The Sociable Critic

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
P. J. O'Rourke

Matt, my youngest, enjoys going to the card shop in Carmichael, CA. I don't know why he does this: most of the players are pre-teens or young teenagers, though the guys Matt hangs out with are more his age. It's a pleasant enough way to spend a Sunday, as opposed to sitting in a pew listening to a self-important bigot. I know this well: I did it for years myself.

So, I was dropping Matt off at the card shop, and as I walked in, I noticed that on the counter was a rather large statuette, about 10 inches tall, green, with tentacles in some of the weirdest places. It took me a few moments, but I began to realize just what this was.

I walked up the counter, Matt following, and I asked, "Excuse me, but is that C'Thulhu?"

The clerk, a young kid in his early 20's, blinked in surprise. "Well, yes. Yes, it is, sir. Most people don't recognize it."

"It was hard to miss," I answered.

Matt rolled his eyes. "Dad..."

"So, how much for the Elder God?" I asked.

He quoted me a price. I grinned for a moment. For the price quoted, I could pick that up with a cash advance.

"Do you have it in chrome?"

The kid behind the counter blinked again. Matt moaned, "Daaaaaad...!"

"Chrome?" the clerk asked. "I-I guess I could check in with our supplier..."

"Great!" I said. "See, I've got a Peterbilt 379 I drive, and I was thinking that would make one hell of a hood ornament."

The clerks eyes widened. Matt threw his hands up. "Dad, you are embarassing me!"

"And, say, do you sell like a little Santa hat for him? You know, for Christmas!"

Matt fled for the door, as the clerk's jaw hit the countertop. "Dad, I don't know you! God! I can't believe you did this!!!"

I don't know why Matt was so upset. I asked at a chrome shop if they sold one, and they told me I was a weirdo.

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
Wilson Mizner

I'm sitting in Ontario, CA tonight, at the Interstate 10 TA West Truckstop off Milliken Avenue. I made the mistake of eating the buffet at the "Fork In The Road" restaurant, which means at some point tonight, I'll probably be hanging my head out the passenger side window, paying homage to the Gods of Asphalt. (I never was a red carpet kind of guy.)

In about 15,000 miles, I'll be just over my 2 million miles. As I've said before, I'm no longer an apprentice. I'm by no means a master, but even the most experienced of drivers tells me there's no such thing as a "master driver." It's disappointing. I'd kind of hoped to claim the title of "Perfected Master," but in this business, that seems to be out of the question. There's too many changes happening too damned fast, not the least of which includes new environmental laws, as well as changes in the equipment. Some of this I can pass on, other parts, they're too important to ignore.

My first trip to LA was eventful, to say the least. I used to carry large, heavy toolboxes with me in my rig, mainly because I always seemed to run into mechanics who had better things to do than fix my broken down rig. The usual situation with one particular mechanic, "Mr. Sunshine," would run something like this:

Me: "Dude..."

Mr. Sunshine: "Yeah..."

Me: "I'm broke down."

Mr. Sunshine: "So?"

Me: "So, the truck isn't running."

Mr. Sunshine: "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

Me: "Well, maybe you could fix it?"

Mr. Sunshine: "I ain't got time."

This, of course, would result in my sneaking parts out of the shop, and while out on the road, fixing the mess myself. I got caught a number of times sneaking out parts, but that had little effect on me. If I was going to drive a rig, it was going to be a safe rig, and if Mr. Sunshine wasn't going to take care of it, I would.

As it happened, the big boss for the outfit where I was working at the time learned of this. When we had a nine axle heavy haul trailer break down, due to a blown wheel bearing and a damaged steer axle, I was dispatched to dead head down to the Port of Long Beach, complete with tools and an empty flatbed so I could haul some extra equipment that wasn't fitting on the rest of the rigs.

I tossed my gear into the saddle boxes of the truck, grabbed a company credit card, some cash, and was on my way south, rolling towards the port. It was heady for me; no one had ever asked me to make a run like that, and particularly for such a critical situation. If we didn't get the nine axle back up and rolling, a company in Los Angeles would get the job, and we'd have all made the run for nothing.

So I'm running hard and fast, or at least as fast as the Kenworth's governed Cummins ISM engine would allow, I'm over halfway to Los Angeles, and I decide I ought to stop and get something to eat. I came up to a truck stop that had a particular fast food joint I liked, so I rolled off onto the exit, and pulled in to the truck parking area.

But, I didn't like that area. Too many other trucks. What if someone scratched the paint on my K-Dub? I looked around, saw a parking spot off in a dark corner, whipped around and parked there.

I got out of the truck, took my keys, and locked up the saddle boxes, securing all my tools. No problem, I figured, and I walked in for my burger and fries.

I had a pretty good meal that night. I was thinking what a big shot "Trucker" I was, rolling down the Interstate, heading to a major port in the United States, with my tools in my boxes, preparing to save the day for my employer. I had it figured that eventually, they'd realize just what a great asset I was, and they'd have to train me to do more. Yup, if I were riding any taller in the saddle, I'd have to wear goggles to keep the clouds out of my eyes.

I finished up my dinner, and started back to the truck. It was dark out, now, on a moonless night, with dark clouds beginning to blot out the stars. I had my hands in my pockets, and was kind of enjoying the "King of the Road" feeling I had coursing through my mind. For once in my life, I was a genuine Hero.

And that was when I felt that mammoth paw slam down on my shoulder.

In that moment, I didn't think. I simply froze. I turned slightly, enough to see that the hand on my shoulder belonged to a very large black guy with massive arms, dressed in a white t-shirt, bib overalls, steel-toed boots, all of which were very, very clean. I'm not sure how tall he really was, but at that moment, he seemed to tower over me. I wasn't sure what he wanted, but the muted violence of the moment told me that if he were out to harm me, he'd have already done it.

He took a deliberate step ahead of me, pulled a black flashlight out of his pants pocket and switched it on. He pointed it down alongside my trailer.

In that moment, I watched as three or four characters suddenly began to scramble out of the light, hiding behind trees and derelict cars. I'd been in serious trouble, and I had been completely unaware. Had this man not stopped me, they might have found my broken remains several weeks later.

I turned to the man as he turned back to face me. I started to thank him, but he began to shake his shaven head in disgust.

"Boy," he snapped, "either get smart, OR GO HOME!"

With that, he stalked off to his truck, and left me.

I was cresting the Grapevine before it all sank in: I had royally blown it. I should have locked the tool boxes before I left Sacramento. I should have parked in a well lit area. I should have been paying attention when I walked out of the restaurant. And if I'd had any doubts, I should have gotten someone to walk with me out to my truck. It was a hard lesson, and it could have been a fatal one. I was damned lucky that it wasn't.

Things have changed for me since then. I'm driving a larger truck, pulling a longer trailer, driving further. I've had to get very smart, and get there very quickly. Some guys claim that a life of prayer will see you through it all. All it's become for me is wasted words. You have to use your brain, or you damned well ought to remain at home, doing local runs, or sticking to courier work, driving a well-worn Yugo. Faith is a fine thing, but it only works when you've first used, and heeded, your mind. It's a tough lesson, but you had damned well better learn it if you want to be out on the road the next day. At one point, I didn't, and I'm lucky to still have my right hand. (Ask me the next time you see me; I'll show you the scars.)

