Reunion Tour 1st Stop: California!

Roads west! Well, after almost two weeks from the time we decided to begin teaming again, Terry and I are finally back in our truck together driving across the country. Our first load was one we would have chosen for ourselves: a load to California and the West. We were very happy to get that load. I'm writing from the Schneider facility in Fontana, California, east of Los Angeles.

Getting together is hard to do. When Terry and I decided to start teaming again, we both happened to be in Maryland. This was almost two weeks ago. We told Schneider we wanted to team again, and we figured it would be just a few days to route us both to the Schneider facility in West Memphis, Arkansas, where we were hooking up.

Terry got there late last Tuesday night, and I finally got there on Friday. Friday afternoon, we went over all our paperwork, and the expectations Schneider has of teams. Most of it was familiar to us since we've done this before.

We met our new dispatcher, a guy in West Memphis named Joe. I am not impressed so far. My hope is that we just don't have too many problems, because I don't have any confidence in Joe's ability and/or real desire to help. Perhaps our last experience with Julian (who is no longer with Schneider, unfortunately) spoiled us. Things were great with him.

I hope I am proved wrong in my initial impressions about Joe. My impression comes from the fact that when they were trying to get Terry and I to West Memphis last week, they had scheduled our meeting with someone there to go over paperwork originally for last Tuesday morning, but since we weren't there, it had to be rescheduled.

I called Joe and left him 3 voicemails over 3 days last week because we needed his help to coordinate that. He never returned my phone calls, acknowledged that he got the messages – just nothing. I ended up having to call my solo dispatcher (whom I've only had for a week) in Charlotte, Marcia, who has nothing to do with my teaming, other than saying good-bye, and she helped me.

And my impressions of Joe from that experience were just reinforced when Terry and I actually met him last Friday.

We shouldn't have too many problems – Terry and I are both low-maintenance drivers; we do our jobs, and don't whine about every little thing, so we rarely even have to contact our dispatcher. I hope that remains true.

From total solitude to 24/7 in a small space with my best friend. As you might imagine, even though we did this last year for nine months, it's still an adjustment going from being by yourself all the time in a truck to sharing that space with another person.

The nice thing about this time is that we already know what works for us, and the time to get used to things again should be shorter.

My biggest adjustment (for now) is sleeping in a moving truck again. But I slept well Saturday night, so it was a good start.

For now, Terry's driving nights and I'm driving days (like we did before). We are supposed to have some time off this weekend in Arkansas that Terry had already scheduled, and we may switch around after that.

A beautiful drive through the mountains during sunrise. Yesterday morning, I started driving about 3:30 in the morning local time, east of Flagstaff, Arizona. As I passed through Flagstaff and west, through those beautiful mountains between there and Kingman, Arizona, on I-40, total darkness began to slowly give way to the light of the new day.

The sun was slowly coming up behind me, and as it began to diffuse its light touches in various places over the mountains, it was like a curtain being parted to reveal one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever witnessed.

As I drove, and day transformed the dark shadows of the mountains, the effects of the light produced brilliant colors, beautiful as any rainbow, showcasing the various rock formations and landscape. As I drove for those several hours, and shadows were displaced by sunlight, I was just mesmerized by what I witnessed.

There are places on that stretch of road where there are tremendous pilings of rocks, ranging in size from a small car to a basketball. It is as if some giant were stepping through the mountains with a mammoth bucket of stones, and decided to pour some of them out in this place. The result is hypnotically gorgeous.

Then, passing from the mountains of western Arizona into the Mojave Desert that stretches all the way across southern California, beauty of another kind is apparent. It is a dangerous kind of beauty, and Terry and I have often talked about our wonder that people of generations past came across this arid land with only horses and what they had with them.

I've driven this road many times, but never as the sun came up, watching it transform the land before my eyes. It was alive, majestic, sacred.

