Nothing . . . to be afraid of

Sometimes what is not there is scarier than what is. Sort of the devil you know from the other perspective. Long ago, I sold plastic parts in Florida. I was based in Tampa and went to the Southeast Coast about every three weeks.

It was faster, especially during the perennial road construction, to cut across the swamp. I would take FL-70 through Arcadia. If I was headed to West Palm Beach, I would stay on 70 and go around the North Side of Lake Okeechobee; to Miami or Fort Lauderdale, I would take US-27 around to the south.

Out past Arcadia and around the lake is Florida's cattle country. Cows and Steers with Cattle Egrets on their backs, lolly-gagging in verdant paddocks, sweating and switching flies with their tails. From Arcadia to US-27, there was very little evidence of human occupation - few houses, the occasional farm truck or tractor. One of the few places to find a Cadillac with bullhorns on the hood outside of Texas or Oklahoma.

One trip through this part of Florida, I got behind a guy in a pickup truck eatin' chicken wings. Every couple minutes, he would fling a bone or two out his window. With sinew and bits of skin hanging on each end, they arced through the air and bounced off the windshield right in front of my face. The wings must have been plain as he just left me with little grease marks and no sauce on the window to wipe clean.

On another trip, I drove past the Clock Restaurant on the east side of town, where their sign said: "Try Are Pies".  Just down the block, a garage sale sign advertised a "Hudge Sale." I was surprised they were having the sale while Mom was at work waiting tables.

Yet another trip, I was driving across in the dark. Shadowy visions of pastures and clumps of Live Oak trees ghosted along beside me under a full moon. For miles, it was just me, the road and a ditch on each side, barbed wire undulating on the outer banks. And then, I had to pee.

A smile turned up into my cheek. I hadn't seen another car for a long time. I popped on the four way flashers and stopped; just stopped in the middle of my lane. It's a guy thing -- alright, a little boy thing -- but there I stood in the middle of a state highway, peeing on the yellow center line and chuckling.

It would have been a pleasant Florida evening, but there was no wind; just the moon and a clear cloudless night. And no other sound. No buzz of an insect, no clunk of a cowbell, no steer grunting in disapproval, no rustling of the Spanish Moss. Just the pitter patter of me peeing in the road

... which suddenly stopped.

Had I known, I would have left the car running. There is something unnerving about stone silence. A full moon, the barbed wire, Live Oaks across the pasture but not a sound. In any scary B-movie, this same silence precedes something really bad happening. It is also hard wired into our fight or flight instincts; obviously the flight side. Just nothing. Scary, spooky, chilly, nothing.

Flip! Zip! Slam!!! I was back in the car - scared out of my wits . . . at nothing -- I don't know why! I'm a fairly rational guy but gooseflesh, hairs-on-end and fingers fumbling with the ignition - I'm outta here!!

This week it happened again. Somewhat more civilized as I'm driving familiar roads and know where the rest areas are.

Just west of the Portage River, west of Port Clinton on OH2, there is a little rest stop. One side serves both directions of highway. Just behind it and over a field or two is Lake Erie. I like the trip through here; especially in summer. I had just driven through an early winter storm -- fog and torrential rain -- which luckily stopped a few miles back.

I approached the Rest Area in the slick metallic wetness of a recent rain at night, past the Air National Guard Base and turned to the left. A lonely car passed me on the right. Just past the Rest Area is a low slung "No Tell Motel." It was probably quite a place in the days before the Interstates. Now it did weekly rentals. I've lived by the week. I know the kind of crowds that live there. Check out Dave Alvins' "30 Dollar Room" if your not sure.

I'm not paranoid, but on this job it pays to be alert and aware. As the air brakes sighed and I climbed down from the cab, I scanned the lot. Especially in the direction of the motel: 15 or 20 rooms, 5 or 6 vehicles, no obvious activity. I glanced back down the road as I walked around the front of the cab. Nothing. A car rolled by on the highway like a long pan in a Hitchcock movie.