As I've said, things have changed. I've not only learned what I can do, but what I can't. In learning my limits, I've learned why those limits exist. In some cases, I can bypass the challenges, and in others, I can work within the limits to get done what I must. If it's made me a better trucker, it's also made me a skeptic, and I'm just beginning to realize just how lucky I've been over the course of my professional life. That I'm now in a situation where I'll be buying a truck within the next year or so is more a testament to skepticism than it is to the religious dogma I clung to so desperately for so long. I've learned I need more of the former, and less of the latter. The former forces me to think, the latter is a substitute for thought.

If that means I'm on dangerous ground, I'm reminded of the foolish mistakes I have made over the past two million miles driven, and I'm forced into cognizance of just how damned dangerous those were. A life on the road is not a safe place; get used to it.

In less than 15,000 miles, I'll be over 2 million. That may be a source of pride for some, but for me, it's humbling. I didn't get there by being a big shot. I got there by learning to shut up and learn from those who'd already driven their millions, and who had a lot to teach me. Expand that above and beyond trucking, and you begin to realize just how much you have to learn beyond your own small patch of expertise.

I haven't seen the driver who saved my life in the years since. I doubt he's even thought of me once in that span of time, but I have yet to not think of the gift he gave me. As a trucker, you're a perpetual apprentice, and there's still miles and miles of lessons ahead of me. I can only hope that I'm smart enough to learn from them.

Not the least of which is to never eat from the buffet at a truck stop. Still, if I die from salmonella poisoning from the tomatoes, jalapenos and cilantro I ate tonight, at least I'll go with a full stomach, the Lords of Asphalt notwithstanding.

Stay safe.

It’s the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter.
Marlene Dietrich

I've known my friend, Will, for several years now. It's been a good friendship, and to my mind, I've been the primary beneficiary of it.

I call Will "The Big Man," a term of respect and honor. It's a rare term to be used. While every place has someone who knows the ropes, knows the business, who can teach others, when you call someone "The Big Man," you're referring not only to their abilities, but their character. If you're in trouble, professionally, personally, you talk to The Big Man. He's the one who knows how to get yourself out of trouble, and who can show you how to stay out of it. More to the point, he can tell you how to do it without hurting anyone else. It's not a reference to physique, but to the size of the heart.

We'd met while I was working at a heavy haul outfit, and it was Will who showed me most of what I needed to know. In the 20+ years that he's been driving, he's done most everything you can do with a truck, including pulling bull wagons, flats, lowbeds, Klein tanks, and a few combinations they don't even have names for. Will is a solid professional, and he's earned his title. Frankly, I don't think I'd be half as good as I am without him.

It was about a year and a half ago that I managed to reconnect with him. My boss had asked if I knew any good drivers; we had empty rigs and we needed someone who could take the wheel. I thought of Will, called around, and managed to get a hold of him.

Will was in a bad way. He'd left the heavy haul outfit and was hauling rock for a company in Woodland, CA. He was getting short loads, and few miles, which was leaving him with a running deficit every month. Worst of all, his wife, Lani, had died the year before. I'd met her once, a short, plump woman, with a generous smile and even more generous heart. She'd contracted ovarian cancer, and while it was a painful way to go, it was at least relatively quick. Her suffering had been mercifully short, but it was Will who was paying for it. He was drinking heavily off duty, and wasn't eating well at all. He had let himself go.

Peggy and I talked about it. I told Will about where I was working, and while there were a few problems, I was dealing with them. Will thought it sounded like just the ticket, and I brought him an application. It wasn't long after that the apartment complex where he'd been living served him with an eviction notice for unpaid rent. We emptied a bedroom for him, since my son, Jon, had moved out, and Will moved in with us. He set the rent he'd pay, (far more than we thought he should be paying), he cut way back on his alcohol consumption, and hit the highway, hard.

Just when I thought I couldn't learn any more from Will, he showed me otherwise. I'd been struggling somewhat with driving OTR, but Will would run with me, and coach me on what I needed to be doing. Things which had been throwing me on my logbook, on my customer contact, on just getting the damned loads down the road, now began to make more sense. I was getting better at driving, and even better than that at making it work, and making it pay. And while I've still got a lot to learn, it's been easier because my friend has been there helping me.

Will also intervened in some other critical areas. Peggy and I struggled with the change to OTR, and it threatened our marriage. If I haven't been here as much, it's partly because Will would literally turn off the computer, chase me out of the home office, and insist I spend time with my wife. "You're here for maybe a day or two out of the week. She's got first call," he'd point out. He was right, and in the end, it's been a huge help to set this aside and just spend time with Peggy, reminding myself that she's the reason for this.

I suppose I should have worried about Peggy being alone with Will. Far too many other drivers would tell you I should have been. Not so. Will considers Peggy to be more of a sister, and he'd never violate a friendship by making a pass at my wife. Like I said: He's The Big Man. It's a measure of his character as much as his skill.

Having said that, it also bears noting that we had warned Will what I was going through with this outfit, the worst part being that they have little in the way of loyalty, and that getting my paycheck on time is somewhat akin to trying to drive a Kenworth through a pedestrian tunnel. Sometimes it works, but a lot of times, if I get it by the seventh of the month, I'm lucky.

A couple of weeks ago, Will got stopped at the Madras scales in Oregon. It was a paper check, fairly common, but a matter of concern. Oregon is hard as hell on logbooks.

It turned out Will was behind on his logbook. It's a discretionary thing; give a bear grief over it, and you can get hit with fines which can range up to $10,000. In Will's case, the bear at the chicken coop asked him to update. No fine, no points, just five minutes, two lines, and one notation. Over, out.

But the rest of it got worse. They ran his license. Suspended.

Years ago, Will had been married to a woman who cheated on him, while he was out on the road. He divorced, but was unable to come up with the scratch to make the alimony and child support payments, both of which even the courts thought were excessive. He got behind, but he's been paying on it. As it turned out, the Sacramento Family Court decided he wasn't paying on it fast enough, and paperwork was filed which suspended his license.

It was a complete crock. DMV and the courts cleared it right away, but it would take two weeks to get his license back. In the meantime, Will was suspended until it was. The company took his rig, and now, it's questionable if he'll get another ride, even though he's able to go back to work tomorrow.

What's worse is that we have this jackoff who's been running his mouth, saying Will's been fired for DUI. It's a complete falsehood: Will won't drink when he's going to be out on the road. I know this about the man. I've been lodging complaints about this, but it's doing me no good since the jackoff is an owner-op, and in this outfit, they tend to be unable to do any wrong.

And now, we don't have our paychecks. Again.

Will had to float a couple of checks just so he'd be able to pay his share of the food bill, something we told him he didn't have to worry about. He'd helped us, now I was able to help him. In the meantime, we were expecting our checks, via FedEx, on the fifth. It turned out to be a no-go: we might get them Tuesday.

Will's time with this outfit has been a nightmare. He's been threatened, bullied, challenged, and cheated. At one point, he drove a mere fifteen miles from Kent, WA, to the company's yard. The boss ripped into him about the cost of fuel. Will tossed a $20 bill onto the boss's desk, and told him, "Here! It's covered!" There was no reason for the boss to chew Will out about this, particularly since his actions were, more or less, SOP. When you finish up that close to the yard, you run back to the yard and turn in your paperwork. If you're headed somewhere else from a load nearby, you generally know long before you get to your destination.

I got Will hired on with this company, and it hasn't worked out well for him, and it's gotten worse for me. I've already got feelers out for another gig, and a couple of hard bites to go with them. In the meantime, Will got in touch with the boss to find out where our checks are, and for his efforts, he might get fired.

I have come to believe that if you want to truly help someone, you don't just toss them a bone. You give them the tools needed to stand on their own, to rebuild, to gain true strength. Sometimes, at least for me, good advice, and good information, are a greater help than anything else. I thought I'd given Will real assistance, and it turns out I've knocked him down to his knees again.

