Spirit of the Road

by Rick L. Huffman

  I left for Frostproof on Sunday and this time, I brought Kitty with me. My loyal cat remains my road companion to this day. It took her a little while to acclimate to life on the road but now, she actually gets excited when it’s time to go—she knows she gets more treats out here!

  Prior to being named Frostproof, the Florida city we were going to was called Keystone City. The name change was a marketing ploy to convince potential landowners that the town would never have a frost that could destroy the citrus-driven economy. About two years after the name change, a terrible frost killed most of the citrus there.[4]

  When we arrived, no one was working in the receiving department because today was a holiday. I simply dropped the load in the yard, and the guard signed for it—very easy.

  Next, we went for a load of drywall in Apollo Beach that delivered to Atlanta. At this early stage of my trucking career, I still hated going to Atlanta, but this time did not prove to be a problem. A trainer and his trainee, in another company truck, had arrived at the customer before I got there, and they even helped me untarp my load. After delivery, I shut down for the night and picked up the next morning in Opelika, Alabama to deliver to Milton, Florida.

  The directions to the customer in Milton would bear out to be another botched offering from the company. My instructions said to go west on US90 when they should have told me to go east. When it became apparent I was going the wrong way, I stopped in front of a motorcycle shop to ask directions from three bikers. They were happy to help, and their instructions were on the money. I turned around at a Walmart and finally found the customer—thanks to the bikers. In general, truckers and bikers have mutual respect born largely from similar challenges in sharing the road with four-wheelers.

  After Milton, we set out for Georgia Pacific in Louisville, Alabama. The rural town of Louisville was out in the sticks of Alabama and the narrow, two-lane journey through the boondocks to get there was not my idea of a good time. This load would be going back to Frostproof. I was sure this run would cause me to go beyond my legal hours to work, but dispatch had pressured me into taking it, and I was still too new to put up much of a fight. Experience would teach me that many, if not most, dispatchers will pressure a driver into taking a run that he/she cannot do legally, and then they’ll just as quickly rat him out to the safety department for an hours of service violation…after the freight is delivered, of course. A driver must learn to look out for himself or he likely will have a short trucking career.

  As I approached Gainesville on Friday morning, after spending the night at a Florida rest area, I noticed a dark SUV deliberately staying beside me on my left. I’m not sure how long it had been there because I was still shaking the morning cobwebs from my head. I slowly peered that way and my mouth went agape as I saw two young women in the vehicle, and the one in the passenger seat had lifted her tee shirt to her neck to expose her breasts. James, from trucking school, would have been drooling like an alley cat at a fish fry.

  The only reaction I initially mustered was a stoic look of shock. My personality is typically reserved, but this situation practically demanded a call to action. I flashed a thumbs-up sign and honked the horn in grateful acknowledgment of the presentation. This prompted the driver to pull down the right side of her blouse and offer a bonus exhibition before they zoomed on past. I wasn’t sure of the mile marker I was currently at, but I was sure that I had just crossed the city limits of "Hooterville."

  As they went past, I spotted a University of Florida sticker on the rear window, so there was a good chance that they were college students. Morning’s light was now fully cast. I was awake and alert and, just for today, I was a Gator fan.

  In Frostproof, we sat for over two hours because the company had failed to make an appointment for the delivery. When I was unloaded, I went back to Apollo Beach to pick up another load of Gypsum board that the company wanted me to drop in Atlanta. As expected, I had already exceeded my legal allotment of driving hours by the time I arrived, so I had to spend the night at the terminal. I did not get home until noon on Saturday. My "weekends" at this company were getting progressively shorter.

  To this point, the company had paid plenty of lip service to the “We care about our drivers” theme, but the actions just weren’t reflecting the claims. In reality, they cared about the freight being delivered…period. Whether a driver had an acceptable quality of life seemed to be a secondary concern if, in fact, it was a concern at all.