Coming out of the Mens John, the rest stop lobby was all glass, lit from the inside with the Governor and his Lieutenant smiling down from the bulletin board, and I couldn't see outside at all. Stupid, but there's that icy finger on my spine again.

I pushed the door open and looked around; motel one way, air base the other. Nothing. Not a sound either, like the storm had drug all the sound away with it. I walked toward my truck with forced nonchalance. Herky Jerky as one leg wanted to lift too high too fast; left brain wants to run, right brain is faking cool. I look left and right as I cross the curb from the Car Lot to the Truck Lot. The wind comes back but I feel it more than I hear it. That icy finger tickles my ear.

The spooked left brain reminded us there could be someone hiding on the other side of the truck. I peaked under the trailer as I walked toward it. Rounding the truck, I casually got my keys out to unlock the door. SLAM! I was up and in the driver's seat, locking the door without remembering the climbing of the steps. My heart was racing . . . and for what! Stupid Human Tricks, I guess. I think I would have been better off if the lot was full of Harleys and lowrider Cadillacs.

I started the truck and checked my mirrors -- still no one around. I pulled out and started heading east again; chuckling at my self.

Ice Dancing

It was clearly a night that I should have called in sick. Or at the very least bailed as soon as it started to go bad. We had had a slight warming and then a ferocious cold snap. The drop yard was thick with ice and full of ruts and clumps and holes from the last traffic before the freeze.

Creeping along in my pickup, I bounced and shimmied and shook across the lunar lot. Occasionally, the violence of falling in a hole or clammering over a ridge was almost painful. My forward progress interrupted enough that I wasn't sure I could get moving again.

Dispatch had given me a tractor number to use. After two painful trips around the yard, I was convinced it wasn't there. Calling back in, I got "Well, let me see here . . . damn, someone else is in that one." Armed with a new, and successful, truck assignment, I started packing. I've got a duffel of clothes, a cooler, a tub of truck stuff and another tub that serves as my pantry. As usual, I also have a 12 pack each of water and Diet Mountain Dew. This week, I didn't bring my guitar. All that and a broom to hang on the back of the cab; I'm ready to roll.

It takes a couple more trips bouncing around the lot to find that the trailer my load is on rests across the street. I get hooked up and check the paperwork. I am 1200 lbs. over gross; not legal for the highway. The previous driver thinks its the ice on the roof. He's probably right but this load is very heavy - bottled water for a warehouse store somewhere in Illinois.

This is where right and wrong, risk and reward, get paved over for a new Bypass to maintain economic activity. I could call in and refuse the load. More politically, I could call and ask for advice. They can't tell me to go around the DOT Scales but they would really rather that I did. It is unspoken and retains the Clintonesque plausible deniability. Anything I do, other than drive away with the load, is going to cost me a couple hours and damage my working relationship with dispatch. I craft a plan.

I've got 7 hours to make a 2 1/2 hour trip. Its a set appointment, so getting there early won't do me any good. There is only one scale between them and me. If I leave now, and get past the Indiana Scales, I can take a nap at a truckstop and then go in for the delivery. At this hour, on Dec. 26th, the scale is likely to be closed up tight. I take the gamble and drive off.

The trip goes fine. I run down the West side of Michigan. In the summer, I can smell the lake from the highway. I scoot through Michigan City, past the Scale and stop at Burns Harbor. The forecast is for warmer weather with the possibility of freezing rain. All I need is a three hour nap and I can roll again.

Halfway through my nap, I wake just enough to hear the rain. It must be getting warmer. I roll over.

When my alarm goes off and I climb out of the truck to make a pitstop, the last meddling detail of the forecast slaps me awake - Freezing Rain! The entire earth, as far as I can see in all directions, has been glazed over like a Krispy Kreme Donut. I can barely walk.

My well planned, half executed, plan has gone to hell. Rumors are that the State Police have closed the highway. I need to fuel up and get on down the road. I gotta go!