It isn't fair.

It isn't right.

And while Will keeps telling me it's okay, that he understands I'm getting hurt here, too, it doesn't make it okay with me. I wanted to give The Big Man the help he deserved, and I've failed him.

Damn it all.

Been out on the road a while, and it's been hard to keep up with this beast. Hopefully, (to both of you), you'll forgive the lack of entries.

I'm catching up on some stuff. We will be back, ASAP.

Thanks.

Roadtoad.

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.
Carl Sandburg

One of the first things that impresses you about driving through Southern California is that nearly the whole of Los Angeles seems to have swallowed up all of the smaller communities that once surrounded it. Like the oversized amoeba it is, complete with the same intellect, taste, culture, and foresight, Los Angeles has sprawled over the communities which once fed it, becoming a living demonstration of parasitism.

As I drive through some of the smaller towns which once made up the LA basin, including Ontario, Colton, Chino, Covina, and the like, I occasionally find myself in the midst of what had once been someone’s downtown. Roll down Euclid Avenue in Ontario, and you’re reminded by the buildings on either side that at one point, this had been Downtown, that there had been banks, theaters, clothing stores, grocers, nearly all that the town needed for its own identity and use, right there at their fingertips. Malls which dominated vast tracts of acreage, all in the name of “convenience,” were unheard of, and probably would have provoked more horror than glee from the local residents. Passing what had once been hardware stores and lumberyards, I’m curious to know if the previous owners of these businesses knew that as they were feeding their housing boom that they were fueling the destruction of their own businesses, and possibly contributing to the erosion and failure of their own towns.

Ontario isn’t so much a municipality anymore. It’s just one more blip on the map that has become Los Angeles, another forgettable corner of homogenized sprawl across the landscape, another smear of gray when you see it from the sky.

I’ve learned to hate this kind of thing. I would rather spend my time rolling past the farmscapes of California’s Central Valley, and find I’d rather fill my lungs with the smells of the dairy farms I pass than the odor of the traffic that surrounds me on the Interstates. I can cope with the former, at least, if I ignore the reality that “agribusiness” has become the watchword for what I’m seeing, that factory-type production has taken over and driven family farmers off their lands. The ideals of Better, Faster, Cheaper, have now dominated to the point that you’d have to be a fool to want to farm in this nation.

Well, call me a major damned fool.

It was heartening to see small farms set up in vacant lots in and around Chino and Ontario. Still, their output was small, more a hobby than a commitment to an agrarian life. It was something these farmers did to fill out a paycheck, rather than to make a living.

The EcoNazis have all but driven out a number of family farms, and it doesn’t help when you see the Seattle Post Intelligencer with a Page One story, above the fold, about how a major pickle manufacturer is now buying its cucumbers from India rather than local farmers around Bellingham and the surrounding area. Growing up at times in the Imperial Valley, with my Dad in various stages of deployment with the U.S. Army, I grew accustomed to seeing farms and the communities that grew up among them, and respecting what it was they represented.

I miss seeing farms in this country, and it’s nothing short of disturbing seeing many of them going under and becoming industrial parks and housing tracts. I’d like to be part of the resistance to this, but with my income level, not to mention how state and local governments have jacked up tax rates, I’m not exactly grinning about my prospects.

LA has become an exemplar of what the rest of the nation is heading towards. As I well remember seeing in Visalia, CA, in parts of Colorado, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon, farms are being bulldozed for more urban development. The goal is to line someone’s pockets, ignoring the greater long term consequences for land use, for our environment. In the end, as the old Indian saying goes, we’ll wind up learning that we can’t eat money.

Maybe with the meltdown we’re experiencing in our economy, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to reverse a lot of this. We can hope. Maybe with the end of Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush Greed is Good politics, we have a chance of turning back the tide. As I said, I’m not overly enthusiastic that it will happen.

But, we’ve got a shot.

Sites to See:

Information from Ohio State University on saving family farms.

More information on sustainable agricultural communities.

And now for something competely different: Scotty the Blue Bunny.

It is not giving children more that spoils them; it is giving them more to avoid confrontation.
John Gray

"I'm moving in with some friends," Matt announced.

Peggy and I were left sitting in the bed, surprised. "Fine, I guess," I said after a long pause. "How are you going to afford it?"

"I've got my GI Bill. I'll find a job."

Riiiiiight, I thought. You've been home from the Army for around six months, haven't even bothered to go out and put in applications, and you're now telling me you're going to just go out and get a job. I was beginning to wonder what my youngest son had been smoking, and further asking myself if it would show up on a UA. If not, I wanted a hit.

Matt's decided he doesn't like the atmosphere here at the house. I want him to get a job, get on his feet, and start to deal with the heartbreak of losing a child we never knew he had. I want him to get healthy, to start to deal with the issues that got him tossed out of the military in the first place. He doesn't want to do that.

I'm torn. I know as a father, I have to let him go. He's 21 years old, and legally an adult. He's relatively sane, (at least as sane as any person in their early 20's can be), and he's taking some responsibility for his life. I'm grateful for that.

But I also know he's not ready. He's got a lot to deal with on his plate, and once he's gotten the last of his gear out into my Chevy pickup, he won't deal with it. It's going to get shoved under the bed, along with old socks, sneakers, and empty pizza boxes. I'm worried.

I know for a fact that I shouldn't be; I was in far worse shape when I finally got clear of my parents, (and even then, they kept interjecting themselves into our lives, much to our own destruction.) I still managed to get and keep jobs, support and raise a family, and eventually, work towards buying a truck. (Still working at it.) It's a hard run for anyone, and yet, I'm worried about my son. I'm hopeful, but that's about it.

Matt has a huge lesson in store for him. My buddy, Will, keeps telling me to just shut my mouth and let him go. Doing that, he says, makes it more likely that Matt will be back at least for the holidays, and an occasional dinner at home. Will's rarely been wrong about this kind of thing. But it's not making it any easier.

Part of the whole business of talk radio is that everyone has so much to say, and so little time to get it said. You're under the pressure of the clock, the advertisers, and the audience, and you're trying to get it all in. Not easy.

I know this. My folks were in the media for ages.

If you were listening to KFBK last night, I apologize. Yes, that was me on Bruce Maiman's show. I called in wanting to make one simple comment: I'd read what the candidates platforms were, and I didn't like any of them. Not one person running for the office of President this year is qualified, capable, trustworthy, or honest. Frankly, if it were up to me, I'd have hung the whole damned lot of them. "Bastards" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Still, like anyone, Maiman wanted to know where I was coming from on this. I should have been a bit more clear, but he wound up thinking my oldest and youngest son had both served in Iraq. If you're read this blog with any frequency, you know they didn't: Due to being seriously injured in a night jump at Fort Bragg, NC, James wound up in Kuwait, ferrying Hummers around the AO, even when the military's doctors themselves said he should have stayed home, while Matt had a meltdown at Fort Campbell, KY, and was ejected from the service. Both are supposed to be receiving care from the VA due to service related conditions, but neither is getting the help they're supposed to.

No surprise there. As I've said before, if you want to trivialize a critical issue in American society, all you have to do is make the government agency responsible for it a cabinet level entity. (Just look at what's happened with Homeland Security.) Already there? Have Congress hold hearings.

It was late for me, last night. I was just getting back into town, and I was short on miles. While George Bush is saying the fundamentals are good, I'm out there trying to get at least 2,500 miles just to make ends meet. (I need anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000 in this business just to keep my bills current.)

