Excerpts

Afterword It has been some time now, since I penned the notes out there that would become this manuscript, a lot has happened in my life, and I wanted to talk a little about some of those things. First, the important stuff: All my daily-use fishing gear was stolen. Right off the back porch of my little house by the bay. I didn't even notice at first, as I sat on my patio looking at the big expanse of bare wall where rods and reels had been for so many years. I stopped in midcoffeesip when I realized what I was not seeing. I felt sick for a moment, and then realized I wouldn't let them, the thieves, do that to me as well. So, I collected myself and called the police for the first time in my life regarding a theft. That is a bad feeling; the sudden realization something important has been stolen, and difficult to describe. I filed a claim against my house insurance, and they paid off, minus the deductible. The adjuster had a hard time accepting the dollar figure associated with the caliber and quantity of the gear, and that I didn't keep it put away, both of which would have made sense to him had he been a serious fisherman, but I came away from the experience with a lot of new stuff and the sad realization that my life there, in that locale, was different as the result of having had that happen. I reasoned I would never feel like I could leave my home again without worry I didn't have before, and I don't like feeling like that. We all had watched out for one another when there was only a few of us out there, as if there were something to watch out for, but it has grown now, and new people are moving in, bringing problems we didn't have before, so I moved out. I didn't want to feel the way I did about the new folks I had for neighbors. I know that is shortsighted, that thieves are everywhere and in all income brackets, but it is just the way I viewed it at the time. More than fishing gear was taken from me, like my freedom to leave my stuff where I could get to it, and I decided to give a new location a chance at leaving me alone. But, that didn't work either, I have to lock everything up now, living in a small city, but still near the bay, and I have come to despise locks. And the people that cause me to have to use them. I got back to New York City recently and one of the things I wanted to do was to go out to the Statue of Liberty and see that plaque attached to the base of it. I told you about my intention to do that and see if that plaque is there and if it says what I was once told it says. But, there was a problem. Since September 11, 2001, there has been a security alert on Liberty Island, where the Statue stands, and so it was on the day I wanted to go. If the terrorists set out to change the way we live, I guess they did that. They took the Statue away from us and because of them and some authoritative security group, the world's symbol of freedom has to be locked away, and that bothers me deeply in my Americanness somehow. I wonder what the hundreds of thousands that traded their lives to secure our freedoms would say about all that,. Our freedom isn't free, you know. It never has been. Though freedom was a birthright for most of us, someone had to pay for it. Those that paid the bill have never, in any of our wars, been more than boys; they suffered and died alone,frightened and brave a long way from home. Our freedom also has responsibility attached. It comes with the responsibility to maintain that freedom, purchased at such a cost, to exercise it, cultivate it, and not let it be eroded away a little at a time, even by our own, until it is just as gone as if we'd lost it in a war. I will get back to Liberty Island one day, and do what I said I would do. I still drink coffee. That didn't change. About a potful a day at home, and my usual two mugs on the road. When I can get out there. I decided to return to driving on occasion, after a hiatus to fish and generally mess around. I like the life, and the travel, and I have bills, like everyone else, and over the road driving is the only thing that will allow me to come and go as I please and still retain employment. And, since I don't require a lot of money, I am just a parttime driver. And I don't do winter trucksports at all now, I take the winters off. One winter out there should have been enough for me, but it wasn't. My truck slid on ice on three separate occasions in two winters. I stayed on the road each incident, but my willingness to deal with winter road conditions went completely away, so I just don't drive winters anymore. The fine line between shutdown for road conditions and get the load there on time is difficult to define with the best of information, and nearly impossible to define with guesswork and lousy information. So I simply will not put myself into the position of having to make that call. I once saw forty eight off-road accidents in sixty miles after a snowstorm in Iowa. Almost one a mile, and there were about as many bigtrucks involved as fourwheelers. Those folks weren't very good at defining that line either. Moving along, real jobs require a certain commitment, kinda like a marriage, and luckily for me, fortyeight state trucking companies are so desperate for good drivers I can get away with just about any amount of hometime and still have them welcome me back when I get that travelin' Jones.... as long