Many people went to church yesterday morning (since it was Sunday), but I had as rich a spiritual experience yesterday driving in my orange truck through those mountains as I've ever had in any building. I was reminded of the passage in the Bible in Psalms to “be still and know that I am God.”

And as many people who have spiritual experiences which to them are profound, I realized myself struck dumb in the face of what I saw, what I knew was there, but too often forget in the rush of the everyday world with its demands, its busyness, and the burdens of navigating an increasingly complex and stressful world. But in the quiet simplicity of that preternatural beauty, as I was reminded in another way when I was reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau again a few months ago, I was able to connect with what is truly important and beautiful in the world. So it was for me yesterday.

In that light, I insert some pictures below that I took while I was in Georgia in July, from my favorite “quiet place” for thinking and reflection in the world, a place I most always go when I'm in Rome, out at Berry College, a place simply known as the Old Mill.

I hope you have your quiet place, a retreat from the normal demands of the everyday rhythms of your life, a place to contemplate and affirm what is really important and beautiful in the world.

Until next time . . . keep the wheels rollin' . . . and look for the remarkable . . .

Allan

Lonesome Dove Xpress -- The Reunion Tour

First – follow-up to last blog entry. The Monday after my adventure in Long Island which I wrote about at length in the last entry, I learned from my dispatcher that Schneider has already classified what happened as a “non-preventable” incident. That just means that they believe I did all that I could reasonably and safely do in the situation, and what happened was not due to some error I made. I think it helped that I wasn't issued a citation by the police, and the fact that the utility company employees repeatedly told me that the line was not legally as high as it was required to be. Still, I breathed a sigh of relief to get that good news.

How quickly things change. That same Monday, Schneider sent a message to all the drivers. It basically said that they were offering a $2000 bonus for drivers that would become team drivers. That got my attention – and Terry's.

We began to talk about the possibility of getting back together to team again. We talked extensively for a couple of days, got the details on what it would involve, and then made the decision to reunite the Lonesome Dove Xpress.

The money was the primary reason we began to talk about it, but the more we talked about it, the more we both realized that we missed the good things about teaming. We decided to team for six months, see where things are, and then take it from there.

You know from reading my blog entries (if you have) over the past few months that I have been content being a solo driver; but, it is also true that I have always missed certain things about teaming.

Over the past two or three months, as the economy where freight is concerned has softened even more, I have noticed a change in the miles I'm driving each week, which, of course, has impacted my net pay. I'm getting more live loads and unloads, shorter hauls (as far as mileage is concerned), and I'm waiting longer between load assignments in certain areas of the country where freight is softer.

The end result of all that is that in the current economic and freight environment, the incentives and advantages of teaming are even more pronounced than they normally are. The $2000 bonus just makes that even more true.

By teaming even for six months, I can easily, with no effort, increase my gross earnings by at least $10,000, and possibly more.

And so, Terry and I are both slowly making our way to West Memphis where we will meet up, settle ourselves back into our truck, Lorie (which I've continued to make my home since we quit teaming last December), and hit the road together once again.

The Lonesome Dove Xpress rolls on.

Another advantage to teaming is that we will get to spend more of our time driving in the places we love – out west, and most especially, the Great State of Texas, my true home if my heart has one.

Just as this blog changed when we quit teaming, so will it change again as we hit the road together. Stay tuned.

The load that wasn't. Last week – I forget the exact day without looking at my load book – I was in South Carolina (after Long Island and New Jersey, it was so good to be back down South), and I was sent down below Myrtle Beach to Georgetown to pick up a load at a steel mill there. When I got there, there were three other orange trucks there also. We were all heading to the same place in Missouri.

Two of the drivers had already been loaded and I was about halfway loaded when someone came out on the dock and told the loader to stop. There was a problem.

I had no idea what was going on.

One of the other drivers came over to my truck, and told me that all four of our loads were bein cancelled. Shortly after he told me that, sure enough, a message came over my satellite receiver that just said: “Load XXXXXX has been cancelled.” That's all. No other explanation.