I break out my Motor Carrier Atlas and paw to the State Road Conditions page. I call Indiana and Illinois. Each prerecorded message gives weather conditions that sound hours old and cheerfully better than what it looks like now. Neither mentions any highway closures.

To get to the fuel island, I have to pull forward and off to the left. There is a small ridge of leftover snow right in front of my steer tires. Ice is everywhere.

I back up to nudge my way over the ridge with a running start. It seems to work, steer tires, then drive tires, both axles, lumber over the ridge. The trouble comes when I have to start turning right at the moment the first trailer axle reaches the ridge. It stops me cold, like a cow looking at a new gate. I back up and try to hit it a little harder, but the acceleration causes the drive tires to spin. The lot is so slick I can't turn and clear the ridge at the same time.

A driver steps out to repeat the rumor that the highway is closed. I know its a mess out here, but I don't want to shut down on hearsay alone. I back back into my parking space.

After a few moments' contemplation, considering the lot is only two thirds full, I decide if I back up, there is no ridge to intercept my turn. Trouble is the parking lot imperceptibly cants down toward the back row. When I back up to come around the other way, the weight of my load takes over. Now I don't have enough traction to pull the load up the slope. Back was easy; downhill. Forward is now impossible. Luckily no one is behind me, and I back into a slot in the back row. Now I've got to call this in. I'm not going to make my appointment.

Dispatch gives me to the shop and they call a wrecker to winch me out. The shop calls back to tell me the wrecker is two hours out if the highway remains open. The day is shot and I've driven 137.5 miles.

I jump out and slither my way across the lot to get a newspaper. About halfway across barely able to stand, let alone walk, an icy finger runs up my spine. The keys I confirmed were in my pocket are still my personal keys. I've just made my morning even better - I've locked my rig keys in the cab. It's then that I notice the trucks sitting out on the highway. The State Police have shut it down. The wrecker can't move.

Six hours, three newspapers and four cups of coffee later, the highway is open and the wrecker arrives. The ice has melted enough I could drive out, but I need him to pop the lock. I spent the entire time in a booth at McDonalds and milling around the truckstop, chiming in to complain about the ice, not letting on that I would rather be in my truck reading or sleeping but for the lack of a key!

Things were looking up for a minute or two. Then I learned the customer won't take the delivery late. The warehouse store concept calls for deliveries after midnight but not during store hours. Dispatch has me take the load to a drop lot in Hammond. Someone else will take the load in tomorrow night.

Everyone on the highways is still a little skittish but they are moving along. The exit is fairly well groomed. The service road is pretty sloppy. Around the curve, first drive past the International Dealer, the drop lot is slick and white; like the underbelly of a great fish. Ice all the way back between the buildings, beyond the parked trucks - some waiting for Monday, some rusting hulks.

If I don't pause, don't hesitate for a split second, I can move over the ice. I see another of our trailers and turn toward it. My forward motion doesn't even change. There'll be no turning here. As I coast to the last curve before the fence, there is just enough traction at this speed to go around to the right. Carefully positioning the truck, I back into a hole next to my sister trailer.

I can't get out from under the trailer. Traction, or lack thereof, still devil's me. Dolleys are down, king pin unlocked, but my tires just spin. I try taking weight off, putting it back on to no avail. For traction, I decide to pull out and back in a couple feet to the right. There is snow there where no tires have travelled.

Halfway back in the lot, the trailer is not traveling with me! It has followed me out but is lolling side to side on the fifth wheel. When I bumped the trailer to re-lock the kingpin, the lack of traction psyched me. Luckily, the dolleys are still mostly down. If I'd have lost the trailer it would still be standing. I manage to get out from under the trailer but it is in the middle of the yard. Amazingly, the truck slips back under and I back in over the snow.

The snow offers no help - no traction. I've spun the drive tires a couple times. I might as well be on a lake Ice Fishing.

