Return to Leelanau, without having been.

I had a ridiculously beautiful morning on the Leelanau Peninsula last week that was actually beautiful and completely ridiculous. I’m currently up north, away from sv Ruth Ann, earning some boat money, and freezing my ass off. It was easy for me to get another driving job because I drove a semi for so many years while working on boats. In the last couple weeks, I’ve spent several days helping out the Traverse City location of the company I drive for. That location has a contract with Amazon and they are overwhelmed with holiday deliveries. Luckily, there are relatively few residential deliveries. Instead, Amazon sends pre-palletized loads of packages that we deliver to rural post offices so that the men and women of the USPS can deliver to the actual retail customers. More than once I have ended up on the Leelanau route.

When I, or one of my fellow Grand Rapids drivers, is sent to help out the Traverse City guys, the process is daunting. We leave our Grand Rapids terminal at 1:00 AM to drive about three hours up to Traverse City. After scanning the ubiquitous bar codes, the pallets and packages are loaded on our truck for us to cover one of their routes ... and then drive all the way back to Grand Rapids. It is almost always a thirteen or fourteen hour day.

On one particular morning last week there was a Winter Storm Warning. I got to do the Leelanau route in all the snow and ice that such a warning implies. But the route also took me onto that beautiful peninsula where I stopped at the little storefront post offices in Lake Leelanau, Suttons Bay, Leland, and Northport. I also had a rug and a treadmill to deliver to specific addresses; the rug to a house and the treadmill to an apartment complex. My first stop on the way out of town was the main Traverse City post office. The roads were fine on that first short leg in town but I had to use a bunch of ice melt and all my rusty winter driving skills just to get my truck out of their dock.

The rest of the trip around the peninsula was daunting but doable. The downtown Post Office was the only one with a truck dock. Everywhere else I had to lower the skids to the ground with the truck’s lift gate and unload all the Amazon packages onto carts that could get through the door and into the buildings. All the while getting soaked with sweat and pelted by snow.

When it came time to deliver the rug out in the middle of the peninsula, I had to watch the overhead power lines for the last couple miles to make sure that I didn’t yank the electricity off of someone’s house in the middle of a winter storm. When I finally got to the last turn, my delivery was up a hill into a swanky looking neighborhood; each large house barely visible through the woods was down a quarter mile long driveway. Halfway up the hill, the truck’s tires began to spin as the back end shimmied. My forward progress had not only stopped but the truck and I were slowly sliding backward. I surrendered, backed down the hill, and tried to call dispatch, but I was so far out in the boondocks that there was no signal for my phone or the company tablet. I drove back into Suttons Bay and was able to make the call. Eventually, my dispatcher in Grand Rapids just had me return the rug to our Traverse City warehouse.

But first I had to find the apartment complex back in Traverse City and wrestle a fancy -- heavy – treadmill through a slushy parking lot and into the leasing office.

The Leelanau Peninsula is a beautiful area. I would have much preferred it in the summertime, but I will concede that the snow clinging on the trees and the sight of the grey, slightly foggy Grand Traverse Bay were sublime. I spent much of the morning on M-22, a state highway with its own brand. I’ve spotted M-22 stickers on cars all over the country and I even have my own M-22 story.

Years ago, while in high school in Charlotte, Michigan, my best friend Doug and I hatched a plan to do a bicycle camping trip around the Leelanau Peninsula. We were young and invincible but were somehow smart enough to make a test run rather than just head north with a couple bikes and a tent. In preparation, we decided that we would ride our bikes over to Eaton Rapids from Charlotte and back. It was about 10 miles one way and I think we had planned to stop for lunch or something and then head back. We might have even planned to stop at Miller’s Ice Cream Shop. It wasn’t carb-loading or anything planned, we were just going to do it. It must have been a weekday too, because, as the story ends, we’ll learn that Dad wasn’t home.

We had no gear but we each had a bike and a water bottle. One decent summer day, we just started pedaling east down M-50; another storied state highway. This was over forty years ago and I have no way of knowing for certain, but I don’t think we paid much attention to the weather forecast. It seemed like a decent morning, we had talked about doing it, and ... hey, you wanna go today? Sure.

We both lived on the east side of town and several blocks to the south, we would have turned onto Shepherd Street, as M-50 was called on that side of town. Over the bridge at US-27, now I-69, we passed some gentlemen farmer houses with big beautiful yards. The well-heeled lived on the north side of town near the country club but this stretch was a close second; although today there is a Meijer store over there and I imagine - lots more traffic. Soon we were cycling out into corn and cow country. Big farms spread out on each side of the road with giant “wolf trees” along the ditch and in the yards of old farmhouses.

We passed a big grain elevator and then a gravel pit on the other side. There was a lonely, run down country market; really just a party store with bait and ammo. And then more corn and more cows. We weren’t racing, the riding was fairly easy, but as we cruised along the sky was darkening to the south of us. It was concerning but we were already about halfway to Eaton Rapids, so we pressed on.

When the first chilly downdrafts hit us, I think we might have stopped to rest our legs and take a closer look at the clouds. It was then that we could see that the weather straight behind us was just as bad. Tall, dark clouds loomed over Charlotte where we had started, but we were so close by then it only made sense to continue. If we needed to take cover or something, more cover was closer where we were headed. The dark horizon ruled out running back toward home. We mounted our bikes and got going again.

The storm swallowed us up in a pincer move as it swept over us from the south and then swallowed us up from behind. Horizontal rain came at us and hit like rubber bullets. The wind blew across the open fields picking up debris and smattering it against us. We were soaking wet and covered on one side with leaves and dirt. Fighting against the cross breeze, we struggled to stay demurely on the shoulder as cars and trucks flew by. The big trucks would cause a maelstrom of leaves and debris that threatened to cover the rest of us in the detritus of the fields.

The squall had passed by the time we made it to the edge of Eaton Rapids. As the sun started to peek back through the clouds, our clothes started to dry off. We had bitten off a bit more than we knew how to chew and were exhausted by the trip but especially from battling our way through the storm. Up ahead, around a curve near the river, was the old Miller’s Ice Cream Parlor. We pulled in, shook the last of the leaves out of our hair and found a table inside. The old parlor was a classic ice cream shop with dozens of ice cream flavors in buckets behind the glass of a long row of coolers. The counters were marble accenting the black and white tile floor. Even our little table had a black and white marble top on a wrought iron frame. We sat on round cushioned chairs with curly wrought iron legs that would have fit at a woman’s vanity table as well as it the matched the parlor decor.  

I don’t remember what we ordered but this was long before cellphones, so I called Mom from the payphone back by the shop’s restrooms. She had been distressed by the weather and was quite happy to know that we had stopped. Before I could even explain how tired we were, she was sending Uncle Gord to get us with his pickup truck. Mom had the family station wagon but also had my younger brother and sister at home. Dad was at work but luckily Uncle Gord, a truckdriver, just happened to be in town that day and he was on his way.

Whatever we might have ordered, I don’t think we ever got our food. Just as I was returning to our table after calling Mom, smoke started coming through a floor vent behind the ice cream coolers. After a few moments, the smoke seemed to surge into a billow. A young waitress grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and headed into the basement. A couple minutes later, she returned, white as a ghost, and holding the fire extinguisher before her like an injured child.

“It doesn’t work,” she whispered of the extinguisher as if it could have been hurt by her words.  