I'm probably not one of Maiman's favorite people. I suspect he'd be relieved if I would switch it over to another station altogether, but I've no evidence of it. Still, I'm like a bad case of herpes: I just keep coming back.

The whole story about my dad, me, my sons, is complicated, and it's long. A lot of it is not fit for talk radio. I'll try to get it all in over the next few days, assuming I have web access and time. (Yes, you can get short miles in trucking and still be working your ass off.)

More to come. I hope.

Sites to See:

More about Bruce Maiman, here.

I told you I'd get it finished!

I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.
Will Rogers

Maybe it’s just me, but my wife does not like taking me with her when she goes shopping, regardless of whether it’s the mall or Wal-Mart. If given the choice between taking me with her to the stores, or fighting with a half-crazed bobcat, she’ll likely take the bobcat. (At least it’s a cat.) Most of the time, she’d rather leave me at home to do guy stuff, such as pretending to work on the car with my friends, (which is nothing more than an excuse to drink beer), pretending to work on the yard, (which is nothing more than an excuse to drink beer), or pretending to do some repair work that’s desperately needed in our bathrooms, (which is nothing more than an excuse to drink beer.)

I like beer.

Still, those moments come when it’s unavoidable. She needs to drag my sorry backside with her to the store, and we need to actually spend money to pick up something we seem to need, such as food, clothing, liquids of varying composition, or even material required for me to pretend I’m doing the foregoing, even as I’m drinking my beer.

I like beer.

Now, part of the problem, of course, is that women simply don’t understand men. Those of the feminine persuasion say, “I am woman, hear me roar.”

Those of the masculine persuasion say, “I am man, pull my finger.”

Doubt me on this?

Peggy and I were doing Christmas shopping one year, dropping in at our local Wal-Mart in Antelope, CA. Normally, she tries to avoid taking me, as I’ve said, but this was one of those instances where she was stuck dragging me along. We had no sooner gotten to the front door before she warned me, “Don’t do anything.”

“What do you mean, ‘Don’t do anything’?” I countered. “I mean, what could I possibly do?”

“You said that the last time. You started putting the blow-up Santas on display into weird positions,” she noted.

“What weird positions?”

She stopped me in front of the store and glowered. “I never should have let you read the Kama Sutra.”

“That wasn’t the Kama Sutra. That was The Joy Of Sex.”

“Don’t do it again!” I was ordered.

I sighed and followed my wife into the store. I suppose I could have mentioned that my son, Chris, and his friend, Nate, had done something similar with the artists models, the little wooden ones, they were selling at IKEA, which prompted my daughter-in-law Kasey to hide out in the café, but that would only have compounded matters. I am Man. Pull my Finger.

It’s really no different from what my older son did this year with his wife and my grandson. At one point, James found large blue plastic ornaments on display in one section. In the middle of the store, after he’d been carrying them around with them, he announced loudly to my daughter-in-law, Madison, “Look, honey! I’ve got BLUE BALLS!”

Maddie snagged the ornaments from him and told him to shut up and behave himself. (See? It’s genetic.)

We managed to pick up gifts for most of our family. Aside from my tinkering with the alarm clocks on display, (as suggested in a bit of spam we got in our e-mail box), things went pretty well. We even managed to have enough scratch left over for lunch at McDonald’s. All we had left to do was get through the checkout line.

Now, this isn’t as simple as it seems. Normally, since we wind up parking out in the wilds of “Siberia,” we wind up checking out through the garden section of the store. This, if you’re not familiar with it, is where they put all the nifty stuff for Christmas which gets me into trouble. Stacked on one shelf, for example, was a selection of poseable plastic Santas and snowmen. I started to walk towards the shelf, only to feel a hard pull on my right sleeve.

“Don’t even think about it,” Peggy ordered.

I am Man. Pull my Finger.

She stepped into the line and we began to edge our way to the register. Behind us, people began to queue up, and believe me, NO ONE was happy. Sorry, folks, but at Christmas time, no one is ever happy while they wait in line to learn that they’re over the limit on their credit cards. Certainly not the dude with the Harley Davidson head scarf, nor the elderly woman with the purse large enough to contain half the cosmetics department. In fact, everyone was looking miserable.

I got a little further forward, and noticed the white box with multicolored products of plastic sticking out of it. Yes, they were plastic Candy Canes, the sort with LEDs in them, which work for the first couple of minutes you have them staked out in your lawn, but die before daybreak. The next year, you discover your kids have used them for tent posts when they decided to camp out in the backyard with their friends. You wind up going back to Wal-Mart, buying more of the damned things, and Wal-Mart makes another thirty cents on the sale. A few million of those, and you understand why they’re cleaning up.

I let Peggy drift ahead of me, and stepped to the side, picking up one of the red ones, giving it a practice swish in the air, making a couple of jabs at nothing…

A green candy cane was gently settled atop my red one.

He was wearing a three piece suit, dark gray, red silk tie, black wing tips. His hair was cut just so, and sitting next to him was a black leather attaché case. He looked at me and shook his head.

I brought my own cane up, and over, starting to swing it again, when with a resonant click, the green one came down again. He shook his head again, a stern look of disapproval on his clean-shaven face.

So that was the challenge I faced. I stepped back, determined that this suit was not going to deter me in my quest for Truth, Justice, and the American Way!

I am MAN. Pull my FINGER!

We addressed each other, and the duel was on…

Indeed, we crossed canes and began to interweave our way amongst our fellow shoppers. Ah, truly, he was a wily one, no doubt a member of the fencing team as he slogged his way through Law School. He parried, he riposted, he was truly an excellent canesman, even as we ducked around Mr. Hog, who raised his arms, then pushed the Suit back into battle, snarling about “them damn smartasses,” even as his lady clutched in shock and horror her bag of all natural granola.
Yes, the Suit had violated a basic tenet of canesmanship; he had dragged the innocent into our conflict. Truly, while he was skilled, he was also unscrupulous, and a cheat.

But I had something he didn’t have.

I had passion.

I had courage.

I had Red Wing steel toed boots.

A moment later, he was hopping on one foot, his weapon in one hand, the scuffed and mashed toe of his black wingtip in the other, scowling at me as he renewed his attack. He slashed at me, then thrust, catching the lining of my Carhartt, tearing it slightly. I slashed at him, then charged him, avoiding another thrust from my opponent, even as he ducked behind the elderly woman with the massive handbag.

It was a critical tactical error.

The elderly grandmotherly type wheeled around and smacked the Suit behind the head, sending him flying towards me. I stepped forward, and the tip of my cane caught him just above the top button of his vest. A moment later, he toppled over into another display of poseable Santas, snowmen, reindeer, and elves. (Woah. The fun I could have had if I’d just seen THEM!)

I saluted my opponent, even as people began to applaud, even Mr. Hog and his lady, Ms. Natural. The Grandmotherly lady with the purse gave me a thumbs up as I replaced my cane…

Peggy reached out and grabbed my arm as soon as I got to the register, glomming onto it with a vise-like grip, dragging me out of the store. Behind me, a feminine voice declared loudly, “I can’t take you ANYWHERE!”

Yes, Christmas shopping was done for another year. Yet, in my own humble, selfless manner, I had once more affirmed the battle cry of Man, heard, no doubt, from our earliest forebears to the present day…

I AM MAN! PULL MY FINGER!

(Yes, I know the annual Christmas essay is late. It's coming. It's coming. Geez!!!!)

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
Isaac Asimov

I could see he was running on a set of Michelins.