  Week 5: Slip Sliding Away

  With a few minor exceptions, the fifth week went rather well from start to finish. My first drop was in Evans, Georgia, an affluent suburb of Augusta. Despite having to squeeze in beside another company truck to untarp, the two drivers, another trainer and his trainee, assisted me in my task. To this point, most of the other company drivers I had encountered were genuinely helpful people.

  After Evans, we (Kitty and I) picked up lumber at The Timbermen in Camak, Georgia, where I ran into the same two guys again. Camak is a small railroad town that serves as a junction to Savannah, Atlanta, Macon, and Augusta. The railroad, a rock quarry, and the lumberyard serve as the primary industries there. After Camak, we spent the night at the Bridgeport terminal and delivered, the next morning, in McMinnville, Tennessee. Next, we’d be picking up in Cumberland City, Tennessee.

  Cumberland City is the site of a huge TVA power plant along the Cumberland River that provides power to much of the area. The plant’s massive towers are visible from up to 30 miles away, but I’d be surprised if the belching white smoke that coughs out of the towers has ever appeared on a postcard. While the rolling hills and open space in this area are quite lovely, the unsightly smoke that spews forth from the colossal towers is akin to adorning Miss America with a potato sack.

  Cumberland City would become one of my least favorite places to go for many reasons, not the least of which was the small docks at the shipper. They were difficult for me with my ungainly backing skills. Today, I had the added obstacle of a slippery sheet of ice in front of my dock. I felt like throwing my ratchet bar at one of the yard dogs as he pointed and laughed as I sat there spinning—some people just have no class. After about fifteen minutes of anguish, I finally slipped and slithered my way into the dock.

  This was only the beginning of the fun. Since it had rained the previous night and then dropped below freezing temperature, my rolled-up tarp was frozen solid. I had to pound on it with a mini sledge for another fifteen minutes to get it unrolled. By the time I had secured my load, all sensation in my hands and feet were gone.

  We delivered to Marietta, Georgia the next morning and, after enduring a considerable traffic backup on the Atlanta bypass, we made it to Cottonton, Alabama in time to pick up another load that evening. Afterward, I shut down for the night and I actually made it home early on Friday morning. Overall, this had been a blissfully uneventful week. Maybe I was starting to get the hang of this.

  Week 6: French Lick and the Forest

  We set out for Vincennes, Indiana at 2am on Monday. Vincennes was originally established in 1732 as a French fur trading post and it stands as the oldest town in Indiana.[5] It is also the birthplace of the legendary Clown Prince of Comedy, Red Skelton.

  I made a wrong turn on the way to Vincennes and this cost me about half an hour. I was kicking myself for following the route suggestion of the company instead of a course that made sense. The company sometimes calculates routes "as the crow flies" or, to avoid toll roads. I eventually learned to use a combination of the company’s advice, the directions suggested by my own software, and good old common horse sense to decide on a plausible itinerary.

  At any rate, we made it to Vincennes and the delivery went fine. A female forklift driver became enamored with Kitty as the cat crawled into my lap and peered curiously out the window. Kitty was overcoming her misgivings about being on the road, and she was becoming increasingly inquisitive about her ever-changing surroundings.

  From there, we went to the Gypsum plant i
n Shoals, Indiana. We were delayed by a painfully long funeral procession on the way and, although I did not wish to be disrespectful, I could not help but to telepathically hurry them along…I was pretty sure the guy in the back of the hearse wouldn’t mind.

  The Gypsum plant in Shoals was an unexpected respite, because there was a crew of workers who tarped and strapped the load for me—unlike Cumberland City, where they do absolutely nothing. By the time I was loaded, my legal working hours were almost expired, so we shut down for the night on the side of the road in Hoosier National Forest. As the sun set behind the 200,000 acres of thick, deep woods, we were covered by a blanket of darkness that was so absolute, I couldn’t help feeling a little spooked.

  The next morning, the narrow and winding US150 to Louisville, Kentucky seemed as if it would never end. I shuddered at the prospect of breaking down at 3am in a place called French Lick.