The decision was quickly made to call the fire department – which was right next door. However, the fire engines could literally not make the tight turn out of their station and into the parking lot of the ice cream parlor. Instead, they burst out of their building, sirens blaring, and screamed down the street past us. They went around a block, and came back to turn left into the parking lot. Just as the firemen jumped off their trucks and burst into the shop, I could see Uncle Gord’s old pickup with the extra tall bed topper slowly pull in behind the fire trucks. He greeted us with a smirk and we quickly loaded our bikes.

Uncle Gord was a bit of a free spirit, especially in his younger days. As a truck driver, he had surely seen stranger things than an ice cream parlor parking lot filled with fire trucks. Back in the day, he had water-skied in the shows at Cypress Gardens down in Florida and had taught all of us kids how to ski behind his boat. We all learned to step off onto a slalom ski rather than getting up on two skis and then dropping one. It was a special time and place to grow up. One time out at “The River” he casually picked up my guitar and played an Eagles song. Before then, I had never even known that he played. He was one of my heroes. He was also probably part of the reason I smoked Camel Lights for a time.

Doug and I never did make that Leelanau trip.

Small Town Midwest Life – long before we had hashtags.

Character Sketches from the Road

I had stumbled back to truckdriving just before Christmas last year. The engine on my sv Ruth Ann was kaput and I needed to raise the funds to buy a replacement. I went back down to Florida to drive for a company I had driven for before. I knew the people, the system, and the schedule. I just didn’t get a good feeling from any of the trucking job ads I was reading near me in North Carolina.

In the first week back, I found myself in Albany, GA. There is a large Molson Coors Brewery there where I picked up a load but didn’t have enough hours left to drive any further. The Pilot truckstop in town had been a convenient stop for fuel and to use their scale, but I had rarely slept there. Across the road was a Walmart and I needed a wastebasket. Yes, a wastebasket … and a something for supper.

I wandered around the Walmart and found a few other things for my life in the truck. It was crowded at the front of the store and people were lined up behind the small order self scan areas. Using a human cashier is preferable to me anyway, so I got in line behind one of the few open lanes.

The woman ahead of me in line was a good looking young woman in a bright green tracksuit, with yellow, almost golden piping down each leg and accenting the jacket. She had incredibly long, brightly colored fingernails and impossibly large false eyelashes. Her long braids that were knotted together intricately with little golden strands accented several of the large braids. She was very busy organizing her stuff.

She must have been moving into a new place and had piles of household stuff; mops, cleaning stuff, a laundry basket and a broom. A small knick knack frame containing an inspiration quotation was causing trouble. It wouldn’t scan. The cashier didn’t seem sure how to handle the glitch. Or perhaps she was stalling hoping that the woman would say “just forget that one.” The customer was holding out.

Off to my left were some larger self scan aisles and I began to move my cart. The lights were all on as if the aisles were open, but I noticed that all of the register terminals were opened up for maintenance or something. As I abruptly turned back into the aisle, I nearly bumped into another guy approaching the registers.

He motioned for me to continue and got in line behind me. I smiled and nodded asking how he was.

“Well, I’m all right, but this eastside Walmart has the worst customer service.”

“Yeah, it’s amazing all the customers backed up behind so little help at the registers,” I replied.

He craned his neck back and forth. Then gave up and started unloading his stuff onto the belt behind the divider bar I had placed behind my stuff.

“I never come in here anymore, but I was on this side of town,” he grumbled.

The guy must have been coming off work; a contractor of some kind. He had a plain windbreaker, work t shirt and some jeans; topped with a Buffalo Bills hat. He laid out his groceries and proudly explained the excellent crockpot meal he was going to create when he got home.

I explained that I had walked over from the truckstop and had forgotten to bring a mask. We shifted from bitching about Walmart customer service to talking about the pandemic craziness in the world. He was wearing a mask as was the tracksuit gal, still waiting for a price in front of us.

I explained that I was trying to stay out of the fray.

“I worked for a wise Dutch guy when I was in Indiana. He used to always say ‘Never argue with a fool in public, because bystanders will start to get confused about who is who.”

“I know that’s right!” exclaimed the track suit woman. She hadn’t said a word up to that point but I had apparently struck a nerve.

The three of us had a short chat on keeping our cool in the crazy world. The cashier finally got a price on the inspirational knick knack and the gal was off with a cart piled high. Just the way she carried herself, she seemed like she was starting a new life as much as getting a new place.

The cashier was mildly apologetic and scanned my items. I told her not to worry and poked my card into the machine. As I pulled my card and stuffed it back into my wallet, I told my new Buffalo Bills friend that it was nice to meet him and that I hoped he had a good year.

“It has to be better this year, eh?” I said as I nodded to him.

“It already is better, because I met you.” he declared before turning to the cashier.

I smiled, waved, and walked back to the Pilot. Maybe this will be a good year.

My Poet and I

There is a poet inside me,

Struggling to get out. 

He leans against my heart, 

And presses against the back of my sternum,

Scratching with the sharp toes

Of his cold feet. 

Yet I long to live with him again,

To chat over lonesome coffee,

Somewhere just off the road. 

I can't always hear him, 

But I hear him walking,

Getting nearer. 

And as I prepare for his return

I see Poetry everywhere. 

Not just from the poets, 

But as the birds beat at the air

To let go of the earth. 

And in the leaves of the trees

Waving

In gentle applause.

But also in the cracked sidewalk,

The potholes,

And the dirty truckstop shower. 

It is everywhere,

Just waiting, 

For my poet and I. 

Sailing the Atlantic at Night

 

Suspended between starry sky

And dark sea,

Sailing the Atlantic at night.

Not a sound but the waves

Rushing past,

Or is it stars brushing by sails?

Where do the stars begin or

The sea end?

Feeling the unseen ocean swell.

Mysterious invisible sails

Obscuring stars,

Black triangles against a dark sky.

What began as a smudge

To the East,

Hardens to a line as stars fade.

Slow motion explosion of color,

Shimmering waves,

The sun burns a hole in the horizon.

Topaz waters fade to blue green,

Clouds flout on.

This will suffice, to me, for a church.

Panic In The Gravel

When I was in Michigan truckdriving, I drove for a company that mostly hauled office furniture, but a small part of their business was baby formula. A well known brand of infant formula was produced near the company’s base in West Michigan. A truckload of product was worth about a half million dollars. And - if you’ll pardon the pun -- it was a highly liquid commodity. 

The trucking company and the company that produced the formula feared that someone could hijack a truckload, roll into practically any location, and sell the formula out the back of the trailer before the cops could show up. Hence, the rule was that the driver who picked up the load had to drive 250 miles without stopping to reduce the chance of a possible hijack. 

The infant formula always went the same route: the plant was in Zeeland, Michigan and the formula had to get to a warehouse in Mt Vernon, Indiana outside Evansville. Back then the most efficient route was to head down the west side of Indiana. US41 was a lonely road through miles and miles of dairy farms and cornfields. A huge wind turbine farm along the way was the only break in the monotony. After running the formula down south, the driver would pick up a load of drawer slides that were manufactured in Southern Indiana and bring them right back to the furniture manufacturers in West Michigan. 

