Truck Driving Dad.

      Two years ago, I was a broken man.  My journalism career had dissolved and slid off into the night without a definitive whimper. My father was dying.  I was broke and I had gone into a local E-Cigarette shop where I had spent quite a bit of money to beg for a retail sales job.  So there I was, peddling electronic cigarettes, in a job that I hated, in an environment entirely unsuited for a person with ADHD. I was miserable.  I contemplated suicide regularly.  Then to add some icing to the cake, on my birthday in July, I got the call to come home at once.  My best friend died before I could get to his bedside—hours after my 44^th birthday had lapsed.  I found myself sitting in central Missouri contemplating what had gone so wrong with my life.  I wept a lot. Then, a powerful urge overcame me: RUN!  I wanted to run. I got in a car and just started driving across the Midwest in search of my Grandfathers grave so that I might pick a spot next to him to lay dad to rest.

     It was during that drive that I came to understand some things.  For the last 20 years of my fathers life, he had chosen to be a truck driver.  I had always secretly condemned him for that.  I thought he was above it.  I thought he was better than driving a damn truck.  But as I drove, it suddenly dawned on me, that the world had sank away with every mile I had put behind me.  I was feeling better.  I was overwhelmed with guilt and shame at having judged my own father for his career decision.  It slowly came to me that I wanted to know.  I had a burning desire to know what it was that he found so appealing about that job.  I knew we shared a joy of being behind the wheel.  I knew that driving jobs came with many opportunities for employment- opportunities that I desperately needed right now.  I knew what I had to do next.

     When I returned to Florida, I signed up for a driving School and got my CDL.  I have been on the road more or less since then.  I have logged nearly 200 thousand miles behind the wheel of a Semi Truck.  I wanted to take some time to share with you what I have learned in that time.  The first thing you should know is that the training period required to learn to operate these vehicles ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!  It’s intended to suck by design. You get paired up with another grown man for about 6 weeks.  You both live in a truck smaller than a jail cell. There is no privacy. You are fed information through a fire hose and expected to drink it all in. A big part of the reason for all the suck is to weed out people who wont be able to take life on the road.  If you can get through the six weeks of training, it’s like boot camp, life gets a lot better once you get your own truck.  A lot of people drop out during training.  I was blessed to have a great trainer who taught we well.  We are still friends to this day and he still gives me useful advice.

     Driving is one of the hardest and most thankless jobs you can do.  You are away from your family for weeks at a time.  You find yourself working 80 hours a week. However, because trucking is the only industry that is unregulated by the department of labor, you only get paid for a fraction of the hours that you work- usually 60-70 percent. You get dirty.  You get callouses. You destroy your clothes. You drink a lot of coffee.  You bleed. You listen to a lot of talk radio.  If you don’t have a supporting spouse like I do, you can find yourself eating a lot of gas station hot dogs-and that’s never good.  You end up spending a lot of your own time and money fixing other peoples problems and mistakes.  Because, at the end of the day, if something goes wrong with that truck out on the road- the fault ALWAYS falls on the driver. 

   But I haven't stuck this out because the the job is full suck.  I slowly found the things that my father must have fallen in love with.  The open road is still the best therapist I have ever found.  Hours of solitude can be very therapeutic.  The initial pain of leaving home to earn a paycheck was gradually replaced by learning how to fully enjoy the full attention of my wife for the 5 or 6 days a month that I got to see her. Our relationship began to improve. She enjoyed that I wasn’t home making a mess all week, and I enjoyed the time I got to spend with her when I was home.  I also began to experience something about this job that I had not felt in a good long time: Pride!  I work hard for my money.  I earn it.  I enjoy spending it. It all makes me very proud of what I do and the fact that I can do it legally and safely. Because lets face it: y’all driving around in your four wheelers are horrible drivers.  I take time to explore and enjoy the places I get to go.  I have seen some really amazing places. I have watched so many beautiful sunrises.

     I still have a hard time getting my head around the horrible reputation that truck drivers have.   I understand where it originates, but now I feel the judgement and disdain that I silently fed to my father- and I understand that too.   I need to be pointed out also that there aren’t nearly as many hookers out there running around the truck stops as people seem to believe. Hookers at truck stops really tapered off with the advent of digital currency exchange.  Drivers used to carry lots of cash for their companies.  Now days, drivers carry little or no cash- I am sure you can probably see the hooker correlation there.  Truck stops are not what they used to be, a fact that is both good and bad.  There is a perpetual shortage of parking in this country for commercial vehicles.  I have had to park in some terrible places to shut down for the night.  However, those nights were always soothed by a home cooked meal tucked in my freezer that heated up pretty well in my microwave.  I am here to tell you guys that nothing tastes better than the love your wife sprinkles in your meals for you before you leave home.

      When I started writing this blog, I was not entirely sure why I was writing it, or where I ultimately wanted to go with it.  As I sit here this morning, fathers day, fixing to head off and go drive a truck to Connecticut, I think I understand. Truck driving was one of the few things that I silently held against my father.  Now, I am following in his footsteps and I finally understand what he was thinking.  Unfortunately, he is not here for me to have that conversation with him.  So maybe it will help me feel a little better to tell y’all about it.  It probably bears noting that if you have your father around- you should have those conversations with him now.  Maybe you wont have to wonder these things after he is gone.  Besides, it IS Fathers Day- what better excuse do you need to start up a dialogue with dad?

I miss you so much daddy.  Happy Fathers Day.