Saturday, February 26, 2011

Cookies

Do oatmeal cookies count as breakfast? What if your mother made them?

These oatmeal cookies are the best because my mother made them with craisins, which I love, instead of raisins, which I don't.

Life is good.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Perspective

I was going to write today about the frustrations of the past 24 hours: how my trailer wasn't ready when I was at 12:30 yesterday afternoon, how it started snowing around 3:00, how I started out at 4:30 and the roads in my county were glare ice, how my truck failed to make it up the hill on the road out of our terminal and I had to back it down the hill, how it took me 45 minutes to get to the interstate 2 miles from the terminal, how I spent the next 6 hours white-knuckling it on roads I probably should not have been driving on, how traffic was moving 5 mph across Akron, how the truck stop parking lots were busting at the seams, and how it took me almost 7 hours just to get to Columbus, when it usually takes 3. Also, how this evening as I was going through Akron at rush hour again there was a multi-vehicle accident that brought traffic to a standstill and set me back half an hour; and how on what had promised to be a short day I got home after 7 pm.

If I had written about those things I probably would have left out the parts about how as I was stopped on said hill leaving the terminal yesterday the minivan that crested the hill coming at me head-on, swerved, and lost control drove in and out of both ditches but did not hit me; how I avoided a multi-hour backup I heard about on the CB by taking an alternate route; how I drove about 150 miles through fast-falling snow without sliding my truck off the road; how I parked next to a no-parking sign in front of two state troopers while I ran into a Taco Bell for a late supper and neither of them minded; how although the truck stops and rest areas were overflowing I parked for the night in a vast and quiet Walmart parking lot. Next to a Tim Horton's. How I crossed twice over "Pee Pee Creek" in Pike County; how I found a way around this evening's backup in Akron and was on my way long before the rest; and how I got home tonight and ended the day with a purring cat, a woodstove, and a cup of tea.

So, why the change in attitude? When I got back to the terminal I ran into one of our local drivers who told me about an accident that happened in Cleveland today. A truck jacknifed on the Valley View Bridge and went over it. If you don't know the bridge, it's impressive. It's so tall you have to stare at it because it just doesn't look right. It makes the Cuyahoga Valley look like the Grand Canyon. I don't want to but I can't stop imagining a truck going over it. God of the universe, have mercy on the soul of the driver who lost his life today and help the rest of us drive carefully and keep it between the lines and not get hung up on the frustrations and fail to be grateful that we finish the day with 18 wheels upright on pavement.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Best Thing About Trucking . . .

. . . is being home on a Sunday night and making myself some real, hot food in my own kitchen. I don't love to cook unless it's a social activity with persons I really like, or unless it's about 20 minutes from turn-on-the-stove-time to sit-down-and-eat-time. Tonight I made some homemade onion and mushroom and barley soup. I used some vegetable stock for broth, and leftover barley I had cooked yesterday, but otherwise it was from scratch and it took about 20 minutes. An hour and a half later I was hungry again, so I made some three-cheese pasta. From scratch. From a pot. Not a paper bag. No napkins, no receipt, just a small pile of dishes I honestly don't mind washing in my own sink. 20 minutes. Life is good.

The other best thing about trucking is having a glass of wine with dinner. I don't drink when I'm out in the truck. A good trucker friend told me when I was a rookie that he never has a drink when he's under a load, even if he's parked for the night and legally has a few hours in which he could, even if he's grounded by a Rocky Mountain blizzard for 3 days, etc., because he's still responsible for the truck and the load and if he would have to move them for any reason he would have himself a real dilemma. (For CDL drivers the legal limit is half what it is in most states for anyone else, and a first-time offender loses his license for a year, which means he has also lost his job and probably his career. I don't personally know any truck drivers who are even a little bit careless about it.) I thought my friend's policy sounded very wise and I adopted it. Which makes that glass of wine or cold beer at home taste all the better; and all the more better because it is at home.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Letter to FMCSA

Re: Proposed changes to hours-of-service rules

Dear United States Department of Transportation Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration,

I know you are a beaurocracy. I know you've never spend a night in a truck, let alone a week or a month or a year. I know you don't know your head from  . . .


Oops! Wrong Letter. Back to the drawing board . . .