The biggest trouble with driving 250 miles without stopping … was coffee. I needed some to get my mojo up for the drive, but eventually the coffee and nature would call. The 250 mile mark was about two thirds the way down the length of Indiana; just past I-74. However, I often snuck a quick pit stop at the exit off I-65 near Roselawn. This was where I cut across to US41 from the freeway and the long exit ramp made for an easy place to quick pee on the gravel shoulder or in a bottle; depending on the weather. 

On one particular night, as I approached the Roselawn exit, I started to hear a grinding noise from behind me near the drivetrain. I pulled over on the exit ramp and called the night mechanic. He knew the trouble before I finished my sentence and had me get out to confirm that the tractor suspension was low.

Below the catwalk and between the drive axles of the truck was a lever arm to control the pressure in the air bag suspension. The end of that lever was secured with a small plastic part. When that part breaks, the lever arm sags out of position and the airbags deflate. This caused the back of my tractor to sag. The grinding noise I had heard was the driveshaft struggling to spin; it wasn't designed for highway speed and deflated air bags.

Road Service would take two or three hours to get to me or if I had some zip ties or duct tape, I could crawl under the truck and reconnect the lever arm. I liked the idea that I might be able to get myself back on the road, so I volunteered for the latter. I dropped the trailer and moved the cab up about ten feet. The easiest approach was to crawl between the drive tires on the right side. Actually, I can’t remember if I decided that or if it was suggested to me, but it led to a pretty healthy panic that surely cost me a couple years of longevity. 

I grabbed three or four zip ties and wiggled my way between the tires (I was skinnier then). Coming in from the side indeed led me right to the lever arm. I raised the arm back to horizontal and immediately saw where it had to be reattached. To secure it with a couple zip ties was an easy fix. The mechanic had told me there wasn’t much stress or strain on the attachment. This is exactly why Volvo thought they could get away with a fragile little plastic part. The shop would do a proper repair when I returned. 

The truck’s engine was off but the air tanks were full. As soon as the lever arm was back in position, the air bags started to refill. In between the tires with my back against one and my belly touching the other, I suddenly felt the truck moving!

It’s a hell of a thing to be lying in the gravel on the side of an exit ramp in Indiana and to suddenly feel like you were about to be run over by your own truck!! I.had.a.moment. 

After a few seconds of blind panic, I realized that what I was feeling was just the suspension wiggling as the air bags filled. Brakes were applied, the stopped engine was in gear, and the tires were not going to turn. They would move enough to make me almost shit myself but all was OK. 

I wriggled my way back out, took a deep breath of free air, and carried on driving in the foggy darkness down US41. Wide awake now. I wasn't going to need any more coffee; maybe for a couple days.   

Rolling Rolling Rolling ...

The Cut River Bridge

About 1986, I nearly lost a brand new Bronco II into a ravine in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. While living in a house across the road from campus at Michigan State University, my housemates and I made a road trip up north. Somewhere along U.S. 2, west of the Mackinac Bridge, we spotted a roadside park on the shore of Lake Michigan. It was most likely by the Cut River where U.S. 2 crosses the river's ravine and empties into the lake. There is a newer park and scenic lookout there now, but I remember a small gravel lot and a couple latrines on a bluff just before the bridge.

From our vantage a hundred feet or so above the lake, the rippling waves danced in the moonlight like a thousand shards of a shattered mirror. The gentle summer breeze whispered through the lush green trees that looked black against the bright reflected light of moon. Most of the guys were awed into silence as we stood in the gravel parking lot … and I heard a strange crunching sound. 

Without an actual thought coagulating in my brain, I suddenly spun around to see my truck slowly rolling toward the ravine. The only thing between it and the bottom of the ravine was one of those almost-oval-shaped ‘landscape timber’ boards the DOT had haphazardly laid around the perimeter of the gravel. I walked back to my truck, which I had locked for some reason, unlocked the door and stepped on the parking brake. The scrunching noise of the brake broke everyone’s bliss and caused them to turn around. There I stood one foot on the ground and the other standing on the brake of my truck. I never heard the end of that for the rest of the weekend.

Well, I just did it again! I can’t believe that this has happened after more than a million miles on the road and countless – literally thousands – times climbing out of a truck. I had dropped an empty trailer and hooked to a load of CHEP pallets. I only had to roll over to the office, collect the paperwork and I’d be on my way. Simple enough. 

I backed into an empty spot near the office, but my trailer was a little close to another tractor so I pulled back out, straightened up, and backed in. There were no lines, no parking spaces there, but a “real” truckdriver leaves his rig straight and square to the world around it. I grabbed my notebook and a mask, and climbed out of the truck. 

As I stepped away, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wheel turning; the lugs on the wheel were just barely moving. They shouldn’t be moving! Downhill from me was a bunch of other trucks backed into docks, getting unloaded. I couldn’t stop to think about that. I couldn’t stop to think about the fact that I had locked the door. I just started moving. 

I walked back around the front of the truck; set my notebook and mask on the top step; reached into my pocket for the keys as the truck gradually rolled faster; shuffle stepped to the left as I unlocked the door; opened the door; climbed the steps; leaned in to reach for the air brake knobs and yanked the yellow one. The yellow knob controls the truck brakes, and will set off the trailer brakes too. Truck brakes are controlled by air and the system had to evacuate for the brakes to engage. The air spilled out of the brake system in a familiar hiss as the truck rolled another eight or ten feet toward the other trucks. The brakes finally grabbed as the last of the air escaped and the truck stopped -- with about twelve feet to spare.  I had crab-walked next to the rolling truck for sixty or more feet.

It was only then that my heart started to race. What a morning that would have been. My truck was aimed toward the trucks getting unloaded at the docks. Most of those drivers were likely sleeping, waiting for a phone call to tell them they were empty. A lot of those trucks are owner/operators; guys who own their own trucks, buy their own insurance, pay their own repairs. 

I’ve forgot the brakes before; probably many times. However, as soon as I took my foot off the brake pedal and could feel the “looseness” of the truck, I pulled the brakes. Most honest truckers would admit the same. To take my foot off the brake and climb out of the truck without being mindful of that looseness and to have walked across the front of the truck toward the office not knowing, is unbelievable. Distracted parking? The parking lot didn’t look like it had much contour to it, but my truck rolled downhill right at the building and those trucks. I likely would have been fired over that. Amazing that I was so stupid. Amazing that I got away with it.

Do I have to say it again: “I’d rather be lucky than good.”

===
Image by Gittensj

Mom's been gone a year.

Mom has been gone a year and I still don't know how to consider that that fact is true. 

I wrote this while helping care for Mom in the few weeks before she passed.  I wasn't sure that I would ever share it and I'm not sure why I have. It makes me feel her presence, perhaps it will for someone else as well. 

My mother is dying, and I don’t know what to say.

She’s always been beside me; even when I was away. 

Now it takes a bear hug, each time I help her stand. 

This untameable cancer was never part of the plan. 

In everything I’ve done, she’s been with me from the start. 

She taught me cooking, and living with an open heart. 

My mother is dying, and I don’t know what to say. 

I just sit and hold her hand, a bit tightly … today. 

Rock n Roll Moments

Recently, a musician friend posted this picture of a band playing while people danced. From the 1960s, the picture was part of his “Rock and Roll and the Decline of Western Civilization” series (tongue firmly in cheek). I replied “There is nothing, absolutely nothing, like the high you get when people are dancing to what you're playing. Even as a high school hack rock n roller, I got the chance to feel that a couple times. Still carrying that juice.”