At that moment, I was hugging the forward left outside dual of the trailer, hoping like hell he'd edge it to the left at least another two inches, even as I could feel the icy spray from the road as his rig rolled by me. I could easily feel the rush of air as he rolled past, clearly oblivious to the fact that he came damned close to killing me.

All of this started simply enough: We were hit with the second wave of a series of storms that were rolling across Northern California. I'd checked on the weather on December 31st, and realized that if I didn't move and move quick, I'd be stuck in the middle of this mess, and probably forced to shut down in white-out conditions. I was low on food, and low on drinking water in the truck, not to mention that with a recent valve adjustment, they'd put in new parameters for the engine, forcing it to shut down after five minutes of idle time. I'd be stuck trying to huddle under the blankets in the sleeper, trying to stay warm, even as the slop outside solidified into an icy slab on the Interstate. Not good.

Add to this the current fight with Peggy about her getting a job, about her trying to make some sort of meaningful contact with our mortgage company, not to mention the threats to our marriage we've been facing with everything else, and I was not looking forward to trying to make this trip.

I managed to make good time from Brownsville, OR down to Weed, CA, only to discover that I would be forced to chain up. I took an hour, got everything secured, then tried like hell to get back into traffic, a difficult task, given the number of retirees in their RVs heading south, no doubt heading for warmer weather, (something I kept wishing I was doing.)

When I'm chaining up my rig, I have a set of black insulated coveralls, which I wear with a green knit cap, long underwear, my boots, and a high visibility flourescent green vest. I've been looking for icy weather gear that has at least reflective stripes on it, but for now, during daylight hours, this seems to work. Add to this the basic rule that you never turn your back on traffic, that you face the rear of the rig as you walk past on the driver's side, and you walk towards the front on the passenger side, and you can stay relatively safe in the hazardous business of driving in the snow and ice.

It took nearly five hours to crawl my way in traffic from Weed, CA to Dunsmuir, CA, a short hop I can normally make in about 30 minutes on a warm summer day, ideally, with the windows down and with astringent perfume of pine in the air. I kept in touch with other drivers, asking simply, "How long before chain law is down, Northbound?"

I had my answer pretty quickly. At Dunsmuir, damned near every rig was pulling over and yanking off the iron. A northbound driver for Schneider declared, "Chain law's down from Dunsmuir on. All you have is wet, Driver."

That was all I needed to hear.

I pulled off in an area where the road was reducing lanes. The tail end of the trailer was to the right of the fog line, I had the right side tires sitting on snow and ice, but the left side in the clear. I was off the road in a well-lit area, quite literally a few feet from the Dunsmuir city limits. With reflective tape on the back of the mirror-finished silver doors of the trailer, I should have been pretty safe.

I thought about pulling on the coveralls again, then decided against it. If I did it right, I could have all the chains off in about ten minutes, have them on the rack in another five, and be rolling again with a minute to update my logbook. The temperature was in the mid-30s, so I figured I really didn't need to winter up. I grabbed a flourescent green insulated jacket I got when I worked for the heavy haul outfit, (a Christmas gift from my SOB boss), threw that on, grabbed a flashlight, and a pair of insulated gloves. I climbed out of the cab, and got to work.

I pulled the bungees from the chains in one quick loop, and tossed them into the side stowage on the sleeper. I made the next loop actually uncoupling the chains, pulling them off to one side so I could roll a foot or two off of them. The third loop would involve me gathering them up and hanging them on the chain rack behind the cab.

I almost didn't get the chance.

I had seen the white Freightliner as it rounded the curve on I-5. He was moving way too fast, and he was far too close to the fog line. If he didn't change his direction quick, I would have been little more than a bloody smear on the Interstate, and if you had any interest, you might have been reading my epitaph.

At that moment, I was working on the forward duals on the trailer, pulling off the single rail drag chain. There was no way I could get to the catwalk on the tractor, and throwing myself under the trailer would have been damned near suicidal, with rock guards for the rear suspension hanging down and leaving about a foot of ground clearance. I stood a good chance, assuming I could get under in time, of getting nailed in the head if this brain-dead amateur in the Freightshaker nailed the back of my trailer, which was looking like a real probability as he wove his way towards me.

I ducked under the trailer, and hugged the outside dual. At least if I died, it would be quick. Painful as hell, but quick.

I got a quick glimpse of the Shaker's critter-hitter, caught sight of the steer axle as it whipped past, noted that on the forward drives he was missing a lug cover, and learned that whoever he was driving for, they put Bridgestones on the trailers. (Cheap bastards.)

It took a few minutes, but I finally got the stones to move.

I stood up, the flashlight wet from where it hit the pavement, took a couple of breaths and began to unchain the rest of the truck. I rolled forward, pulled chains from the ground and made a mental note of those that needed repair, and once that was done, I hung them on the racks. I opened the door to the Peterbilt, dropped my saturated gloves and flashlight into the space between the door and the driver's seat, and climbed in.

I couldn't move.

I just sat there in the driver's seat, my heart hammering away in my chest, angry, frightened, wet, cold, and somewhat grateful to still be able to draw breath.

They tell you your life passes by your eyes when you're in that kind of a situation. That's crap.

All I could think of was Peggy.

I can normally be rolling in 15 to 20 minutes when I unchain. It took me closer to 45 this time. I updated, tried to get myself to put the rig in gear, and tried like hell to get moving. I probably could have shut down in Sacramento that night with a little manipulation of the "truth," but having just gone through a major DOT audit, I wasn't about to. I shut it down near Corning, CA, and went comatose for the next ten hours.

I have lots of regrets in my life. Some are lifelong, others far more recent. I regret I didn't finish my college degree, I regret I wasted so much time believing in what wasn't there in the first place, I regret that when I meet other JREFers, I only see them once, and they're gone, leaving me to wonder what I said or did to people for whom I have incredible affection and respect.

I regret I haven't told Peggy often enough that I love her.

Friday, with the major part of the storm series in full bore with rain and sustained winds in Yolo and Sacramento counties of 40+ MPH, I was caught up in the mess on Southbound I-5, and wasn't able to make on-time deliveries. With four overturned trucks, (or so CHP told us), we were not taking the Yolo Causeway into Sacramento, at least not until we stopped having wind gusts up over 60 MPH. It took me from seven in the morning to 3:15 in the afternoon before I managed to get the truck to the yard and shut it down for the weekend. I dropped the trailer, then ran straight to the house, charging through flooded streets and across traffic hazards to get there.

I took a long hot shower in the dark, our power being out from 7 a.m. onward, and told Peggy about this trip. She ran her hand up and down my back, saying nothing.

We went out for Chinese. I couldn't afford it. I should have had a taco. But, what the hell. You only live once.

Sites to See:

A REAL toy store! Grrrrrr!

Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Peggy and I are trying to hang onto our house right now. We got ourselves into this sub-prime mess, (and frankly, I'd like nothing more than to choke that loan officer who got us into this one), and we're now trying to dig ourselves out of it. I'm making more money than I ever have in my life, and it's all gone before the end of the month.

So, I was talking with another driver, Junior, out at the GeeCee's truck stop in Toledo, WA, about this. Junior is one of those guys who likes to talk, and he talks a lot about stuff that I don't even think he realizes is profound. (Or, maybe he does. There are people like that.)

As we were talking that night, he was telling me about a newb that his company hired and asked him to train. Most of the time, you hear about newbs, and how they do some of the dumbest stuff out on the road. They go to trucking school, then graduate, and think they're truckers. (Oh, they could wish!) Being a trucker is something you wind up growing into, and most people with CDLs never make it. They're too busy trying to impress people with the fact that they have a Class A. (Yipdee-shit.)

