merlin. A congregation of family and friends had already banded together in the waiting room by the time we arrived. It was obvious from the outset that many people shared a love and concern for Merlin and, after having spent an all-too-brief time with him, it wasn’t hard to understand why.

  Merlin’s injuries were severe. His ankle was mangled to the point where doctors were unsure whether he would be able to keep his foot. He had a broken arm and four broken ribs, and there was hemorrhaging in his brain from a blow to the head.

  As of the next morning, the news was cautiously hopeful. Although Merlin had not regained consciousness, the doctors said that his brain had not swollen, and his ankle had not gotten any worse. The challenge would be to keep infection at bay.

  I joined in the prayer circle among family and friends at the hospital and I was deeply touched by the outpouring of love and emotion on Merlin’s behalf. I vowed to pray for him until the crisis had passed. While my concerns were with Merlin and his family, I also had to consider my own matters. Now, I was without a trainer and stranded in rural Missouri.

  I called the company from the hospital, but the conversation offered no immediate solution. After sleeping badly, I called again the next morning and got better results. The company sent another driver to pick up our Memphis load, and they told me to call back in the morning for further instructions.

  Merlin’s family was being extremely helpful and accommodating to me during this trying time, but I did not want to impose myself for any longer than necessary. I was, however, doing my best to do what was needed of me. I made all of the arrangements to get our load headed to Memphis, and I gave the company all the details of this situation to the best of my knowledge. The neighbors in this small community also joined together to lend support. Gerald even brought over a heaping plate lunch for me…mushrooms included. I had not gotten over the sensation of being shell-shocked over this turn of events, but I resolved to deal with it to the best of my ability…and keep praying for Merlin.

  On Monday, I got word from the company to bring Merlin’s truck to the Kansas City terminal. His belongings onboard the truck represented a significant chunk of his life, and it required the better part of three hours to get it all unloaded. After that, I made a sandwich and left a note for Merlin and his family. Everyone here had been so kind to me, and so trusting of me. After all my years in the disingenuous world of the television business, I suppose I had forgotten the simplicity, humanity, and innocence of rural life and genuine people. Despite the tragic circumstances, it had been a heartwarming experience and an absolute joy to be around these folks.

  I climbed into the barren husk that had been Merlin’s truck, and left to pick up the empty trailer that the other driver had parked on a dusty county road. As I hooked up and left, I got my bearings crossed and turned the wrong way. There was nowhere to turn around on the tiny road, so my first solo trip began by taking the truck down narrow, winding dirt roads in the sticks of Missouri while praying for a paved highway to emerge.

  I spotted a rustic house with a chain-link fence around it, where a stout woman in coveralls tended to a garden in the front yard. I stopped to ask for directions back to US65. As she spoke, her instructions were frequently drowned out by an angry, barking pit bull that was making a valiant effort to scale the structure that separated me from its bared teeth. The lady probably saw me for what I was, a lost rookie, while the pit bull hungrily inspected me as a menu item. I was relieved when I got the information I needed, over the furious growls of the animal, and got on my way to Kansas City.

  I had no further problems for the remainder of the trip, and I spent the night in the truck at the Kansas City terminal. It felt odd and empty in there without Merlin. I chuckled as I recalled one aspect of his company that I wouldn’t miss. I would not miss his dynamic snoring. When he was in rare form, the resonance of his nasal melody resembled what I’d imagine a rhinoceros farting into a tuba would sound like. I already missed him.

  My phone rang at 8am the next morning. The main terminal in Lincoln informed me that my new trainer was already in Kansas City. I went over to meet him and immediately began transferring my belongings to his truck.

  My new trainer’s name was Brian, and my first impression of him left an uncertain feeling. He looked to be in his fifties, and his stoic behavior was accompanied by a disheveled appearance. A graying mustache complimented a tanned, furrowed face, and a dingy baseball cap covered a crop of thinning brown hair. His angular frame supported a plump paunch, which bulged just enough for him to frequently utilize it as a mouse pad for his computer. I introduced myself and reached out to shake his hand. The limber, droopy grip that he offered in return suggested that he wasn’t exactly delirious with excitement to receive my company.

  As I loaded my gear into the truck, it appeared in equal disarray. Wires and cables were strewn about like an angel-hair pasta dish gone horribly wrong, and there was precious little storage space for my gear. At this point, I really didn’t know what to make of this guy.

  Unlike Merlin, Brian would not accept team runs, which meant that I would do most of the driving. My shifting had evolved to an acceptable level, but I still hadn’t quite got the hang of "slip-shifting," or changing gears without using the clutch. So, I was still using the "double-clutch" method as we rolled out of the terminal on our way to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  The more that Brian and I talked as we went down the road, the more I began to see that what I had initially perceived as stoic was, instead, an easygoing facet of his personality. When I told him that I was here to learn from him rather than to try and prove that I already knew everything, this softened his defenses and he became quite talkative. He acknowledged that many drivers with a small amount of prior experience come in thinking that they already know everything. He had been afraid that I was one of them. After a bit of communication, I found Brian very easy to get along with. It appeared that each of our initial perceptions had been off the mark.