  This delivery was going to my hometown—Huntsville, Alabama. I received a warm "Welcome home" greeting upon arrival when the driver of a pickup truck gave me the finger as I was turning into the customer’s parking lot. Apparently, he felt that either I had cut him off or that his destination was much more crucial than mine. During my time on the road, I have received the "One-fingered Salute" many times, but I have gotten to the point where my reflex response is, purely, to wave back cheerfully. Another driver told me that he smacked his lips profusely to offer a loving kiss to the "finger man" upon being paid this gesture.

  The rain was pouring down in buckets as I got out to untarp my load. I had bought a rain slicker with a hood, but I had yet to invest in a good pair of waterproof boots. My shoes and socks were soaked by the time I was done, and my mood had become as foul as the weather. It got no better when I discovered that we’d be going back to Cumberland City to pick up our next load.

  Cumberland City, however, went well this time and, as before, we delivered to Marietta, Georgia. My cooling system was running a little hot, so I informed my driver manager and he brought me back to Bridgeport to have it checked. After learning that I wouldn’t get my truck back until sometime the next day, I decided that I’d had enough for this week. I announced to my driver manager that I was going home for the weekend. This earned me a dirty look from him but, apparently, he wasn’t in the mood to be confrontational beyond that.

  It was now mid-January. Since I was running southeast regional, I had yet to be introduced to the challenges offered by a northern winter. I would later drive nationally for another company, and it was here that I would identify my least favorite aspect of trucking—dealing with inclement winter weather.

  Detour: Trucking in a Winter Blunderland

  Our first digression from the story explores some of the later misadventures in winter weather. Winters in the southeast can, occasionally, get nasty but, during my first year on the road, I never encountered conditions that presented much adversity. I was in for a rude awakening when I then began driving nationally for a new company. I had experienced harsh winters in Connecticut, when I was in the Navy, and during the three years I lived in upstate New York. But neither of them prepared me for the icy blasts of Minnesota or the bone-chilling winds howling off Lake Michigan, which seemed to freeze the very marrow in my bones.

  The tales of my winter woes are many, but I will begin with one that has never left the forefront of my mind:

  Shortly after a delivery to Tulsa, I was required to take my truck to a shop in York Haven, Pennsylvania for repairs. When it was determined that I would be there for three to four days, my terminal manager instructed me to move into a new truck which was there on the premises. I’ll refrain from using my terminal manager’s real name, so I’ll just call him “Dick.”

  Dick, apparently, was under the impression that moving into another truck is as simple as throwing a bag over your shoulder and picking up the new keys. He requested that I move into the new truck and then, take another load that day. To condense a lively exchange into one word—I told him “no.”

  The process of moving into a different truck, when your supplies are outfitted to stay on the road between three and six is, at least, a two to three-hour endeavor. On this day, when there was a foot of snow on the ground and it was still falling steadily, it took about four hours to complete the transition. By the time I was finished, I was worn out, my feet were wet, and even Kitty meowed in irritable yowls. I wasn’t about to take another load today!

  We slept in the new truck in the shop yard that night under an increasing blanket of snow. It snowed all night, and when I woke up the next morning, the truck was practically buried—the snow was all the way up to the doors. The shop personnel eventually came out and plowed the parking lot and, shortly thereafter, I accepted a load to Iowa. About the time I had completed my trip plan, my phone rang—it was Dick.

  Apparently, "we" had made a mistake by moving into this truck. This one was assigned to another driver. Dick kept using the personal pronoun "we" in reference to the error. I was tempted to ask him if he had a mouse in his pocket. I was going to have to take this truck to our terminal in New Kingstown, PA and then, move into another one! I was not happy!

  When I finished cursing Dick under my breath, I set out on an arduous journey to New Kingstown. The road conditions were awful! Cars and trucks were scattered along the shoulder and the median as if they’d been involved in a demolition derby. It soon became apparent that leaving the yard in York Haven had been a huge mistake. Shortly after this epiphany, I got stuck on an off-ramp.