The two guys who had already been loaded were already out of the gate, and had to turn around and come back in to be unloaded.

The bad thing was that even though Schneider told us drivers the loads were cancelled, the people at the steel mill didn't know what was going on or why. Oh, the manager of that shipping department was angry, understandably so. It took them literally almost three hours to get it sorted out.

All four of us finally got unloaded, and we were all out of hours to run; there was no truck stop anywhere near Georgetown, so we all just parked on the side of the little road that ran beside the steel mill. It was a safe, good place.

While we had been waiting to find out what was going to happen at the steel mill, all four of us had stood around talking, joking, laughing.

One of the drivers, a guy from Houston who has been with Schneider 19 years, was particularly entertaining. While we were all gathered around talking at first, he began to talk about how unfair he thought it was that Schneider requires drivers to wear safety footwear (which they provide) but the office workers don't.

He was working himself up into a frenzy that the best tent-revival evangelist would have been envious of. He would raise his voice and waggle his finger to make a point.

A couple of times, he'd be lost in the inspiration of the moment, and he'd get right in another guy's face, finger pointing into the air, eyes blazing like a mad trucker-prophet, voice thundering from the Mount about how he should be able to wear flip-flops if he wants to, and then, “Am I right!?! Am I right!?! Am I right!?!”

“ Can I get a witness?!?” Like that.

Only, the way he said it, it came out like: “Amiright, amiright, amiright?” No space between the words, just a liturgy that would surely have resulted in lots of pledges to “The Mad Trucker-Prophet Hour” if it were on TV.

Maybe for each pledge, the giver would receive a pair of flip-flops.

At any rate, once we were all unloaded, and parked for the night, we decided to walk up to some place to eat. It was raining steadily, but not enough to hurt if the place was right up the street like a couple of the guys said.

It was up the street alright – one and a half or two miles if it was an inch.

By the time we got there, more wet than hungry by then, our main object was to get dry.

We ate, and enjoyed just talking, listening to the Trucker-Prophet dispense his roadly wisdom, and laughing a lot.

I had decided that if there was a taxi in Georgetown (which was never certain), I was going to ride in it back to my truck. It was really raining hard then, and I wasn't going to get back in my truck totally deluged if I could help it.

While we were waiting in line to order, a tall young lady in front of us heard me (she was about 6 foot 5, and would have made a great roller-derby girl from when I used to see it on TV back in the 70's), and said, “If you want a taxi, it's . . .” and gave me the number from memory.

Definitely a young lady who's out on lots of Saturday nights in Georgetown.

We called the taxi, and the guy came right over. All four of us rode back.

This is such a cool job – the interesting people I get to come across just make my life more enjoyable.

Other things. There is much I would write, but I am constrained by your own perseverance and patience, Dear Reader.

I would write of the things I've been reading, of the current political entertainment, the fact that I'm still making (slow) progress in my writing for my current short story, of life on the road.

Those words must wait for another time, another place along the road.

Until next time . . . keep the wheels rollin' . . . watch for the Reunion Tour coming near you . . .

Allan

"You're Doin' A Great Job!"

It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was just a normal load, like hundreds of others I've had. The only thing different about it was that it was going to a little place out on Long Island: West Babylon, New York, about halfway out on the island, 35 or 40 miles from New York City.

Not very many truck drivers like driving around New York City, or over in New Jersey. My biggest concern about this load was that I would get out there, and would have to wait for a while to get my next load. And there just aren't many places a big truck can park up here. And there are so many low bridges and restricted roads that if you make a wrong turn in a truck, sometimes it can be a big problem.

So, yesterday morning, I left the truck stop I'd stayed at Friday night in New Hampshire, and was making good time on my way down to New York. I didn't have any problems getting through the City, and the drive east out across Long Island on the Long Island Expressway was lovely.