I was thinking specifically of the time when a band I was in got to play a few songs at our own high school dance as a preview of an upcoming variety show. It was a hell of a moment. Our signature cover song “Jesse’s Girl” - yeah, I know - was all me for the first couple bars. I cannot describe the feeling when people started dancing. That was the thing. That was rock n roll. All kinds of kids in my school got the mistaken impression that I might be cool; instead of just awkward and goofy.

Some towns are football towns; some are basketball or soccer. I grew up in a band town, where it was cool to be in the band. Just like in sports towns, the recruitment and training started deep in junior high and funneled the best players into the Marching Band and the Symphonic Band. The more I thought about my friend’s picture, however, the more I realized that my rock n roll moment came a couple years before that dance.

The Charlotte High School Marching Band got invited to participate in Edmonton Alberta’s Klondike

Days, a ten day celebration of Canada’s Gold Rush with a marching band competition on the side. I remember getting into the marching band a little early in my Charlotte Band career because they needed members to go to Edmonton. There was lots of practicing to be done. We had a tradition to uphold and, eventually, judges to impress. Under the tireless leadership of Director Karl Wirt and with a really good show - a halftime show - based on the band Chicago’s Greatest Hits album by a recent Charlotte grad, Keith Richardson.

In addition to the main show, we had to prepare a variety of other music. I think there was a main parade. There were these cool showcases in downtown Edmonton where four bands would march toward an intersection from different directions. When they met, one band would march out into the intersection, play a song or two, and retreat. Then each of the others would do the same.

The marching band competition was inside an arena. We were the only high step marching band among corps marching bands and corps marching judges. They didn't know what to make of us; we didn’t do so well. Mr. Wirt got a kick out of reading us our scorecard where one judge thought it was inappropriate that we had played “Proud Mary.” Apparently, the judge didn’t know his Chicago from his Creedence.

My rock n roll moment came at an Edmonton Eskimos Canadian Football game. Somehow, our high school band got the gig to play the halftime show. We sat in the stands during the game behind one of the end zones. All the low brass players were sitting in the back row; where we usually were. In fact, most of us low brass players were the kind of guys that sat in the back row in class anyway. We put on airs as slackers, but when the chips were down, next to the drum section, we were driving the band and could be counted on to do so. If I remember right, Karl Wirt and Keith Richardson were each low brass guys; they would understand.

Right behind us in the stands was a group of taxi drivers enjoying the game on a company outing. When they heard that we had a kickass marching band tribute to the band Chicago, they were very excited. In my memory, they told us Chicago had just been through the area, but I found an archive of Chicago’s tours and there’s no mention of Alberta. Maybe it was Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Keith Richardson’s show was incredible; the score and the marching routines running through a selection of Chicago’s hits. At one point, three soloists stood in a triangle, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, and shuffled in place for each to face the crowd as they played their part. The finale of the show was brilliant.

(I’ve Been) Searching So Long was the final number. On the band’s recording, the song begins quietly with strings, then the horns come in with just a hint of the power of what’s to come. The ending is a blast of power; a Midwest Rock n Roll Anthem. We played the somewhat dreamy main part as the band marched slowly, corps style I think. The song slowly intensified and the band ended up in a single file line along the edge of the other side of the field. The music swelled, we turned toward the ‘home side,’ all our horns snapped up on angle, and we blared the finale of the song slowly, strongly, the full width of the field (starting at 2:54 in the youtube above). Some of the lyrics are interestingly appropriate:

“As my life goes on I believe

Somehow something's changed

Something deep inside”

Now, when we nailed that in practice, it was fun. All the low brass guys, and the drum section, gave all we had to the thrumming bass line and rhythm of the song; a song that we still heard on the radio. The vocal melodies were filled in by our trumpets and woodwinds. In band, we usually didn’t play music that we could recognize, music that was ours, music that we listened to on our own. It was a thrill. I literally tingled with delight though all our practices.

To do this show, this same music, in a packed football stadium was something else entirely. In my memory, the show went well. ‘Searching So Long,' the finale came, we marched slowly, entwining the field and ending on the sideline. When we all snapped our horns skyward, nailed the song’s surge, and marched, victoriously, the full width of the field - roaring - the crowd went wild. We could almost feel their approval physically. They roared back at us. The taxi drivers threw their hats in the air. The crowd was with us, yelling and screaming the whole march across the field. That right there. That is what Chicago knows. That is what Mick Jagger knows. That is the power of rock n roll.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck. We nailed it. The crowd loved us. With each breath, each step, I felt less and less of the field beneath me; floating on the power of that moment. It was literally out of this world and I have never felt that again. Except in the telling of the story, and writing this now, I can feel the emotional pressure in my eyes, the knot in my stomach, a little catch in my breath. The magic is still there. I only have to tell the story to feel that surge again.

“There's a strange new light in my eyes

Things I've never known

Changing my life

Changing me”

Thank you, Mr. Wirt. Thank you, Keith.
Rock. and. Roll.

The.First.Words.She.Spoke.

The Tip Top Deluxe is in a westside neighborhood on the border between a blue collar neighborhood and a bit of industry. Down the street past some older houses is a sprawling iron and metal recycling facility. There’s a city maintenance yard and a Coca Cola bottling plant nearby, each two blocks in opposite directions.

The building must have once been a neighborhood store. Today, the exterior is plain; solid, but not fancy. The door faces the side street and above it hangs a jaunty sign sporting the retro Tip Top logo. Just inside is a small room that functions as a vestibule with the johns off to the right. On a music night the band’s merch table takes up most of the space. The bar is through a door on the left; past the doorman who’ll take your money and stamp your hand.

The night Deb and I went to see Sarah Borges open for The Bottle Rockets, we parked along the curb nearly under the sign. And as we arrived at the stoop, Sarah and a couple bandmates burst out the door.

“Oh, my goodness,” I said in an exaggerated way, but she didn’t recognize me yet.

I had met Sarah through my brother. I think he is practically a patron and has been a fan since he was going to M.I.T. and she was a local phenom. She has done a couple crowdfunded albums in recent years. As a poor vagabond sailor, I chipped in just enough to get the music.

The last five summers or so, when Tim and his family are back in the States for a visit, Tim has hired Sarah to perform at a garden party on Boston’s south shore where his family reunites with their Boston friends and former neighbors.

Deb, Sarah, The Bottle Rockets and I

A few years ago, Tim dragged me to a recruiting event for his company. I was visiting out east on a vacation. Though I had resisted doing anything work-related, Tim finally insisted that I go. As we set up an ice cream social in a room at M.I.T.’s student union, Sarah walked in with her guitar case! Tim, ever the patron, had hired her for the event. It was gourmet ice cream and acoustic rock and roll.

As she walked in, Sarah apologized that she hadn’t had enough change for the parking meter and the time allotted. As if by magic, Tim poured an amazing number of quarters into my cupped hands.

“Go fill Sarah’s meter,” he said, “I’ve got to go pick up the ice cream.”

Thus, I found myself walking across the quad at M.I.T. with Sarah to find her car. She was dressed for a casual afternoon acoustic jam in a mini skirt and cowboy boots. We must have been quite a sight mingling with all the future engineers and computer scientists but had a nice walk and a pleasant chat about music and family.

Back at the Tip Top, Deb and I found a booth and as Sarah passed by, Deb pointed to me and asked her: “Do you remember this guy?”