Over by the back of one of the warehouses, a skid with a built up crate of 2x4's and big thick cardboard rest akimbo at the edge of a pile. The long sides are three foot by four foot pieces stapled on. I yank them off and skitter back to the truck. Stuffed under the drive tires, they might offer some grip. My Kingdom for some traction! Of course, my Kingdom is 8 or 10 boxes in my parents basement, mail at my sister's and a boat that doesn't float yet.

Easing the clutch out as slow as I can, in a gear just a notch too high to prevent spin, I eye the cardboard in my convex mirrors. Sweet potential savior cardboard, hear my croak; my anguished plea for mercy.

The tires begin to move, is it?!?!? Come on! And Zip!! . . . the cardboard slips under the first drive axle and curls up in front of the second. Like a Cash Register Receipt paper jam - my transaction could not be completed. Plenty of traction on top of the cardboard; absolutely none on the bottom. I call dispatch for my second winch out of the morning.

Same company, same model wrecker, new driver. A wrecker to haul semis is a special beast; one huge animal. He has little trouble on the ice. The wrecker is part crane for trucks in ditches. He backs in front of me, hooks a cable and pulls forward.

The crane part has feet that fold out to stabilize like cranes and overhead lifts do. Rather than folding the feet out flat, he stomps the toes into the ice and pulls the cable taut with a dip of the crane - like a Transformer doing the Macarena.

I'm literally yanked out from under the trailer. He left me in a spot of ice, so there's a second yank. I crawl under the empty sister trailer but can't get out. This time he connects the cable and tows me all the way out to the road. I'm back on the lake, but Water Skiing rather than Ice Fishing.

I sign his ticket and get on my way. A glutton for punishment, now I'm chasing the storm into Michigan with an empty trailer. What a week and its only my Tuesday! Two days in, I've spent $385 of the company's money and, for me, I've driven less than 150 miles; about $50 before taxes.

The very next day, I made it to Ohio and sat for four hours to get a twenty minute fuel filter change. Things are looking up! It'll cost you a case a beer to hear that story.

In Trucking, as in Sailing,

In Trucking, as in Sailing, Fearless and Stupid are first cousins. ~ Cap'n Bubba

Dock Plate Special

It was an old mill town in Ohio. Ancient brick factories groaning, leaning against each other on a river; like Samoan Grandmothers beating their laundry on the rocks. I'd been through here before. The main corner in town is the junction of two state highways. Its an old main street with restaurants and boutiques struggling in old storefronts; bleeding on the unfinished hardwood floors. All these old little towns striving to become an antiquing destination; with few succeeding.

There is barely enough room for a semi to make the turn in town. I stopped traffic in all four directions and still would be sitting there if it wasn't the help of the driver behind me on the CB.

On the north side of town, one of the old brick factories still spews steam as activity buzzes around her skirts. Its a paperboard recycling plant. My trailer is loaded with bales of cardboard boxes from the back of a store. The downside of most of these old places, despite their tragic beauty, is that they were designed in the age of 48' trailers; sometimes horse wagons. Today we pull 53 footers. You'd be amazed at the heartache caused by another five feet.

I danced my way on to their scale with my big trailer; amusing the other drivers. Most were here for pickups, I had a delivery. Receiving is three outdoor docks in a pit, littered with scrap cardboard and various paper. Trailers jammed with bales of cardboard regurgitate misshapen empty cases from laundry soap or cat food or Italian Tomato Sauce. Swirling about the bales is other trash; store circulars, newspaper, paper towels, etc. The dock looks like the aftermath of a tornado without the scattered mobile homes.

The truck ahead of me backs in but not quite far enough. The receiver honks and waves him further in. These old docks have some plunger thing. I watch as his trailer pushes the plunger like cocking a gun. I can't see what that does. Litter has cascaded down into the pit making it hard to see the dock. It must have been hard to 'feel' it too.

The other truck leaves and I back in. I've got a roll door trailer, so I don't open the door I just back in. After chocking my wheels, I walk around to the hut-like office. It is hard to tell if the office trailer was set on top of a pile of debris or it just collected there. Forklifts buzz around grabbing bales and hustling them around a corner at the base of a huge brick smokestack. While I'm waiting for someone to check my paperwork and unload me, I happened to glance at the trailer. The dock plate is akimbo, halfway up the door trying to slice its way into the trailer! What the hell is that?!?!