Where is this place? From the Long Island Expressway (aka the LIE), my directions were pretty straightforward: get off at exit 51 on State Road 231, go south all the way to the end of the road, and then take the Montauk Highway (State Road 27A) west.

Then all my directions said were: “See facility.”

Well, when I read something like that, it sounds like when I make the turn on to the Montauk Highway, I will see it right away, and it will be something I can see from the road.

According to my GPS, the address for this place was about a mile and a half up the road, so I knew my directions were wrong. So I drove on down the road, paying attention to the addresses so I'd know when I was getting close. When I was in the right block, I couldn't see the place. There was a big shopping center, but there was no “Stop and Shop”, the grocery store where I was delivering this 46,000 pounds of bottled water I'd picked up in Maine on Friday.

I slowed down even more. Where could it be? You can't just hide a grocery store, can you?

I saw an address that was higher than the one I was looking for, and I thought I had passed the place, even though I sure hadn't seen a grocery store.

Things go bad. Just then, I spotted an abandoned car dealership that had a huge, empty lot I could easily turn around in. So I pulled in there, and got turned around. No problems.

Yet.

I called the number I had for the store, and talked to someone, told them where I was at, and that I thought I had passed their store. I told them I was in an abandoned car dealership parking lot, and that there was a big shopping center with a Big Lots store in it that I had just passed.

“ Oh, you're real close,” she said. I just needed to turn around, and come back down the highway to the next traffic signal, turn there, and they were right there. They were waiting on the water I was bringing, because they would run out of their current stock soon.

Sounds simple. I put the truck in gear, and headed out of the parking lot the same way I had come in – remember, when I'd come in that way, there were no problems. I wasn't expecting any on the way out.

This is a four lane highway, the main highway through West Babylon, so I'm watching the traffic very carefully. Lots of people were out and about, shopping, running errands, whatnot.

When the traffic light just east of me turned red, it cleared the traffic coming from that direction, and there was nothing coming from the west. I look left, right, left, right, still clear.

I start to pull out into the highway, thinking, “Man, I'm almost there. Got it made.”

I was across the first two lanes, and I hear this awful racket and hear something hit the back of my truck, between the truck and trailer.

I looked in my left mirror just in time to see a huge wire come down from the pole.

My thought was that I had snapped the wire, and I needed to get across the road, stop and call the police.

It gets worse. As I'm thinking I need to get across this road, suddenly my trailer brakes lock up, as I am literally straddling across four lanes of this major road, and I can't go forward or backward.

From the time I started pulling into the roadway until my truck lurched to a sudden stop was about five seconds.

Of course, a few seconds later, four lanes of traffic is coming at me, from both directions. And these people can just see this huge orange truck blocking the road.

I soon learned what had happened: somehow, even though I was able to go into the parking lot, coming out, the right corner of my trailer snagged on this huge telephone cable, and pulled it loose, along with it's steel-cable support wire. They both fell between my truck and trailer. The main line (about three inches in diameter, the main telephone and data connection from one side of town to the other) did not break, even though the smaller steel support cable did.

What they did do was fall on my air lines for the trailer brakes, and the big wire went under my right side rear tires, wedging between the brakes and the truck frame. And as it did this, it pulled my brake lines back under the trailer, toward the fifth wheel (the part of the truck the trailer connects to), and they immediately snapped under the pressure, locking the trailer brakes.

Meeting the nice people of West Babylon, New York. Of course, sitting there in the road, blocking traffic, unable to move, I didn't know what had happened. Only that it was not good.

As quickly as I realized I wasn't going anywhere, I called 911. I told the operator as much as I could – I'm in a truck, knocked a line down (at first I thought it was a power line, and might be live, so I didn't dare get out of the truck to look around), and needed the police right away. No one else involved, no one hurt, but I can't move my truck, and I'm blocking all four lanes of Montauk Highway.

Meanwhile, the people who were blocked, were going around behind me through the abandoned parking lot I'd just come out of.