So they introduced Junior to the newb. Junior didn't sugar coat it at all: "You graduated from trucking school?"

"Yes."

"Forget everything they taught you. You tell me one time that the way I do it is wrong, I'm done."

The boss was sort of jolted by Junior's attitude. "Geez, Junior! Give him a break!"

"I am," Junior said. "I don't want to waste his time, and sure as hell don't want to waste mine. The only thing I want from him is that he wants to learn."

Turned out the kid wanted to learn pretty bad. When Junior told him to do it a particular way, that's what the kid did. He had trouble shifting the truck, since the synchros were torn to hell, but Junior had shown him how to handle that, insisting that the kid hit his shift points before moving the lever. "Just drive the truck. You know what you're doing. Just do it."

At one point, Junior was in the sleeper when he noticed that he wasn't hearing the transmission grind in the old Freightliner. He was so proud of the kid, he jumped up into the buddy seat, congratulating the kid on getting it right.

Of course, as soon as he said it, the kid had to shift. From the transmission well, they heard, "GRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKCCCCCHHHHHHHH."

"Don't worry about me!" Junior told the kid. "Just drive the truck!"

The kid rode with Junior for about six months. It was plenty of time to cover handling snow, and in their case, it meant throwing iron over Donner Summit. (Trust me. I've done it. You don't want to.) The kid had never driven in snow up to that point, and he wasn't sure what to do.

"Well, we're first going to hang the jewelry," Junior told the kid. It took a little longer than normal, as it was the kid's first time, but they got the chains on, and they started over the summit.

Running in snow, your biggest danger is lack of traction on the trailer. I've lost track of the number of times I locked the brakes and watched as the tail come around to say Hello. It doesn't take much, to say the least. Still, once you get the hang of not locking your trailer brakes, you can handle snow, even over the steep grade of the Eastern Sierra. Junior kept him in the driver's seat, and kept telling him, "Don't worry about what those idiots are saying to you over the CB. If they want to die that bad, that's their problem. Just drive the truck."

The kid drove for quite a while, until Junior finally stopped him; he was getting nervous with loudmouths cussing him out over the squawker, and his worries over getting the rig over the summit. By that time, he was well past the worst of it, and Junior took it into Reno, where they overnighted. (You don't drive in snow at night, unless you're suicidal.) The next morning, they rolled out and made it as far as Fernley, where they unchained and finished the run into Salt Lake. And the whole time, Junior kept telling the kid, "Don't worry about anything else. Just drive the truck."

I've been thinking about this a lot, as I've been dealing with creditors, with mortgage companies, with collection agents. I just tell them the truth, and try to budget as best I can. I've got a Chevy pickup which I paid a huge chunk of money to fix, and it's sitting in front of the house. That jackass mechanic screwed me over, and his boss won't make good on what I paid him. I've got a house that I might not be able to keep. And I've got trouble with my youngest, who's being booted out of the Army. I can't solve any of this right now.

Right now, I just drive the truck.

I talk to people, and work on the basis of fact. Slowly, things are starting to turn. It's not going to get solved right away, but it will get solved. I may lose a lot more before things get better, but I will get through this. Right now, I just have to drive the truck.

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth--anonymously and posthumously.
Thomas Sowell

We're faltering, and ultimately failing. We're trying to save our home, but renegotiation is not going well. Neither is refinancing. Countrywide has screwed us over, and now, we're scrambling, trying to find a way to undo the damage, or to limit what damage has been done.

So, consequently, I've been left feeling as though I've failed my wife and kids, not to mention the disaster I've created financially for everyone else. Just when I think things can't get worse, new bills come in, or I discover that Peggy's been keeping information from me, or worse, that I simply haven't been paying attention when she's been trying to tell me something.

I was talking about some of this with Art, another driver, while we were waiting for our loads from a lumber mill in Hood River, OR, and trying to figure a way out between the two of us which didn't involve bankruptcy or anything illegal. For some reason, the tale turned a bit. I mentioned to him a younger driver that I'd encountered a while ago at a truck stop in Rice Hill, OR.

It seems the young kid was bragging about how much he knew about driving, and just how good a driver he was. Personally, I just let kids like this run off at the mouth, but in some cases, these kids seem to think you're endorsing their crap. I'm not, of course, but they just start running and can't seem to shut themselves off.

Another driver was listening as the kid was going on about this trials and tribulations driving the I-5 corridor, something most of the men and women there in the truck stop had done at least a dozen times themselves. It was an older guy, a skinny black driver who nodded and asked the kid, "So, how much trouble they give you at the Sutherlin scales on your run north?"

I was about to say something, when the older guy held up a hand. It was as good a time as any to shut up.

We got an earful, of course. Seems those rotten bears dragged him into the shed, checked his paperwork, redlined his truck some time ago, and he'd never heard the end of it. Those mean bears were nasty to him, making sure he knew what a gutter bum he was, and letting him know that if they'd had their way, he'd have lost his license right then.

The older guy nodded, and a moment later said, "You know, son, I might have felt sorry for you, except you're so full of shit...."

This irked the younger guy. "I'll have you know I have at least a million miles...!"

"Bet they're all local," the older guy shot back, much to the amusement of everyone around the fuel desk.

"See," the old guy continued, "if you'd been paying attention, you'd have noticed that the northbound scales on I-5, they're near the Boomer Hill exit. It takes a trip or two before you figure that out, but there they are. The Sutherlin Scales are on the southbound side, and while the sign on the chicken coop says they're the Sutherlin Scales, they're actually a few miles out of town. Plus, they haven't been open on any kind of a regular basis in a while, since Oregon is trying to figure out if they're going to move the scales, refurbish them, or close them altogether.

"Boomer Hill has no shed. If you were looking for a shed, you would have found that at the Ashland Scales, at the Port of Entry. You don't often see anyone pulled in, but that's where they are. Ditto at Woodburn on the southbound side, and Klamath Falls on Northbound 97. If you'd spent the kind of time on the road that you claim you have, you'd have known that.

"As far as the bears, I can't help you there. Most of us know that when it comes to dealing with them, you give them what they ask for when they ask for it. If you keep your mouth shut and listen, they're generally some of the most professional officers you'll ever deal with. If they were wanting to pull your license, it makes me wonder just what the hell you were saying to them. If you shot your mouth off, I don't wonder that they were going to shut you down. Stupid people shouldn't drive.

"Yeah, son. I'm calling bullshit. The worst mistake you can make is to try and BS your way through. Ain't no one can help you at that point."

By now, everyone was laughing at the newb, which isn't the response he was looking for. Then again, maybe if he'd been telling the truth, he'd have gotten a better response.

Art nodded at the end of my tale, and told me some of his own. It's not my tale to tell, but the reality is it dovetailed in with my own. He told me, "I don't care who you are, we all make mistakes. The man who tells you he hasn't made one is a liar. Period.

"You lying to the mortgage company?"

"No," I told him. "I'd be in worse trouble than I am now," I answered.

"Good answer," he said. "You'll get through it. It just takes time."

"I'm just driving the truck, Art," I said.

"All you can do. You can worry about it when you take your ten off. Other than that, you need to keep your head on the road."

I don't have any easy answers right now. We're trying our best for the time being. If things hold together for a couple of more months, I have a shot at this. I can only be honest with people as I work with them, and try to do what's right.

I could only wish that Countrywide and its agents had done so with me.