Just then a forklift pulls up.

"Hey, I've got to fix that obviously," I say pointing at my trailer door straining against the dockplate. "Hopefully it will open again. Is there something we need to coordinate?" I ask sheepishly never having seen anything like this dock.

The driver on the forklift is midwestern farmer stock; drawn, gaunt and grizzled. Generations of dirt farmers stare back at me from his watery bulging eyes. Impossibly long fingers squirm and slither around the steering wheel. Veins crawl around his arm like ivy on a fallen branch. A tattered work shirt holds the fallen branch arm like the loam of the forest.

"Well," he starts, in a more back holler drawl than Tom Bodett's. "You'll have to pull back out . . . open that door . . . and then back back in," he states flatly.

Ahhhh . . . it was all me.

The Hobo's Paradox

"Hoboes differentiate themselves as travelers who are homeless and willing to do work, whereas a "tramp" travels but will not work and a "bum" does neither." Source.

My slogan "Eat When You're Hungry, Work When You're Broke" and my overall plan to Sail a little, Work a little, Sail a little [hopefully sailing more than working] has inspired significant research, or daydreaming on the road, which led to the discovery of the Hobo's Paradox! Also, I just read Kerouac's On the Road, am always on the road and strive for Vagabondism.

The Hobo's Paradox: It is absolutely worth any amount of physical labor in order to arrange or finance an extended period of travel or idleness.

Keroauc picked cotton and vegetables in California, was a Merchant Marine and did construction to finance his cross country explorations.

Road Tale #3

This is my third "sketch" from the road. I was inspired to write these three installments yesterday, October 21, 39 years since Jack Kerouac died. See Road Tale #1 here and Road Tale #2 here.

I'd been seeing this girl from 7-11. We never really dated, but 'saw' each other one summer. She worked the graveyard shift, from midnight to 8:00 AM, Sunday to Thursday. At school during the week, I covered the shift on the weekend. To keep her sleep cycle intact, she operated at night all week and began occasionally hanging out with me at the store.

Hanging out together led to long, grand walks in the mornings after I got off work. A quintessential summer romance. When you've been up all night and see the color come back to the world with the sun, everything and everyone is beautiful. We held hands, had greasy breakfasts at a nearby diner, and made out in the grass just over the crest of a great big hill in the park.

It was nice and it was weird. She had a peacock tattoed on her back from above her shoulder blade to her lowest rib. Her mother was a rape counselor at the college. Yet I was never in charge. One night at the Super 8, her Ex, then living in a car, banged on our door, bragged about having a gun, and just wanted to talk to her for a minute. She talked to him, wearing my shirt, and keeping the door open just a crack.

Picture the scene from the parking lot, up on the second floor, leaning against the crappy metal railing of a cheap motel, a guy was talking to a girl in another mans shirt. The girl, confident, but not at ease, was clinging to the doorknob, not willing to let go of her other evening.

I stood, naked as a jaybird, behind the dirty curtains; curtains as thick as the lead apron you get in Xray. She told me she could get rid of him; didn't want me involved. Helplessly, I knew now, there was nothing I could do to help. She and the door were between me and him. I had gotten here by playing along. The only thing I could do was keep playing.

I can't imagine what he was thinking walking the length of the building and down the clanging exterior stairs of the motel. Back to his car, without her. She came slinking back into the room. For those of you, who've had a big fight with your spouse and thought making up was fun, you can't beat Post-Potential-Hostage-Situation.

Our road story came a few weeks later. A little while before the end of my shift one night, she and her sidekick friend came into the store. She was tall and tight; her friend short and curvy. They followed me to the back room while I punched the time clock. They sidled up to me, cooing in each ear. Without committing to anything, they hinted about a surprise that would involve both of them. They wanted to know if I would do whatever they asked. What American Boy would not!? That's when they showed me the handcuffs.