“Hey, um …  your brother is … Dawson-Townsend, in Switzerland. And you’re just Townsend” Sarah declared.

Sarah’s latest album was produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel. He also produced the last couple Bottle Rockets albums. Roscoe has an amazing musical pedigree; including having been Joan Jett’s original lead guitar player in the late 70s. Roscoe was playing for Sarah on this tour and the Bottle Rockets’ rhythm section, bass and drums, were the rest of her band for the night. Apparently, they had all met on an Outlaw Country Cruise, Sarah had been scheduled as a solo act, but a borrowed pick up band -- these same guys -- was organized. She and her gathered crew put on a killer set of rock and roll. They played a lot of Sarah’s new music; peppered with old favorites and the go-to songs from her back catalog. With a short break after Sarah, The Bottle Rockets took the stage and after two or three songs, I wandered out back to find Sarah.

“Do you smoke?” Sarah asked and I shook my head. “Well, if you can hang out a minute, I want to chat.”

Sarah took care of her business with the club as Roscoe sat near the merch table eating a sandwich. Soon Sarah and I went outside to the crisp air on the sidewalk. She lit a smoke and ...

“So, how’s the boat?” she asked! The.First.Words.She.Spoke.

Suddenly I was lost. Disoriented. Blood thrummed in my ears as my heart pounded. Misty stars floated in the air. Seagulls cried. Waves crashed and hissed against a beach. The.First.Words.She.Spoke.

Now, I wasn’t on the make that night. I was honored that she even recognized me. But Men are often ridiculous about inappropriately projecting our affections on any woman who is remotely nice to us. We are even worse about imagining that woman is projecting affection in our direction. But when a woman asks a sailor about his boat -- FIRST.

Well, that was almost more than I could handle appropriately.

Despite my swimming sweaty brain, we had a nice chat. It was more than surreal standing out on the sidewalk, after just watching Sarah rock the house at the Tip Top, and talking with her about her son, life in Boston, and my niece and nephew, whom she had seen more recently than I.

Anyway, I think Sarah’s been on the road since her late teens. She has heard it all and has probably had to shut down all kinds of harassers and interlopers. I’ve seen her burn hecklers into silence from the stage. Moreover, I’m in no position to offer her anything. But.The.First.Words.She.Spoke.

And besides, I can’t decide if she and Roscoe are a couple or just musical partners. She told me, nodding to the black Suburban at the curb, that they like traveling together. I also read an article where she referred to him as her “partner in crime.” Each of these could equally refer to a professional relationship or something more.

There was a couple at the Tip Top who I know are also Michigan friends of Sarah’s. Inside, she stopped by them a couple times to chat. I really don’t know, but I think I was the only one to stand outside on the sidewalk for a chilly, extended chat.

If nothing else, I like to think that I might have made Joan Jett’s guitar player a little jealous.

Lost Dancer in Memphis

Dave was distracted, but not by all the noise around him. The grill cook rattled his utensils like a mad jazz drummer. The dish washer clattered away at a huge pile from the morning rush. Chit chat and rumor buzzed amongst the remaining booths. It was mid morning and breakfast was well over, but the regulars hung around trading gossip and bad puns. Dave’s brain swirled like the creamer in his coffee. A beige puddle collected in his spoon after he’d set it down. He looked out the window and thought, so this is North Little Rock.

He had gone to Memphis to find her, but hadn’t. In escaping with his life, he had only just kept his freedom. The jury was still out on that too. Another bad pun.

As the stoneware coffee mug touched his lip, the warm memory of her kisses swept back over him. He recognized the frosted glaze atop the brown mug; a copy of a classic pottery design that had originated in Ohio. God ... Ohio. They had fallen in love at a small college in the Miami Valley. Dave was there because of his father’s connections. Toni had enrolled because of the well known classical dance program. Her family was from New Orleans, but she had been raised in Memphis. A dark beautiful mix of voodoo and soul, she had been life changing. She had been his. And then she’d left him for New York and an Off Broadway gig.

His Mother should have loved her. Toni sang in the church choir. Her voice was beautiful, clear and strong. You could get religion just hearing her sing. But his parents had reacted in a completely unexpected and backward way. The relationship had brought up issues that he had never had to confront back home. His Dad felt their relationship threatened his position on the school board. On the phone, his Mother had just cried and cried. In the confusion and frustration, he had paused when he should have been strong. He had been weak and indecisive at the most perfectly tragic moment. That’s when Toni had left for New York without him.

She was hurt. There was more crying on phones. He had never wanted to let her go. Constraints he no longer accepted had stopped him from helping her pack, driving her to New York and staying there with her.

Soon Toni had lost her bearings somehow on the Great White Way. The demands were steep and the pace was frenetic compared to the genteel South she had known. Just as the bright white lights of the marquee never quite reach the damp grit of the street, she had never quite fulfilled her dreams. She had gone back to Memphis and had gotten into some trouble; a mistake with a local tough guy, Tavo. Now she, and her newborn child, were hiding.

In Memphis, Dave wasn’t expected in the neighborhoods where he searched for Toni. He was a pale, freckled Midwesterner. Everyone there seemed to know all they needed to know about him yet he knew nothing of them. But then he had found Toni’s sister. And he found Tavo too. The sister had told him Toni was in Texas. The tough guy had told Dave he was going to be dead.

“Is that all, Hon?”

The waitress jarred him back to North Little Rock. Dave hadn’t remembered eating the pie, or finishing the coffee, but there it was — an empty plate, a thin, cold puddle in the bottom of the mug, the messy fork draped across the plate, and the dirty spoon. He hadn’t used the knife. He hadn’t expected to use a knife. It was a deadly surprise for Tavo that he’d even had a knife.

“Yeah … thanks,” he said slowly.

He couldn’t go back to Tennessee, but as soon as he got to Austin, he could tell Toni that she and her baby were safe.

===

Note: This is an old short story of my polished up. 10/01/2018.

The Cop and the Corn

I’ve written before about the DOT regulated hours I have to track as a truck driver. I can drive for eleven hours a day, but once I start, I have just fourteen hours of on-duty time in which to drive that eleven. A ten hour break resets these clocks.

I had just started driving again for a company where I had driven before. Its a three-beer-story, but I had three trucks in my first eight days after two of them died on me. The second broken down truck was still at the dealer in Savannah. I had to abandon that truck and got a ride from another driver back to Florida. That truck is still waiting on parts in the back corner of the dealer's lot with most of my stuff there too. I wrote about my broken trucks saga here in a post about earning boat money.

I picked up a load in Alabama and delivered in Douglas, GA.  I had just enough time on my clocks to backtrack to Albany for a load; 44,000 lbs of Coors Light bound for Smyrna near Atlanta. About an hour up the road from there, I had to stop for the night (my night is usually midafternoon to midnight). My appointment for the next morning was at 10:30; a terrible time given the usual morning traffic in Atlanta.

After checking with Google Satellite Maps, I knew there was lots of parking at my delivery location. So I left quite early to avoid the traffic and arrived at 6:00a for my 10:30a appointment. There’s lots of beer drinkers in Atlanta, so there were lots of trucks waiting to deliver to the beer distributor that morning. It was almost 1:00p by the time I was unloaded and ready to roll.