It only took about five minutes for the Suffok County Police, and the West Babylon Fire Department to show up. A few minutes later, someone from the local electric utility was there.

Later, I found out that it wasn't an electric line that had come down, but a telephone line, so before long, someone from Verizon, the local phone company, was there.

I have to say this: I was amazed at how quickly and efficiently the police got things under control, re-routing traffic, and taking care of things. Of course, the fire department left when they saw everything was as it was – no live wires, no fire, no injuries.

Another thing that struck me about everyone on the scene of this little excitement I had inadvertently created: everyone I dealt with, throughout the entire episode, was nice, professional, courteous, and that made the situation much less stressful for me.

After meeting all these Long Islanders, I might have to re-evaluate my prejudices about how rude people up north are. These kind people were as nice as anyone I have ever dealt with down south.

“ You have to use someone from our town's list.” Of course, the first thing the officer I initially spoke to wanted to do was to get my truck out of the road. I told him my brakes had locked up, and I couldn't move. We didn't know at that time exactly what had happened.

I told him I'd call my company's maintenance number, and they would send someone out to get the truck moving, or have it towed.

I got on the phone with Schneider Maintenance, told them what happened, and the guy kept me on the phone while he contacted a towing service nearby. The guy from the towing company got on the phone, and he was from a nearby village there on Long Island. He told me something I'd never heard of, couldn't believe: he would not be allowed to come out to help me because his company was not on West Babylon's “tow list.”

Before he would come out, he wanted me to ask the officer about it.

I told the officer what he'd said, and the officer said that was right. Just anyone couldn't come out; it had to be a company from the town's approved list.

I told the guy from Schneider what they said, and told them that the police would call someone out from their list.

Here's the way it works (as I understand it now): every town has a list of approved towing companies who are allowed to respond to accidents and other needs. The towing company pays lots of money to the town for the privilege of being put on the list. And they get a monopoly on providing services.

What this means is obvious: it's like breaking down in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, and there's only one mechanic. You are at their mercy.

So, these towing companies can charge whatever they want for coming out. And, my company, Schneider, who could have called someone else and paid a lot less, gets ripped off.

So, even though everyone was nice, this little incident just reinforced my stereotyped notions about this part of the country. If this isn't a racket, I don't know what is.

Back to our story. So, the police called someone from their approved list, and that was how I met Brad, from Roll Rite Towing. Brad was a big, burly man, tatoos on his huge arms, a thick New York accent, very brusque way of speaking. And one of the nicest people I've ever met.

By the time Brad got there with his huge tow truck, the phone people were there, and I knew a little bit more about what had happened. I knew the cable wasn't broken, but was stuck underneath my truck, and that the brake lines to the trailer had broken.

The phone company guys didn't want to cut the cable because they would knock out phone and data service for several thousand people.

So their plan was to try to get the cable loose from the truck, lift it back up over the truck so I could move, and then restring the cable.

It sounds simple. But it wasn't.

I had pulled the wire down at 12:45 pm. The wire finally got loose from the truck about 5:30 pm. And my truck blocked the road the whole time.

So I got to know those people from the Police Department, the crew from Verizon, and Brad, better than I would have wanted to under these circumstances.

“ You're doin' agreatjob!” Right across the street from where I had blocked the road was an assisted living center. Looks like a nice place.

After I'd been there about two hours, I was standing on the sidewalk, watching everyone work, waiting on hold to talk with someone at Schneider on my cell phone. From the assisted living center, I noticed this really elderly lady with a walker – she must have been in her mid-80's at least – slowly shuffling up the sidewalk toward where I was standing. Behind her was a slightly younger woman, walking slowly.

As they came near, I moved off the sidewalk on to the grass so they could get by more easily.

I learned from hearing their conversation that they were going to the bank that was right next door.

As the second lady passed me, she broke off her conversation with the lady using the walker, looked over at me, beamed a huge smile at me, and in a sweet, thick New York accent, told me: “You're doin' a great job!”