Out in the 7-11 parking lot, in broad daylight, while church people bought their coffee and donuts, they herded me to the friend's car. Voluntarily, I put my arms behind my back, was handcuffed and stuffed into a hatchback.

I tried to count turns and guess where we were headed but my head was swimming with anticipation. Before long, we were on gravel and the car rolled to a stop.

"OK, come on out!" They helped me crawl out of the back of the car. My arms were useless. All kinds of images and possibilities had been running through my sweaty brain. I found myself standing behind a car in the middle of a country road.

"Here?" I sputtered.

Each with one hand on my shoulder and the other on an arm, they winked and said, "here."

I hadn't noticed that the car was still running. The girls giggled, gave me a little shove, ran back to the car and tore off down the road. Disappearing in a cloud of dust, without me. My brain, shaking off its sweat, was spinning like an oak leaf in their dust cloud.

I was standing in the middle of the road, who knew what road, in handcuffs. On each side of the gravel lane, as far as I could see in each direction, a thin line of oaks and scrub bordered fields of corn. There wasn't a sound but the birds and the bugs. I tried to imagine how I would explain the handcuffs when Farmer Joe came upon me. Just thinking about it, a whole new personal dimension of lonesome and awkward.

The girls came back. They claimed they only went around the block; a country mile on four sides, but they were gone a long time. I hadn't started walking, neither direction made any more sense than the other. I heard the car first and turned, watching it get closer and the dust behind it get bigger. They laughed and carried on for the longest time.

The handcuffs came off and I got into the car, the actual passenger compartment. The three of us laughed now and we headed back to town. I missed the cuffs and their original possibilities. She made it up to me later; just her.

Road Tale #2

Again, for Jack:

Like in National Lampoon's Vacation, we were all sleeping. Perhaps not the driver. It was a university motor pool station wagon filled with expensive equipment and cheap student luggage. We slept the uncomfortable sleep of travel. Sitting, slouching, heads lolled back stiffly, feet jambed under the seat in a desparate attempt to straighten the knees. Snoring. "Shit!" Our slumber was broken. Awakening to the sound of a silent car rolling to a stop on the gritty interstate shoulder, we didn't know where we were nor what was happening. We were northwest of the Twin Cities on our way to St. Cloud under the stars in the semi-tundra of Minnesota - out of gas. Somehow we got back on the road or maybe I just went back to sleep.

At Michigan State University, I worked in the Shock and Vibration Laboratory at the School of Packaging. I broke things for a living. One fall, we got to go on a field trip. Two or three of us students, the Grad Student we worked for and the Professor she worked for, did a research project for a large trucking company.

We wired up a trailer with accelorometers to measure the 'g' force of impacts and vibrations. Accelorometers were affixed to the frame of a semi trailer, and to the floor, and to three layers of the chest freezers loaded in the trailer. A big long pigtail of wire brought the data up to the passenger seat of the tractor.

I sat in the tractor, with a big tray in my lap filled with tape recorders. Most of them recorded the measurements from the trailer. One of them also recorded my voice. I narrated the route so that the data could be correlated with what happened to the trailer.

Two days straight.

"We are approaching a curve to the left."

"We are approaching a stop sign."

"We are approaching a double set of railroad track."

Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga.

As we went around corners, I also had to pay out some slack for the pigtail to reach around. And then ease it back aboard, making sure that wires weren't pulled out of connectors or got tangled with the trailer.

The Trucking Company had an older couple who retreived wrecked trailers. They were recruited to haul the research team around. Actually, the husband drove me around. The wife sat in a lawn chair back at the terminal entertaining her dog and our boss.

I couldn't talk to the driver much, being busy narrating, but I remember riding around in his old Cab-Over. There was dog hair everywhere and one of the cupholders on the "doghouse" engine cover was filled with dog food. Now that I've driven "slip seat" the last few months, in a different grab bag tractor nearly every week, I have a new appreciation for how neat and tidy that dog was.