My next load assignment had two pickup stops. The first was about 40 miles away, back through Atlanta traffic -- and needed to be picked up before 2:00p. I started rolling before I had a specific address. Once I had that address I had to message dispatch that I couldn’t make it before 2:15 or 2:30p.

My truck GPS was still in the broken truck sitting in Savannah.  I was using my phone and wandered through some sketchy country roads near Hampton to get to an old, repurposed warehouse. All that rushing around for two skids of no brand windshield washer fluid.

The next stop was up near Stockbridge. I managed to find that next warehouse tucked in a suburban shopping district and got loaded with Chinese imitation YETI coolers. My fourteen hour clock was running out and I had only driven about five hours of my eleven for having waited all morning to unload the beer.  There was nowhere to park a semi in the neighborhood.

Dispatch had a grand plan to get me through Savannah to pick up my stuff. The two stop load I had was bound for Hope Mills, NC. Then I was to pickup a load in Clinton, SC to go to Fort Pierce, FL; passing right through Savannah with a stop for my stuff. The trouble was that the Clinton vendor was notoriously slow to load a trailer. Hundreds of big-but-light boxes of plastic storage bins are loaded by hand on to the trailer floor -- no pallets. I had to get there in one jump and take my break while they loaded me. Otherwise, I would not have time to get to Savannah during business hours. I had to make business hours on Friday or I would have to wait until the following week, on another load, to swing by and get my stuff.

Here’s where the fun begins. My trip from south of Atlanta to the other side of North Carolina was reasonably uneventful. There was an accident involving three semi trucks and a ten mile backup, but luckily it was on the other side of the highway. The eastbound lanes got bound up by rubberneckers slowing down to gawk at the accident but I was through in just a few minutes. The rest was not a leisurely ride, I only stopped once for coffee -- to get rid of some and to get some more. Old Trucker Proverb: You don’t buy coffee, you rent it.

I arrived at the Hope Mills warehouse and had to scramble to find an empty trailer. There were two choices: one trailer wouldn’t be unloaded for a couple hours, the other was hidden in a back corner of the lot. I had about 200 miles and little less than four hours to drive, so I had to move. When I found the empty trailer, someone had left me about 20 pounds of field corn spilled in two sprawling piles. My broom was hanging on the back of the truck in Savannah.

I grabbed the trailer and headed for South Carolina; flying. The next load was almost all the way back
to Georgia and I barely had enough time. About halfway there was a truckstop that I remembered was easy off and back on the highway, so I planned my attack. When I arrived, I jumped off the highway, ran into the store, and bought a broom, some garbage bags, some supper and a granola bar for breakfast -- then tore off down the highway again. I watched my diminishing drive time and the ETA on my phone all the way there.

I arrived with just six minutes to spare. Now the trailer needed to be swept as I hadn’t been able to take the time yet. Once the trailer was swept and I scooped the corn into a couple garbage bags, there wasn’t a dumpster to be found. Many warehouses give little or no thought to the needs of drivers. Other places have grown sick and tired of messes some truckers leave behind. At least this place had an indoor bathroom that we all could use. I tossed the bags of corn on the catwalk behind my cab and checked in with the shipping office.

I slept at the dock and finally felt them start loading me. I slept some more and then woke to the metallic sound of the dock plate being retracted from the trailer; the perfect ringtone for a trucker’s alarm. In front of the shipping office, the trailer was sealed, the paperwork signed and then I moved off to a corner of the lot to sleep a little more. Now I could time my departure to hit the dealer in Savannah mid morning and reunite with my stuff.

Up at 2:00a for my morning ablutions and a pit stop, I was ready to roll at 3:00a but still had to do something with the bags of corn. I decided that since corn was natural and I was out in the country, I could just dump it. No one would be surprised by a pile of corn in the road. I didn’t want to just dump it in the warehouse lot like a bad trucker cliche, so I pulled out onto the road, stopped in the left turn lane and threw on my four way flashers.

It was still dark when I exited the cab and stepped back to the catwalk. Just as I sliced open the bags and started dumping the corn onto the road, a couple pairs of headlights passed over my shoulder heading toward the warehouse. Crap, I thought, shift change. Attention was not something I wanted just then.

The bags were almost empty. And then a sheriff squad car crept by on the other side of the truck. As he pulled in front of the truck, my heart sank. First I wondered how much a ticket for littering might cost. Then I remembered I was in the south and I might end up in front of some unamused judge after languishing for a couple days in the local drunk tank. My thoughts became a horrifying mix of Buford T. Justice, Barney Fife, and the littering trial saga in the song, Alice’s Restaurant. There was a twist of twine and a few cups of remaining corn as I struggled to wad the bags up. I leapt back into my truck and tried stuffing the mess into my little trash bag.

The sheriff that approached my door couldn’t have been 25 years old. He was squeaky clean and way too alert for 3:00a with a perfectly polished smile straight out of the Laurens County High School yearbook; probably a former quarterback. His grandfather was probably the judge I’d be seeing later in the week. My gagging trash bag finally swallowed the tangled mess of twine and corn and I sat up in the driver’s seat just as Sheriff Dreamboat stepped beside my door. 

“You good?” was all he asked.

“Yes … yessir, I am,” I choked.

He waved, spun around to his car and drove off. 

I’m still confused.

Did he see the corn on the road? Did he think it was someone else’s?

He probably thought I was taking a leak behind the cab at the catwalk; a notorious trucker peeing spot.

Looks like I won’t be having a baloney sandwich at the county jail tonight.

I’d rather be lucky than good.

This is long but it's a classic Vietnam draft era protest song:

Bonus Track from Todd Snider:

An Empty Square

[Please note, I wrote this in my journal about a year ago, I wasn't sure I would ever share it.]



Paula Hosey passed away over the weekend, just shy of her 53rd birthday. The news was difficult and a sharp pain to my heart. She was the first girl with whom I used the phrase “go steady.” It seems a little silly now using those words in fifth grade, but we did. Those were the days when anything was possible and we, and all our friends, lived with hardly a worry or a care.

Back at Galewood Elementary, fifth grade I think, for Paula’s birthday I wrote her a poem and got her a flower. It was March, forty some years ago, when I trudged through snow over to her house. When I knocked on the door, the house was filled with her girlfriends and I had stumbled into a birthday sleepover or something. I can vividly remember realizing that one leg of my pants was scrunched up on top of a snow boot. When I bent over to straighten that leg, I realized to fix it I would have to expose my long john underwear to all those girls -- a fraction of inch, mind you. I stood back up and left the pants where they were -- and I probably turned red, because that’s what I often did back then. No one else likely noticed or cared, but they did all coo about my poem and flower. I felt pretty cool and the walk back home was a little warmer.

In fifth grade, you don’t go steady for long.  We were always friends and sang together with friends in an act that tried out for our high school band's variety show; the Band Bounce. Just after we all started high school, Paula’s family had to move. I wrote another poem for her which I don't remember besides the last line which was something creative like “I sure will miss you, Paula.”

A couple years after though, I did get to see Paula again when a family camping trip took us through Williamsburg. And recently, we had been in contact on Facebook.

For many many years I had a journal containing my poems. Most of them were not very good; either sappy and lovelorn or an obvious attempt to impress a girl. It contained that last poem I had written for Paula. On that page I had drawn a square where I was going to stick her last school picture. I never tracked down a picture and all those years later it was just a square with “Paula” written inside it.