That was all. Then she went back to her conversation with the first lady.

I was still on hold with Schneider, but I couldn't help it: I laughed out loud.

That lady had no idea who I was, what I was doing, had no idea I was the truck driver who had caused all this mess. But I guess I looked official standing there with my phone, so she figured I must be in charge of getting everything straightened out.

It was hilarious, and it made my day. It made this very stressful situation much less so. I told all the other guys working what had happened, and we all laughed about it.

Finally! After over five hours of hard work by the police officers, the crew from the phone company, and Brad from the towing company, the phone cable was extricated from my truck, my brakes were fixed, and I was free!

I wasn't sure whether the officer would give me a citation or not. But he didn't.

I was told during the day that the same thing had happened not long ago. I was also told several times by several people that the wire was too low, that it wasn't at its legally required height, that if it had been, this wouldn't have happened.

What I still haven't puzzled out is why there was no problem at all when I went into the parking lot. It's almost like someone lowered the wire while I was turning around.

What's even worse is that I hadn't passed the place I was going to in the first place, and if I'd had accurate directions, I would have been able to get to the place I was going – less than two blocks further up the road. It wasn't directly on the street, but sat away from the road several hundred yards.

I had talked to the store manager several times during the afternoon to let him know what was going on.

I had also talked to more people at Schneider and officials from Suffolk County than I can count from memory, repeating the same story over and over, adding details as I found out more about what had happened.

And everyone I spoke to was nice.

Out to see the show. Not long after I saw the lady with the walker and her friend who thought I was doing such a great job, one of the guys from the phone crew who was up in a bucket trying to get the cable loose from the truck yelled out to everyone to look across the street.

Over there at the assisted living facility, lined up out front watching everything going on were eight or nine people in wheelchairs or other chairs like they were in front row seats at a huge concert, or in courtside seats at a basketball game, or prime box seats at the opera. They were just smiling, watching, being entertained.

We all laughed and remarked about how it was probably the most excitement they'd had in years.

But it was so sweet to see them all sitting out there. My heart felt better just seeing all of them sitting out there. And it got my mind off myself and my thoughts about this whole situation.

In the end. As I said, the cable finally got untangled, my truck got loose. I didn't get a ticket from the officers.

Brad's company got a check from Schneider for – unbelievable -- $3200.

When I drove back through there early this morning, the road was open, the cable was up – higher, I noticed – and things were back to normal. There was no one sitting in front of the assisted living center.

I finally made it to the grocery store, they got me unloaded, and they were nice enough to let me take my break right there, so I didn't have to find a place to park.

Brad. The tow truck driver. The one whose company (it wasn't him personally) ripped off my company just because they could. We had talked all day, shooting the breeze, talking about trucking, life, and we had gotten to know each other a little bit.

About 9:30 last night, after I was unloaded, and about to lay down to sleep (you can imagine how tired I was after all that excitement), this car comes to the back of the store and pulls up beside my truck.

Who could this be? Some security guy trying to run me off? But the manager said it was okay for me to stay here.

It was Brad. And his wife. He came over to the truck.

“ Just checking on you,” he said. “Making sure you're okay. You need anything?”

“ No. I'm good,” I told him. I thanked him for his help, told him it was real nice meeting him.

We shook hands. He said good night, got in his car. As they pulled away, he and his wife both waved at me.

Next time I talk about how rude northerners are, will you remind me about Brad? And the Suffolk County Police? The Verizon guys? And a little old lady who had said, “You're doin' a great job!”

Until next time . . . keep the wheels rollin' . . . and keep “doin' a great job” . . .