as I don't tear up their trucks nor trailers, keep my license clean, and pickup and deliver on time. There may be other crafts out there that will allow that same latitude for job security versus time away, but I can't think of one right now, and I think about a lot of things as I drive my bigtruck along the interstates, when I am able to be out there, while I look for the road and street signs that I hope are still in place. It seems like what the pranksters didn't take, the cities do, in their street improvement programs. I have to believe the first casualty of any construction project is the street signs, and unfortunately for us, they are a huge part of a successful pickup or delivery. One of the things I think about out there is how much I have enjoyed this time on the road and the things I've learned from it. I don't know that they do, but those experiences should equal many semester hours of many subjects in some university of adversity, or diversity, and it might be a good course for lots of cardrivers to take, if someone comes up with a place and a way to teach it. That time Trainer and I spent together seemed like no time at all, as I look back on those days and nights from this desk, here and now, back among the general population, and fourwheeler operators, and I wonder if I really did it at all, as though it may have happened to someone else. Maybe every one feels like that about some things that have happened in the past; whether it was real or not. Like maybe the memories are someone else's, or part of a dream, or some wishful thinking of some kind, which causes me to wonder whether or not even my thoughts are my own. I think I'll just quit thinking one day and see what happens. But not today. I continue to find several things right with driving for a living, and several things wrong with it. The things wrong outweigh the things right, at least for me, and I will soon enough make space 0for someone that wants the job worse than I do. That list is long, and there will be no shortage of candidates to fill what little void I leave, in that the dollars are attractive to someone that can put up with the problems, and the employee turnover is so high they won't miss me anyway. I didn't think it was a longterm proposition for me, nor did I enter into it with that thought. I knew going in it would be nothing more than a career change, that I, or someone close to me, may not like it, and a change from that would probably take place. I think on how it feels to shift the gears and turn the steering wheel, rolling out in the mornings, the vibration and sound of the engine and how the trailer feels behind the truck when it is loaded and balanced properly. Feeling the tractor drift down, or grind up a hill. How the cab tilts in a turn, and watching the tandems in the mirrors to make certain they clear the esplanades and curbs. And cars. And utility poles. I think on how I know I will miss those things and feelings, not so much in terms of longing for them, but that I will have had them once, and I will not have them always. Life on the road has a powerful allure for me, and a day will come when I say goodbye to the road and hello to the life of a workaday person that comes home every night and lives happily ever after. I won't complain. I won't wish my life would be like it was when I was driving. That part of my existence will be behind me and I will just remember what I can, stay out of blind spots and give that driver a little extra room in the five o'clock jam, because I'll know he needs it. And I'll hope the run he is on will get him home, if that is where he wants to be. Still, it is difficult for me to imagine, after this time of driving, that I may never hold another Kenworth steering wheel or Eaton ten-speed shifter in my hand, floating the gears in sync with the turbo as I settle into the rhythm of the interstate, knowing the ride will be long and pleasant on the cement arteries that carry the commercial lifeblood through the mesmerizing swirl of people and places and things the rest of the world knows as America. There are feelings and sensations and emotions that ride evokes like few other things do, and I tried to convey a little of that in the pages before this note, helpless as my effort may be in describing it all. Our language is one of sciences and practicality, and just doesn't have some of the words I needed. Well, my handydandy pocket chart says the tide is coming in soon, and I believe it will bring a speckled trout or two along, so my plan is to be in the backbay flats when that happens. I tied a 0couple of new saltwater flies and I want to testdrive them, so I am headed out to do that shortly. But, before I go, I'd like to leave you with a couple of thoughts: Firstly, when you are in traffic, at speed or creeping, leave that empty space in front of those bigtrucks empty. Don't zip in there, trying to gain a couple of carlengths. That space contains precious time the driver, and it might be me, must have to stop those forty tons, and riding with us like you did, you should know that. Lastly, ..those grungy gloves you have been using to handle the fuel nozzles and saddletank caps when we fueled? ..throw them out. They'll make your hands smell like diesel. Excerpted from Driver: Six Weeks in an Eighteen-Wheeler by Phillip Wilson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.