  I called the company’s number for breakdown services and they could not offer an estimate of how long I’d have to wait for assistance—they were being bombarded with calls from drivers in distress today. Fortunately, a local police officer stopped to check on me, and he had a tow truck on the scene in just a few minutes.

  Under normal circumstances, the terminal in New Kingstown is somewhat of an eyesore, but nothing had ever looked as beautiful when I finally rolled into its icy lot. When I found my "new" truck, my heart sank. It was an old ramshackle piece-of-crap from the Mesozoic era. I shook my head and decided that I wasn’t going to do another thing today—I was going to take a 34-hour restart here.

  I slipped and slid my belongings into the "new" truck the next morning. It was a Freightliner, but in honor of Eddie Albert’s tractor on Green Acres, I called it my Hoyt Clagwell. When I moved Kitty into her new home, her first reaction was to hiss at the Hoyt Clagwell—it would prove to be an appropriate response.

  At long last, we settled into the Clagwell and got our first load assignment to Grandview, Washington. On top of everything else, one of my molars was beginning to abscess, and a cocktail of aspirin and Ora-Jel only served to dull the pain a fraction. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse—could they?

  We would be picking up our Grandview load from a shipper in Milton, PA. On the way to Milton, I had to make a sudden stop when a traffic backup appeared around the bend. Upon doing so, a three-inch chunk of ice slid off the top of the trailer and snapped my air hoses in two. I managed to pull alongside the road as the low-level air alarm bellowed its mournful timbre, and the sickening hiss of escaping air pressure filled my ears, and drained my resolve. We were stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

  Fortunately, it took only an hour for a road maintenance truck to arrive and replace my hoses. However, after going about a mile down the road, I saw that there was still a slow leak. I could not believe my run of luck, but I decided to go ahead and pick up my load before I took my truck to the Petro in Milton to have them fitted correctly. This, luckily, did not prove to be a poor decision. The trio of Kitty, the Clagwell, and me would make it to Washington without further incident but, after that, fate would flush a cherry bomb down our crapper once again.

  After delivering in Grandview, we set out for Sumner, Washington to pick up our next load. The weather had been beautiful for the past two days, but this all changed on the way to Sumner. As we approached Snoqualmie Mountain, near Hyak, Wa
shington on I-90, I saw the dreaded flashing sign that I hoped I’d never see: Chains Required.

  Being a Southern boy, I had never put on a set of chains in my life, even though I’d lived in New York for three years. My trainer had given me a verbal explanation of the procedure, but he might as well have been explaining the laws of thermodynamics—I didn’t have a clue as to how to chain up. As I paced in the snow, vainly searching for a Rosetta stone to guide me, a driver named Mike, who was pulling doubles, parked ahead of me and began to chain up. I approached him and asked if I could watch, explaining that I had never done it before. I knew that I had about the same chance of successfully putting on a set of chains as I had of building an Egyptian pyramid.

  Not only did Mike allow me to watch, he came back and assisted me in putting on my first chain to make sure I got it right. I thanked him sincerely and assured him that I could get the rest on by myself now. It didn’t seem so hard now that I had watched someone who actually knew what he was doing. I managed to get the other two on and I felt better, even though I’d lost most of the sensation in my fingers and toes. We made it to Sumner to get our load and, happily, we did not have to put the chains on again when we went over the same mountain in the opposite direction. Our winter adventures, however, were not quite over yet.

  While going through South Dakota, the icy road conditions were comparable to what they had been in Pennsylvania on the day I’d gotten stuck on the off-ramp. Four-wheelers littered the shoulder and median of the interstate, and I saw no less than five jackknifed big trucks keeping them company. A four-wheeler crawled through the icy slush at such an indescribably slow pace that I knew I’d either have to try and go around him or park alongside the road for a few minutes. I opted to pass. I moved into the left lane and began my advancement. The two vehicles were side-by-side as we approached a curve. In the crux of the curve, as I clung to the steering wheel with a white-knuckled "Kung-fu" grip, Kitty decided this was the perfect time to jump into my lap!