  When we shut down for the evening, Brian proved his prowess with a travel stove by whipping up a mouth-watering dish of jambalaya. It was so tasty that it inspired me to get a stove of my own when I was assigned to my truck. Up to this point, I had been eating a fare of sandwiches and cold canned goods on the road. With a little extra effort and planning, I saw that you could actually have a real meal out here without paying for one in a truck stop restaurant. We would enjoy such dishes as Yankee Pot Roast, baked chicken and vegetables, turkey and rice, and jambalaya with Italian sausage. I had not eaten this well on the road since I’d been out here. I knew that some drivers carried microwaves on board, but I had never been willing to buy one of the expensive power inverters needed to operate one. Besides, there hadn’t been room for a microwave in my old Mack. The little lunch box oven seemed to be the solution I was looking for.

  We arose early the next morning and I had my first experience of Minneapolis driving.

  Detour: Drivers versus Dispatchers?

  Unlike the National fleet, the upside of being on a regional or local fleet is that you work, primarily, with one dispatcher. At least, that was true of the company I worked for. The downside is that this dispatcher might be difficult to work with. My experience in trucking has afforded me the opinion that the relationship between drivers and dispatchers is often of the love/hate variety—minus the love in several cases.

  I believe the "us versus them" attitude stems from a lack of communication between drivers and dispatchers and a lack of understanding of one another’s respective roles. I will be the first to admit that this consideration did not factor in my thinking early on. In many cases, an unhappy driver is simply the result of a lack of understanding of the office structure, policies, and the
role of key people in the company. Two-way communication and mutual respect are imperative in a successful relationship between drivers and dispatchers, and it is necessary for the retention of experienced drivers to a company.

  I failed to understand early in my trucking career that most dispatchers do not willingly aspire to villainous acts. The role of a freight dispatcher, especially in a large company, is an incredibly stressful job. Not only are they juggling the scheduling and progress of multiple trucks while continually resolving problems that emerge, they listen to the gripes of drivers on a daily basis. On top of this, precious few dispatchers are afforded proper stress management training. They are, generally, just thrown into the fire.

  I believe an essential ingredient in a driver’s success and happiness with a company starts with an understanding of, and communication with, his or her dispatcher. Nobody will have more influence on a driver’s success than a dispatcher.

  Most dispatchers identify poor communication as a primary cause of stress. Many drivers are quick to classify their dispatcher as a nincompoop, but are slow to seek two-way communication. As a driver, I know that the stresses of the road are numerous and real, and it is easy to get caught up in a self-centered mindset. I once even heard another driver comment, “The dispatcher is there to serve us…not the other way around.”

  Wrong! The dispatcher is there to serve the needs of the company.

  Dispatching is a sedentary job but, having worked in a sedentary job, I know that mental and emotional stress can be just as debilitating as physical stress. This pressure leads many dispatchers, like drivers, to have an abysmal diet. Fast food, fried foods, and vending machine junk are often the standard fare seen in a dispatch office. At my former company, I once noticed a bulk tub of antacid tablets nestled snugly in the bottom drawer of my driver manager’s desk. I have little doubt that I caused him to gobble some of them.

  A dispatcher is under constant pressure from his terminal manager to move freight, and a terminal manager is under constant pressure from company executives to keep his terminal productive and running smoothly. Unfortunately, this often translates into a perception of an uncaring or unfeeling attitude in the eyes of the driver. A driver needs to educate himself on the basic operations of his company and on the roles of some of the key people in it. Nevertheless, as I said before, communication is a two-way street. The company, as a whole, needs to afford greater consideration toward the drivers—the lifeblood of the industry.

  When I was in orientation at my former company, a newly hired dispatcher was inserted into the class with the drivers. When one of the drivers asked him why he was there, he replied, “They wanted to put me in here so I could learn what you guys go through.”

  I was fresh out of CDL School, so I did not respond but, among the experienced drivers, a number of lower jaws collectively banged to the floor.

  “If you want to learn what we go through,” barked a shocked driver, “you need to go on the road with us. You’re not going to learn anything sitting in here.”

  This was a prime example of “Let’s watch a rodeo to know the cowboy life” thinking. You might as well watch a Three Stooges skit with Larry, Curly, and Moe playing the roles of soldiers in the Allied Forces to understand the nature of World War II. A real cross-familiarization program would consist of ride-alongs by dispatchers, and time spent in a dispatch office by drivers. I can only assume that most companies do not consider this to be a cost-effective practice but, in adhering to this line of thinking, they fail to recognize that familiarity breeds mutual respect.

  Drivers and dispatchers, by virtue of their mutual ignorance of one another’s working environment, each formulate strong opinions about the other. It doesn’t matter if these views are correct, but by allowing them to propagate and take hold, it often creates a negative work environment. In many cases, a negative relationship between a driver and a dispatcher is the fault of neither of them. Rather, companies that are content to maintain a revolving door policy concerning its drivers deserves the finger of blame.