Allan

From Binghamton, New York: Hello

Binghamton, New York. I'm sitting in the Wendy's restaurant in the Pilot truck stop in Binghamton. I started the day in Findlay, Ohio, this morning, and in the morning am continuing on to Brattleboro, Vermont. Every time I come up to New England, I enjoy the scenery, curse the four-wheelers who don't know how to drive or are rude (a quality you don't have to special-order up here; it comes standard delivery at birth, I believe; there are some exceptions, but you could tell blindfolded if you were in the north or the south after 10 seconds in most places), and pine for the roads I love most: Texas and the wide open West. It seems ages since I've had a load out west, though they did tempt me with my first load after my last time off: a load to Dallas.

This load I'm on now is an excellent example of just how much variation I can have in my work schedule in a very short time. I picked up this load yesterday afternoon in Leipsic, Ohio. By the time I got to the interstate, in Findlay, it was late afternoon, and the time most truck stops in the north and east begin to fill up. So I scaled the load (to make sure that my weight on all my axles was within legal limit – it was) and then shut down for the night. I was about 720 miles from my destination in Brattleboro and I have to be there at 7:00 am Thursday morning.

I had to plan to start my day early enough today to finish early enough to be able to start driving at 2:00 am Thursday morning. Truck drivers always have to keep in mind the fact that our lives are governed very strenuously by strict rules concerning how many hours we can drive, how long our break must be, and all kinds of variations.

Getting here at 4:00 pm today (which I had planned on, hoped for) will allow me to start driving exactly at 2:00 am in the morning. Can you YAWN wide enough for that? I don't usually love starting that early, but I like doing that much better than driving late. For some reason the darkness of the early morning doesn't affect me the way darkness of the evening does as far as my fatigue levels driving. It's probably because all of my life I have, by nature, been an early morning person.

At any rate, if I leave here at 2:00 am, I should be able to make it to Brattleboro about 6:30. The place I'm going to is a grocery warehouse, which means that I will likely be there all day long. Some grocery warehouses routinely take 12 hours to unload a trailer – and I have been to none that take less than 6 or 7.

At the end of that time, I will be close to the limit of hours I could work before having to take a break, so I just told Schneider I'd be available next at 7:00 am on Friday. That way, whenever I'm done at the grocery warehouse, I can take my break, and not get stuck rushing to try to pick up my next load, looking for a truck stop where there isn't one (there aren't very many good places to park a truck in the northeast), and then getting stuck on a night driving schedule for a while.

Perhaps that was boring to you, but I just thought this load was a good illustration of a time when I have to work very weird hours.

Changes at Schneider. Monday, while I was getting a load west of Chicago, in Aurora, I got a message over my satellite from my dispatcher to call him when I got a chance. Of course, that's like in school when they call your name over the intercom to come to the principal's office: I started wondering what in the world was wrong.

When I called, my dispatcher, Steve, who used to be a driver, and with whom I've had a great relationship the past few months, told me that he's leaving to go back on the road driving because the money is better. I will miss him, but am hopeful that my new dispatcher (Marcia) will prove a good fit for me going forward. More than any other single factor of driving a truck, I'm convinced that it's the driver's relationship with his or her dispatcher that either makes this job a joy or a tremendous challenge.

Happy Family News. I spoke with one of my cousins yesterday and got caught up on some news about folks in my family, some of it not good. There are several situations in my extended family that are heartbreaking to me.

However, this afternoon, just after parking here for the night, I got a call from another of my cousins, Dewayne, who told me that he and his wife, Carla, are going to be welcoming a baby into their family. Great, good, joyous news, especially for a couple who has been wanting another child for quite a while (they already have a son, precocious and delightful, Jacob, whom I call Fish Boy – but that story is for another time, perhaps).

Congratulations to you (whether you ever read this to know I wrote it or not)! Your news brightened my day.

Terry. Terry has been on vacation for a week. He has decided to get out of the Home Run program (a program Schneider has that allows drivers to be out on the road for two weeks and then home for a week) and go back on the road on a more regular schedule. Being off one week out of three just doesn't work as well where finances are concerned. He's also considering other options, including working more locally.