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Township Road 30

This week freight picked up a bit after the post-holiday dead season and the post-North-Georgia-blizzard-of-late-January-that-shut-down-carpet-manufacturing-and-distribution-for-a-week dead period, so I was back on local delivery. Thursday I had several deliveries in Columbus and one an hour-and-a-half northwest of Columbus near Bellefontaine with an address on "Township Road 30". Things can get interesting when you're making deliveries in a 70-foot truck to roads without names in towns that are not found in your map software.

I got to the terminal at 8:15 to find that my trailer hadn't been loaded yet because the warehouse ran out of propane for the forklifts the afternoon before. By then the afternoon guys were 17 hours into their shift and not looking so good. But they quickly loaded my trailer. They're the best.

I left at 9:15 and enjoyed a beautiful drive across Central Ohio flooded with the first sunshine I'd seen in weeks. 4 hours later I arrived at Township Road 30. I checked out the parking lot from both entrances, started to swing in as wide as possible from the township road, saw my trailer wheels headed right for the snowbank, realized there was just no way, backed it up onto the road, and called inside instead. (Call me lazy but it's more efficient than trying to find your way into a building you've never been to before, especially when the sloped driveway is sheer ice, especially when your truck is stopped on a narrow country road with its flashers on blocking traffic in both directions.) They said they'd send somebody right out. Somebody came right out, waddling down the icy driveway. I met him halfway up. I asked him how trucks usually pull in there. He took a long look at my truck, said he thought they were usually shorter than mine, but told me not to bother trying because they weren't going to accept the roll of carpet I was there to deliver, because the manufacturer had double-shipped it and they had decided they were going to refuse this one when it arrived.

So, they know they're located in the middle of the middle of nowhere, they got a call from my dispatcher the previous day to schedule the delivery, they knew we were bringing them one item, and they knew they were going to refuse it; and they couldn't have told that to the dispatcher when he was on the phone and saved me 3 hours of driving time, and our company 150 miles of diesel fuel and driver pay, just for that one stop?

I didn't know what to say to this guy, but I didn't want to say anything I'd regret because I knew the only way I was going to get my truck out of there was to back blind across the busy national highway a few yards behind my trailer and I knew I needed his help. So I said "all right" and "how would you feel about watching for traffic and signaling me when it's safe to back across the highway?" He agreed and a few minutes later I was on my way.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

I Didn't Say It

"You're way better looking than the driver they usually send!"

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Oh, Atlanta

Thursday morning was a historic moment in my trucking life. I've been in and out of metro Atlanta on a regular basis for much of the last two years, since my company has a hub terminal in North Georgia and, to get us there, backhauls us from all over the east with freight delivering to metro Atlanta. Sometimes I've been there on a weekly basis, sometimes daily, and sometimes multiple times a day. But this Thursday morning, for the first time in my life, I drove through downtown Atlanta.

Normally, trucks are not allowed in Atlanta, or anywhere within the city's circumferential beltway, I-285. (An effort to alleviate the city's notorious traffic congestion.) Only trucks loading or unloading at destinations inside the beltway are allowed inside it, and, as they taught us in training (at a site two time zones away from Georgia), a wise trucker does not even think about crossing the exit line without paperwork proving his business there. So, in the last two years, I've made dozens of deliveries to metro Atlanta and only once been close enough to downtown to even glimpse the skyline.

This Thursday morning I had a delivery in Doraville, just outside the beltway on the northeast side. I pulled out of our terminal around 5 am, as we usually do to get to our metro Atlanta destinations before the traffic gets to slowing levels. And as I was driving along the northern beltway, I was thinking about how I'd never seen downtown Atlanta and wondering melancholically if I ever would.

My trucking life has been full of coincidences and one indeed happened here. Not long after I finished my delivery I received my next load assignment: head back to the terminal and pick up some freight at a few stops on the way. The first stop was in Hapeville. I'd never heard of Hapeville. I checked my map. It was (gasp!) inside the beltway, a few exits south of downtown Atlanta, and (gasp!) my route would take me right through downtown! Twice!

I've been through many cities' downtowns and chances are that you have, too, and don't need me to describe this one to you. (I'm not good at descriptions, anyway.) I was simply thrilled to be there, because in my two years of trucking I've fallen in love with the sweet state of Georgia and wanted just once to see the urban heart of it. It was a good morning.