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.
Malcolm X

At my age, I’m old enough to realize that everything just sort of recycles. This includes everything from ugly clothes to bad ideas, to politicians. Right about now, Hubert Humphrey looks like he’d be a shoo-in for President. (At least he wasn’t a blatant liar like the current crowd of contenders.)

So, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to see a Chevy pickup with the bumper sticker that read, “My Country, Love It Or Leave It.”

It gave me pause. Was this guy some sort of uptight right-winger who was just thawed out from a cryogenic sleep from 1968? Or is he the antithesis of the 60’s hippie holdover, the guy who just never got over the fact that the world moved on from the Summer of Love? Either way, it didn’t matter. I liked that bumper sticker. It spoke to something long overdue.

Yes, dear friends, it’s time we spoke in one voice. I’m tired of those who claim to love this country, but do not act in accordance with their declarations. If you don’t love America, it’s time you left.

As we near another Presidential election, I ask, have you even bothered to register to vote? Yes? No? If no, get the hell out of my country.

If you’re registered, who do you support, and why? What’s the platform being offered by the candidate of your choice? Can you list even ONE point of consequence, and how it will affect the nation? If not, get out. You’re wasting space, time, and energy.

Can you tell anyone what you candidate believes in regards to Constitutional Law? Are they out to take your guns, your liberties, your rights, away from you? Are they for the reintroduction of the Fairness Doctrine for the media? Can they tell you how that will impact the Internet, television, radio, newspapers? And why would they support it, especially when the First Amendment specifically contradicts the very idea? If you think the Fairness Doctrine ought to be law, leave. You have no concept of what it means to be an American.

Think Alberto Gonzales was right in his actions regarding the Internet, and threats to prosecute people who didn’t post an advisory on what might be deemed “adult” sites? I don’t. I think it was more Federal interference in our basic liberties. Care to dispute it? Show me how it stacks up against the Constitution, (which, by the way, you can download from the web with a couple of keystrokes), then tell me Gonzales had any regard for Constitutional Law. If you think he was a friend of the Citizen, you need to rethink it. Goodbye.

Think the Kelo Decision was a good one? Show me how. Look at the Fifth Amendment, and how it’s supposed to protect your private property rights. Tell me again how this Supreme Court showed any regard for the Constitution, then show me how the Presidents who nominated them honored the Constitution with their nomination. Don’t feed me this line about how the Constitution is supposed to be a “living, breathing, document.” The only people who go along with that are the ones who want to manipulate you, who want to deny you your rights. The door is THAT way.

How about the Fourth Amendment? Are warrant-less searches valid? If we’re now going to allow the Feds to waltz into your home and go on fishing expeditions, looking for violations of the law, without any evidence of wrongdoing, do you really have any liberties at all, any security in your person? Do you want that? If you think that’s a good idea, pack up and beat it.

What of the Second Amendment? You have a declared right to bear arms. You are, whether you like it or not, permitted to own a gun. Don’t want one? Don’t buy one. There are members of Congress who want to see you lose that right. Personally, I think that’s all the reason I need to purchase one. I’d rather have it, than not. Without that, my others rights in what’s becoming a more and more restrictive society may not matter. Think we’d be better off without them? Reread your history. And if you won’t do that, and learn from it, SEE YA.

In fact, you probably would do well to read through the Constitution, and read the Tenth Amendment. Then, take a look at what this nation has done to your liberties. If you think this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind, I strongly suggest you reconsider.

In the next year, we’re going to be facing some serious questions about where this nation is headed. If you think a more restrictive nation is a good thing, I’d ask you to reread the Constitution, and then the Bill of Rights. And while you’re at it, a long hard look at the Declaration of Independence is also in order. Read through The Federalist Papers, and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Then ask, where do you think we should be headed.

If you want greater liberty, you have to accept the responsibility that goes along with that.

More to come on this.

Sites to See:

Read the Constitution for yourself.

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
Mark Twain

Sometimes, for all the planning you, for all the effort you put into preparation for something, it just doesn't go right.

I'm thankful for the help I've gotten here, but the realities remain: I got burnt in the sub-prime market. I'm trying to fix what I can, but there's little I can do at this point in time. You do what you can, you talk to the lenders, and you prepare as well as possible. But you realize that there comes a time when there is little else you can do but try, and recognize that if you have failed... Well, in this market, at least we're not alone.

Work isn't going as well as I had hoped, either. There's some disappointment there as well, and while I've gotten a little help from some here, the company pays in what can best be described as a quixotic manner. We've been trying to get this fixed, but there's little I can do about it except either find another company, or work for myself.

I have a lot on my mind, as you can guess.

So it was with that mindset that I got out the mixer, (a big KitchenAid monster we bought a few years ago which has seen it's share of big projects), the flour, the yeast, the salt and sugar. I poured a couple of cups of very warm water into the bowl, added two cups of flour, and turned our beloved blue beast on with the dough hook in place.

When I need time to think, I have to do something which forces my mind onto other things. I bake bread.

I let the mixer run for a few minutes, then added about four tablespoons of sugar, two teaspoons of salt, then dropped in a cube of butter into the mixture. You have to watch the dough at this time; you don't want to add too much flour to it too fast, or it can come out dry. Too little flour, and you get a flabby, gelatinous goo which is next to inedible. Not even the dog or the rat will touch it.

As I've said, I've a lot to think about. My youngest, Matt, is on his way home on Monday, having been ejected by the military. I'm grateful he'll be out of harm's way, but I'm angered at how he's getting out, and his attitude towards his fellow soldiers. Our financial situation is not helped by some of the nonsense which I'm told will "help" us by certain financial "professionals," some of whom seem to think I'm their personal piggy bank. I'm not. And I'm offended that they seem to think otherwise.

And I don't want to hear from well meaning friends who tell me that if I'd just come back to Church and tithe, things would straighten themselves out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that almost like a capitalized version of homeopathy?

I start adding flour now, one cup at a time, sifted into the bowl carefully. I don't want geysers of flour shooting up at me. I can begin to see the dough thickening, bit by bit, as the gluten and yeast begin their magic. Long strands of bread dough begin to reach from the hook to the sides of the bowl.

Matt has always had trouble relating to people. But catching him in lies, not once but repeatedly, has disappointed me. His fellow soldiers were getting ready for combat, and he was smirking about his going home. Smirking! He thought it was funny that they were headed off into dangerous ground, and here he was making jokes about it. It's upset him that some of the NCOs on the rear detatchment have told him they don't think of him as a real soldier. Know what? At this point, with his bragging to his fellow GIs that he wasn't going, I have to agree with his NCOs. I thought I taught him better.

It takes a few minutes to get the dough to the proper consistency. At this point, I flour a board, then roll out the dough from the mixer bowl onto the board. Now, I knead it out by hand the rest of the way, (though, properly, when I have the time, and I don't have a truck I have to prepare for a week's work, I'll do the whole job by hand.) I roll it up, fold, then push against the dough, a steady push-pull motion that develops a smooth, warm mass. In a few minutes, the bread dough is of proper consistency, and I drop it into the Tupperware bowl we bought just for the purpose. I pop the lid on, and let it rise for the first time.

From there, I clean up the mixer and the bowl, then wipe up after myself. I wash the bowl and dough hook in hot, soapy water, rinse them off, then set them in the dish rack to dry. It leaves me an hour or two to myself, time I would almost rather not have.