When I got divorced a second time, I moved out of the house in a hurry. That is not a story for today, but I grabbed my possessions on the fly, deciding what was important and what to simply abandon as I loaded my car. That journal of poems, a hard bound, unlined book with no writing on it’s spine, escaped my attention. Weeks or months later, it was an abrupt, strangely physical sense of loss when I realized that I was missing all my poems.

Ever since I heard this weekend that she was gone, my heart kind of feels like an empty square with the word “Paula” written inside.

I Couldn't Find Any Sleep

I Couldn't Find Any Sleep
(first draft, incomplete?)

I tried to get too much done yesterday

And when I finally laid down

(short nap before a night shift)

I couldn't find any sleep

In the jungle that is my disquieted mind

The hurly-burly of all my schemes and aspirations

Howled like monkeys at sunset.

===
Image used without permission. Stolen here.

Vivid Un-medicated Flashbacks (and the links to prove it).

I had the strangest load last month. For those of you who don't know, my part-time gig is delivering to CVS stores. I usually have 3 or 4 stops on a trailer. This load was to Tequesta, West Palm Beach - and then, Longboat Key. If you don't know Florida geography, Tequesta is about an hour south of me here on the Treasure Coast. West Palm is a little further south, but Longboat Key is all the way across the state - on the Gulf Coast!!

Longboat Key lies off Sarasota and to get to the CVS about halfway up the island, I had to go straight through Sarasota, across the John Ringling Causeway, over Bird Key, around St. Armand's Circle, across the northern arm of Lido Key and finally over the New Pass Bridge to Longboat. These are my old stomping grounds; full of ghosts and vivid flashbacks. I didn't suspect a thing as I drove across the state from West Palm, over FL-70 and up I-75.

As I crested over Bee Ridge Road, I realized I was going to pass the original shop where I started a plastics business in the mid 90s. It's Florida, so the whole area was much more developed than it had been. Nevertheless, I went by the site where the line between right and wrong got paved over for my ex-wife. I had another plastics guy as a business partner and our financial partner had locked us out of the building we were working in. Under the cover of darkness, we stole all our stuff -- from ourselves -- and started the business all over again across town, under a new name, without a financial backer. I squinted from the highway but couldn't tell exactly where the little shop on a cul-de-sac had been, but it was definitely gone.

Next I exited at Fruitville road. This exit had been redone since my near fatal road rage incident almost 25 years ago. Just west of the highway was super-developed with retail, but the original plaza I knew appears to still be there. It was there, halfway through a long day at the shop, that my partner and I were looking for some lunch and spotted a couple ladies walking along the plaza. As we crept by, totally obviously checking them out and got right alongside them - leering - and it was my wife and a friend!! Worse yet, Don had been checking out my wife, whom he didn't get along with. And I was checking out the friend!

A little further down Fruitville Road was the apartment complex where Cindy and I lived. It was also the site where a sheriff deputy showed up and served her with the paperwork showing that I was getting sued for $600,000. We'd been married less than a year - image coming home to that kind of news!

I didn't turn up Beneva Road to see if the Circus City Trailer Park was still there. I spent about a year at the park in a little 22 foot Prowler travel trailer. However, just a few blocks down Fruitville was the gas station where I got my propane to cook.

Further down the road I went by the Office/Drafting Supply store that made copies for me of a complete set of plans for a fifty foot trimaran. One of our customers had got all misty-eyed when he discovered we had a company subscription to Multihull Magazine. My Emma is nearly the complete opposite of a multihull but I had always thought I might build one. This customer had built the 50' trimaran in California in the early 1970s. Apparently, the man's son was not happy that he had let me copy the plans.

When I got to US41, I craned my neck but it looked like Walt's Fish Market was gone(moved apparently). My business partner and a friend/consultant, who was an economics teacher at Bradenton High School, used to go there for happy hour and stuff ourselves with steamed mussels and smoked mullet. It was often all I had for supper on a Friday.

Left onto US-41, and then a right onto the John Ringling Causeway was a little tight in a semi, but I chanced a look at the docks on the east side of Golden Gate Point. I had a Southern 21, which I had bought from our cardboard salesman, docked there. It was here that I got a round of applause for ghosting into my slip under sail. A little old lady, and her very protective daughter, lived on the first floor of the building she owned and rented the adjacent docks pretty cheap.

Next was Bird Key, a gated community, hence I didn't hang out there. Yet years after leaving Florida, when my second wife and I were auction hounds, we shipped a music box to Bird Key. I had found a rare music box at an estate sale. It was lacquered brass with intricate engraving. Inside was a little, realistic looking bird. When opened, the bird popped up and the box sang like a bird rather than playing music. My wife and I sold it on eBay for about $600.

Next up was St. Armands Circle, another interesting spin in a semi. The ‘circle’ means traffic circle with a park in the middle, boutique-y shops and over-priced restaurants around the outside. I once had a terrible blind date at a little place called Hemingway's. On the way out and back, I just put my four-way flashers on and took up both lanes around the circle. (I did yield for a few pedestrians.)

Around the northern elbow of Lido Key, it looked like the Old Salty Dog bar is something else now(actually, maybe it’s still there). I did a lot of sailing by myself, but one evening with a couple guys along, we were sailing out to the ‘Dog’ for supper. A few boats beat us to the turn west toward New Pass. We followed them in. All of us were "Wing & Wing" as the evening offshore breeze was behind us. It wasn't long after we turned that the other sailors started yelling at us. They were in some kind of race back to the Sarasota Sailing Squadron and our sails were blocking their wind. We just waved and carried on. The wind was very light and by the time we actually tied up to the dock, the kitchen was closed. Supper that night was beer and potato chips.

I barely recovered from that flashback when I was crossing the New Pass bridge to Longboat Key. Just outside the bridge, on the Gulf-side, is a party cove where I spent my last Fourth of July weekend in Florida. My buddy Tom and I got out to the cove early to get a good spot, but a no-name storm was going by out in the Gulf. We spent the night in winds approaching 30 knots with just an 8' sand dune between us and the storm. The anchor line was tight like a guitar string the whole night.

On Longboat Key, I drove past all the resorts starting with the Key Club on the south end. When I drove a cab in Sarasota, most of what I did was run tourists back and forth between the airport and these resorts. Tips were good on the way out because vacation had just started, everyone was excited, and no one was counting their money yet. The way back to the airport was a little somber and less lucrative.

The CVS is about halfway up the key. After the delivery, all that travel was just reversed; party cove, Lido Key, St. Armands, Bird Key, and the John Ringling Causeway bridge. Here I could finally safely and clearly see the anchorage where I had a boat for eighteen months or so. Back then, 60 or 80 boats were anchored there for free; about a third were liveaboards. Today, it's a state-regulated mooring field. Last I heard, it's about $275 a month - not bad for a place downtown.

Sunday mornings at the anchorage meant breakfast at O'Leary's. Whoever got there first had to buy the paper. When the rest of us wandered in - rowed ashore actually - we perused the random, left over newspaper sections.

I used to tell people I was a bi-athlete. Each morning I rowed about 50 yards to shore, unlocked my bike from the palm tree, locked the dinghy with the same chain and then pedaled to work.

I couldn't quite see the park and O'Learys past Marina Jack's but my brain was exhausted from all the flashbacks. I was a little delirious all the way out of town and back on the highway. Northern Indiana and Detroit are two other places where I've spent enough time that a simple drive through can be full of ghosts.