Should he leave driving over the road altogether, I will miss our daily talks about all things trucking. It will probably be the closest thing I felt to being lonely in a long, long time.

Writing. As I mentioned last time, I've been writing more regularly working on one of the stories that will form a collection when I'm done. I am gratified that just a few days ago, I finished the first part of a three part series in that collection, that may well turn into a novella before it's done.

When I say I “finished”, that only means that I finished a rough draft, which is akin to getting the framing done on a house; the basic structure, the skeleton, is there, but it is far from being complete. But even getting to that point is a milestone I mark with celebration, because it means that I'm writing creatively again, and am enjoying it very much.

Tonight, I'm planning to start on the second part of the story. Hopefully, it won't take five years to get a rough draft done.

Books, books, and still more . . . well, you know. As I alluded to in the last entry, I'm enjoying reading more books (and I'm including audio books I hear on XM radio or on tape in that) than at any period I can remember in my life. I was reading that huge Life of Johnson for so long, now it seems that the books I'm reading now are almost too short.

Since finishing the biography of Samuel Johnson, I've read the following books (with a rating of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best):

The Year of Living Biblically – 4 – a very entertaining and engaging (at times hilarious) book about a man's desire to follow the precepts of the Bible literally as much as possible for one year.

At the Mountains of Madness and Other Stories – 4 – these stories by H.P. Lovecraft were some I hadn't read before. I always enjoy Lovecraft's writing. He's so creepy!

Dive From Clausen's Pier – 4 – a wonderful story by Ann Packer that I had heard part of on the radio, but missed enough that I bought the book so I could read the whole thing. The premise of the story is this: a young girl, Carrie, is engaged to her first and only sweetheart, Mike, but for months has been feeling uncertain about the relationship, and is considering breaking things off. However, one day at the lake, her fiancé dives off a pier into the lake and breaks his neck, paralyzing him. Now what does she do? Does she put aside her own misgivings from before out of duty to Mike? Or does she go ahead and follow her heart, wherever it leads?

Running With Scissors – 4 – a memoir about the boyhood of Augusten Burroughs, who has a tragic childhood (that is tinged with hilarity nonetheless), but manages to overcome his obstacles through making choices and taking responsibility (my own mantra for my life). It is worth reading to get to know the Finch family, a really crazy family of a psychiatrist he lives with for a time. It is quite graphic with some depictions of sexual matters, so those squeamish about such things, beware.

Currently reading: House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III, whose father, Andre Dubus, wrote a book a short stories I very much enjoyed several months ago.

Their Eyes Were Watching God – 5 – heard this one on XM. It's by Zora Neale Hurston, written in the 1930's. The audio book was read by the very talented Ruby Dee. As a matter of fact, if I had my preference, I'd hear this book rather than read it just because of the great job that Ruby Dee does on it. But, however it's read, it's a classic by any measure.

A Farewell to Arms – 5 – this Ernest Hemingway classic is one of my favorite Hemingway novels. If you haven't ever read it, or haven't read it since it was assigned in high school or college – what are you waiting for?

Other books I'm currently listening to, either on XM or on tape: Villette; War and Peace; Hannibal Speaks; The Island of Dr. Moreau; The Painted Veil; The Runner; and The Namesake.

On my Palm, I also have books, which I read mostly after I lay down for bed. Currently, I'm very slowly making my way through Homer's Iliad . I just finished The Epic of Gilgamesh last week. First time I'd read that.

The question might come: how can I keep up with so many books at once, or so rapidly?

Answer: I'm a truck driver; what else have I got to do besides count the number of white lines on the interstate driving through each state?

If you hate reading or books, this must seem the most useless blog entry you might imagine. It's a good thing you can skip what you want to, isn't it?

And that, my friends (a phrase that has probably been trademarked by John McCain), brings us to the end of this ride. Thanks for coming along. I look forward to our next little journey together.

Until next time . . . keep the wheels rollin' . . . making choices and taking responsibility . . .

Allan