trucking

 Today is "Truck Driver Day" so I salute all those truck drivers out there, especially the semi drivers.  I don't know about you, but I'm not in any hurry for them to be replaced with self driving trucks.  It was in the news a few months ago that teenagers were being taught to drive the big rigs and I'm not too keen on that either.  My Uncle Russ (who looked just like Clark Gable) drove a semi for many years, after WWII and into the sixties.  For most of that time he drove an overnight route from Youngstown, Ohio to Pittsburg and back again.  I don't remember what he was hauling but I was told about a couple of interesting incidents during his driving career.  He never caused an accident but one night he had pulled on to the shoulder of the road to change a flat tire.  He was well off the road and had put out all the necessary flares, but a drunk driver still managed to swerve off the road and hit him, breaking both of his legs.  Doctors said if he had been a shorter man he would have been killed.  

The other big excitement in his trucking career, and a much more satisfying event, was the night he helped a small plane in trouble land on the highway in front of him by slowing way down, putting on all his flashers, and keeping the highway open so the pilot could land.  They did this while communicating only with wing wagging and lights flashing.  It all worked out fine.

Years later, my oldest brother, not my west coast brother, tried his hand at long haul driving.  He drove for North American Van Lines and had some interesting experiences of his own.  Most of his driving was along the southern route from the mid west to California although he did get a taste of driving in big cities, including New York, which can't be fun when you're driving a semi.  After a few years he gave up trucking.  He said he just got too lonesome.  Even though he could chat with waitresses and other drivers at truck stops, it wasn't the same as being with family and friends.  I had never thought of trucking as being a lonely job, but my brother was a real people person, a type A for sure, and it just didn't work for him.  He went on to have a very successful career selling cars, a much better fit.

And last, but not least, my cousin Herb drove a milk truck for most of his adult life.  He drove that big tank truck from farm to farm collecting the milk that the farmers had collected from their cows and taking it to the plant to be pasteurized and processed.

And that's it, as far as I know, those were all of the big rig truckers in my family.  The biggest thing I ever drove was our VW bus.