Saved by Karaoke

I ended up with 45 minutes to kill and that’s often no good. The day before, I had delivered a load and got my next assignment. Shortly after I let them know that I didn’t have the driving hours to get there yet that night, they cancelled that load and gave me another. This is trucking, no problem, and now I had extra time to sleep. Google told me that my new pickup would be about an hour away in the morning.  

I woke up a little early and had a panicked thought. After checking the Motor Carrier Atlas, as I had suddenly expected, the route Google was sending me along was a state highway not rated for trucks. After plotting a legal route, I jumped up, got some coffee and took off down the road. I was dipping south down onto the bypass around Columbia, SC, crossing over to I-26 from I-77, and then northwest to Clinton, SC. I worried about morning traffic on the Columbia bypass. The truck and I rattled through town just early enough that there was very little traffic. Hence, I was onto I-26 and heading toward Clinton much sooner than I had planned for a fixed appointment. 

Surely how he sees himself.

I’ve been really working hard in my fight against road food. In fact, in the heat of the summer while I’m not exercising as much, I've gotten down to a Slim Fast Shake in the morning and evening with a healthy lunch. There is a bit of cheating here and there, but I’ve been happy with my progress. This morning though, I found myself with some time to kill and the looser the schedule is, the harder it is to keep up my discipline. I saw a billboard for a Waffle House next to truckstop and exited the freeway; hellbent for a deliciously bad breakfast. 

It had actually been quite some time since I had a regular breakfast. Once in a great while, I succumb to coffee and a donut, but I hadn’t had eggs and cheese and potatoes in a long time. That was my thinly conceived rationalization. It is pretty easy to find a parking space in a truckstop about 5:00 AM because several trucks have surely left to start their day by then. I backed into a spot, cast my eyes toward the glow of the Waffle House sign, and hiked across the lot. I could already smell the onions and potatoes. This was going to be great! 

Concho Belt

The Waffle House was on a bluff above the truckstop. I wandered around to the front and stepped up the rise past the tiered landscaping. The restaurant appeared to be fairly recent construction or was at least recently landscaped. There was a short sidewalk in front of a couple parked cars. I could see the grill crew standing at the ready. There were a few customers inside. One guy, at the counter, had his shoulders hunched over like an armadillo curling up to hide. Everyone else seemed to be looking at something, the same something. 

Just as I touched the door handle; just as I was about to burst into the Waffle House Playground of Grease and Salt, my eyes found what everyone but the guy at the counter was looking at. A wrinkled old toothless guy striking an ecstatic pose as if he were wailing before a stadium of adoring fans. In one hand was a microphone attached to a karaoke machine that leaned toward the floor at the edge of a booth. He was dressed in black adorned with sterling silver; silver band on a black hat, black western shirt under a black leather vest with black jeans and boots. A sterling silver bolo tie pulled up to his chin and a concho belt at his waist completed the look; except we’re all in South Carolina not Texas. 

He cast an eye at me as he sang. His grizzled face surely hid many stories, but the manic grip on the mic and the deep karaoke sincerity in his sad eyes was too much. If I had been asked to come up with some particular way that I did not want to spend my breakfast, this scenario would never have even come up. Still I knew immediately, no matter whether he was singing Waylon Jennings, Britney Spears or Anne Murray -- breakfast serenaded by this ancient midnight cowboy was exactly not how I wanted to have it.

I hadn’t yet applied the smallest outward pull on the door handle. I didn’t look at the grill crew or anyone else. I simple turned and walked away. Back down the hill to the truckstop, I bought a coffee and a Clif bar, went back to the truck and checked email on my phone. The coffee wasn’t bad and I enjoyed it until when the time was right for leaving again. Thank you, Ancient Midnight Cowboy. You just helped me to continue to avoid that unhealthy -- yet delicious -- breakfast. 

The Dangerous Siren of the Off Ramp

Do You Need a Ride Somewhere?

It has happened before, I was in decent shape (for me) and then went back on the road to earn some boat money. This was a means toward an end; an end where I was going to live in a very healthy, minimalist way. I got distracted by this future healthy lifestyle and took my eye off the ball, again. There is nothing healthy to eat for 5 miles on either side of a highway. And after sitting on my butt for 10 or 12 hours of driving, I’ve not been very motivated to exercise. So, predictably, but suddenly, I realized I was back to an unhealthy weight and my fitness level had essentially just dropped off.

My Trek Antelope is my main means of transportation, but I’m only home 3 or 4 days a month and even though it travels with me, I don’t bike as much as I should. I decided that I could walk regularly if I put my mind to it. Recently I’ve got to where I’m doing 3+ miles four or five times a week and feeling good about it. I’ve been doing a lot of prep work on the boat, but I've been needing to do some work on prepping myself as well.  

On one of my walks, a car came up behind me and I could hear it start to slow. As the luxury car passed, the nice looking middle-aged woman driver seemed to be looking my way. Up ahead, the car did a gentle U-turn, and pulled over onto the shoulder. 

A few times before, I’ve thought I was going to get offered a ride. It may not be that unusual to come across a guy walking down the side of the road for exercise, but out by the highway, on the country roads around a truckstop, exercise may not be the first thing that comes to mind. 

Not far from me the lady turned her car a little deeper into the grass and got out. She was head to toe in business attire and walked on uncomfortable shoes. I wasn’t sure what was about to happen, but without even acknowledging my presence she walked down toward the woods to straighten a real estate sign that had begun to lean. “160+/- acres for sale.” I guess that explained the shoes. 

So just last week, it happened again. And it happened right next to some real estate signs. I can’t imagine but it might have been the same stretch of road. A car slowed down as it went by, did a U-turn, and came at me on the shoulder. It was an older Honda Prelude with the paint scorched off most of the horizontal surfaces. Down here in Florida, after 12 or 15 years, many cars have not only lost their sheen, they have begun to lose the paint. Older cars are even rusted on the roof and the hood.  

As the car came along beside me, the driver’s window rolled down. At the wheel was a young man; maybe 17 or 18 years old. A mop of loosely curled hair spilled out over the top of a pastel bandana tied around his head. His synthetic sleeveless shirt looked vaguely European and another bandana was tied around his right hand as it gripped the wheel. He must of been headed to an 80’s dance party or was looking for Richard Simmons. 

“Do you need a ride somewhere?” he asked with what seemed like genuine concern. 

I can’t imagine my appearance; near the end of 3 miles of walking, sweating through my shirt, a dirty Detroit Tiger cap, ponytail, old running shoes, and I probably hadn’t shaved for a few days. I caught a strong whiff of what seemed like both spearmint and patchouli wafting out of the car. 

“No, man. I’m a truck driver just trying to get some exercise,” I said as I sloshed my water bottle in the direction of the nearby truckstop. 

“That’s hilarious,” was all he said and he drove off, making another U-turn and continuing on wherever he had been going. 

Hilarious. 

At 6:20 pm on a Monday evening, plenty of traffic buzzed back and forth. I was close enough to Jacksonville and the farms out toward Hastings, besides St. Augustine behind me, that all kinds of different people in all kinds of vehicles were commuting in each direction. It wasn’t like I was alone watching the kid’s car drive off but I wondered as I stood there on the shoulder of FL-206 not so far from I-95, what exactly was hilarious?