  It never ceases to amaze me that many trucking companies cannot grasp the concept that drivers desire to be treated like a human beings rather than a vehicle numbers on a computer monitor. It is easy to forget that those numbers represent men and women who have lives and families outside of that truck, and they deserve to live them like anyone else. Do they really think that an OTR national driver can cram his personal life into three or four days a month at home?

  Repeatedly, home time is cited as the number one reason why drivers quit. Recruiters often misrepresent the amount of home time that a driver will be afforded, and this dishonesty often leads to short-term employment. Nothing makes me feel more insignificant than a company giving me the impression that a load of freight is more important than I am.

  A standard industry response for not getting a driver home when requested might be: “Freight is slow. Be flexible until the freight situation allows us to route you home.”

  The person or people who provide such a response spend(s) an average of 420-480 hours per month at home with their families. An OTR national driver spends an average of 72-96 hours per month at home. How much do they expect us to "flex?" Most of us are already at the breaking point at the time our home request rolls around. If a company is unable to follow through on its promise of home time, it should not offer it as a hiring incentive. I am willing to be a team player, but when the company has little or no consideration for my need to live a personal life outside their truck, that company can summarily kiss my rigid and inflexible ass.

  Dispatchers and trucking companies need to understand that drivers are real, live human beings rather than just a truck number. Likewise, drivers need to know that dispatchers and managers have a particular job to do, and they are under a lot of pressure just as we are. A dispatcher has the unenviable task of piecing together an enormous jigsaw puzzle, and the driver is only privy to his or her small portion of it. While communication will not resolve all issues, it will go a long way toward providing a better understanding and developing mutual respect. It is not a matter of kissing the dispatcher’s or manager’s butt, it is just a matter of opening a line of professional communication with them.

  Week 19: Life with Brian

  The docking procedure in Minneapolis required a blindside backing maneuver in extremely tight quarters. Thankfully, Brian did this one for me, but even he utilized me as a guide and got out to look several times. This was a very tricky operation, but he pulled it off brilliantly. My initial misgivings notwithstanding, Brian was showing me that he was a darned good driver and a superb trainer to boot.

  On a personal level, I may have felt a deeper kinship with Merlin, but his training methods were often high-strung, and could sometimes make me nervous to the point of getting pissed off. In contrast, Brian’s method was laid back and systematic. He never once made me nervous or tense. I came to appreciate Brian as both a trainer and as a person.

  As advertised, I did almost all of the driving for the remainder of the week. We went to Eau Claire, Wisconsin and then Ottumwa, Iowa, home of the fictional character, Radar O’Reilly from the television series MASH. Ottumwa is known for its many historic locations in the downtown area. In the central downtown area, the Canteen Lunch in the Alley restaurant has been a stopping point for Ottumwa residents since the 1920’s. Roseanne Barr’s "loose meat sandwich" restaurant on the television series, Roseanne was based on Ottumwa’s Canteen Lunch in the Alley.[17]

  After Ottumwa, we went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa followed by Salt Lake City, Utah. Since Brian lives in Ogden, he planned to spend three days at home. So, we dropped our load at the Salt Lake City terminal and Brian put me up in an Ogden motel room for three days.

  Originally named Fort Buenaventura, the city of Ogden was the first permanent settlement by people of European descent in the Utah region. In November of 1847, the Mormon settlers purchased Fort Buenaventura for $1,950. Ogden sits at the base of the Wasatch Mountains,
and I took the opportunity afforded by my three-day respite to walk around and explore the beautiful sights. Ogden has also served as a filming location for a variety of movies and television series, although Ogden residents may or may not wish to acknowledge that Dumb and Dumber was filmed here.[18]

  Two more weeks remained before my training with Brian was complete. I talked to Ringo again over the weekend and he said that Kitty was as “ornery” as ever. She missed her daddy.

  Although I enjoyed my exploration of Ogden, I was antsy by the third day. I was ready to get back on the road to complete my training.

  Week 20 and 21: No Trucks Allowed!

  Brian picked me up at the motel Wednesday morning for our first delivery to Foster City, California in the Bay area, with two stop-offs along the way. I enjoyed sights that I had never seen as we drove along the Salt Flats of Utah on I-80. The flat, white surface of the Salt Flats looked eerily like an alien planet. We encountered a bevy of bugs in Nevada that prompted two stops to clean them off for visibility purposes. We shut down for the night in Mill City, Nevada where the obligatory casino was right next to the truck stop.

  I have never been much for gambling, but Brian gave me a ten-dollar token and told me to go have fun. To my utter surprise, I won forty-three dollars on a slot machine on the first spin. The lure of the one-armed bandit beckoned strongly, but I decided to quit while I was ahead. I gave Brian half my winnings and walked away with a bit of change to jingle in my pockets.

  At the casino, we ran into a guy who called himself “The Captain,” whose endless seafaring tall tales were about as captivating as a barnacle-encrusted poop deck. If I had been at sea with him, I would have been tempted to chain an anchor around my ankle and toss it over the starboard side to end my suffering. I thought he would never shut up. My left knee (and my resolve) was beginning to fail me while we stood as unwilling receptacles of his infinite blathering. When we were finally able to cast off, Brian and I bought some ice cream and went back to the truck to call it a night.