Matt made one mistake I have a hard time forgiving: He actually bragged about how he's getting out to my oldest son, James. James, you might know, is a former Army Ranger, someone who was an actual bad-ass in a world of wannabes. James lost four friends in Iraq, while he, having had his ankle mangled by a bad jump at night, where an Army captain left him behind in the mud after James saved his sorry ass, was stuck in Kuwait moving hummvees around a motor pool, ultimately to be sent back to Fort Bragg himself because his ankle was getting worse. James deals with some serious guilt, even though he wasn't responsible for his situation. He feels ashamed that he couldn't do more than he could, and wonders if his Honorable Discharge was warranted.

And then his youngest brother calls up, laughing about those suckers who are headed off to Tikrit. Not too smart.

I thought I taught Matt better than this.

The next step in all of this is to grease up a couple of loaf pans. I don't always like to use them, but for this particular batch, it's a better choice. Sometimes, when I have multigrain cereal, (in particular, one from Canada we like), I just roll out a pair of fat, round loaves, and we slice off big chunks of this bread, which we eat with a thick, hearty soup, usually chicken, with big chunks of carrot and onion, and sometimes celery and potato. Peggy and I would make up a big pot of this soup, and we'd serve it up for dinner on a weekend. When I had all four boys in the house, they'd eat it as if there were nothing else they'd rather see. I was surprised once they were all gone to notice that we'd make a pot of this soup, and it would last well into the week.

I roll the dough out of the bowl and onto a floured board again, kneading it once more, then cutting it with a pastry cutter in two. I take one half, roll and knead, then drop it into one of the bread pans, then do the same with the other. A few minutes later, they're both in a preheated 375 degree oven. And it doesn't take long for the aroma to permeate the whole kitchen, and ultimately, the whole house.

Matt used to watch me bake bread. Ultimately, he wanted to do it himself, and it was what led him to become a cook. Civilian jobs were hard to find last year for him, given his lack of experience. I tried to tell him that it was going to be hard, but it was going to be even harder unless he got off his rump and put in applications to restaurants. Yes, he'd probably start at the bottom. Guess what? Everyone else had to as well. That's real life. That's the way it works.

Instead, since it was hard, he would sit at home and play computer games. I finally told him, after two months of this, that he either had to get a job or get out.

He joined the Army.

I told him this was not a game. If you're going into the military, you go to serve. You listen to what you're told to do, and you do what you're told to do when you're told to do it. There are no excuses; either give it your best or don't go.

He told me he understood this.

I didn't believe him then. I don't believe him now.

It takes about thirty to thirty five minutes to bake bread in our oven. The timer goes off, and I set up a cooling rack. I grab a pot holder and drop out two perfectly formed loaves of bread out on the rack to allow them to cool, thumping the bottoms as I do to make sure they're done. (They are.)

Other people like to wait for the bread to cool a bit before they take that first bite. I pull out a knife and slice off a big chunk right off the end, and butter it up with a thick layer of unsalted butter. I love the taste of it, and the memories it brings back, of dinner with my kids, of Peggy's satisfaction with a good meal, and with the reminder that there was a time when my children had all the possibilities before them.

I look at Matt right now, and where he is, and I'm angered, I'm sad, and I'm hurt. Good men and women are going into harm's way. Some will not return, and others will return broken. And he does not understand why his brother and I are angry with him. Why we do not accept his choices.

James says he may never talk to Matt again.

I could wish I could find the way to make the bread taste a little better.

Sites to See:

Oddly enough, there's some great recipes on Fun With Cherry, (which is NSFW, BTW), as well as some great looking photos of a terrific looking redhead. (Watch it, though. The humor will get you the same way Richard Pryor did at the end of "Live at the Sunset Strip." Remember the scene with the lighter, and Pryor asking what it was? "Richard Pryor running down the street..." he said. Same deal.)

Okay, I'd like an explanation, please.

Earlier this week, I was in the Portland, OR area delivering loads of glass and other commodities, when the word came out that some idiot got involved in a road rage incident on SR 500 in Vancouver, WA.

Now, I generally don't have to worry about that kind of crap. For the most part, people leave big trucks alone. It's understandable. When someone is in command of 80,000 lbs. of truck and freight, it's not a good idea to piss them off.

But this incident leaves me stumped. Police have arrested one Christopher Partridge, 25, of Vancouver, for a road rage incident on the 19th. First, he menaced a young couple in their car because they were young and stupid and wouldn't let him pass them on the freeway. Then, he pulled a pistol and popped off a round into a car driven by a woman who was taking her mother out.

What we're now hearing from Mr. Partridge's parents is that this road rage incident is due to their poor little boy's ordeal of serving in Iraq, and it's due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Bullshit.

There are thousands of men and women who have served in Iraq who have come home suffering from PTSD, and yet, you don't hear of them firing shots into innocent people's cars. Most people suffering from PTSD see shrinks, they talk to family and friends, they work on dealing with the stress of their past experience. They don't commit crimes like this.

Let's be serious here: this is a crime. Partridge is a dirtbag. I don't give a rat's ass how bad he had it in Iraq, his parents are smearing men and women who have served this nation honorably and well. This punk is facing felony counts in both Oregon and Washington, and with luck, he'll be behind bars for a long stretch.

I'm tired of good people being smeared because someone thinks it might make a good excuse to get some whiny, worthless loser off the hook for his sorry behavior.

Enough. Partridge is filth, his parents are trying to justify it, and that's damned wrong.

Believe one who has proved it. Believe an expert.
Virgil

I'm not one of the most sociable people around. There are reasons I drive a truck for a living, and tend to spend much of my time alone. When you've spend the better part of your life being told you're less than pleasant company, you tend to avoid much human contact.

Still, in trucking, when you have the time to talk to another driver, to swap a few tales, to learn something new, you do it. This is especially true when you've been a trainer as I have, because sooner or later, you're going to need that information, whether you're going to be training again or not. And usually, you'll need it someplace where you'll least expect it.

As it happened, one of the guys I was talking with had done a little training himself, and had gotten out of it for the same damned reason I did: you get impatient with people whose IQs are in the same range as shoe leather. That he was signed on as an owner op with his company only made it worse; he was obligated to use his own truck to do the training. When it's you who winds up paying for the burned out clutch, the smoked out differential, the mangled cylinder head, you tend to be cautious who you take out on the road with you.

As it happened, one of the guys he was asked to take out was only going for a check-ride. Before you take on a new job, the new company is obligated to make sure you can actually drive a truck, and this is done by having you do a check-ride with another driver. If you pass, you're in. If not, they shake your hand and thank you for your time. If you're lucky, they'll pay your way home.

The new guy had driven for System 99 for over 30 years, so this should have been a very uneventful ride. It was a straight cross country run, and the newb was only expected to drive a short distance. It was only to be for familiarization, and once the check-ride was done, he would be behind the wheel of a company truck and on his way.

They started out in California, and it didn't take long for the owner-op to learn there was something wrong with this supposedly 30 year vet. Some of the things he would say simply didn't connect to the facts, and some of what he did behind the wheel didn't make any sense. Eventually, even though he had a "co-driver," it became clear that this man shouldn't be driving. The owner-op finally wound up driving nearly the whole of the load, even when he should have shut down and gotten needed sleep.

By the time they reached the Continental Divide, the owner-op had gone as far as he could. He told the newb to take the wheel, but to wake him before they got over the top of the hill so the owner-op could take the wheel. He crawled into the sleeper and went to bed, hoping things would be okay.

No such luck. He woke up to the sound of the engine running at high revs, to the smell of his brakes smoking out, and was practically tossed out of the bunk when the newb took a runaway ramp and put the rig into the gravel.

The company paid for the tow truck to pull the rig out of the gravel, which was a good thing. (Most tow outfits charge you around $2500 just to show up for something like that.) Then there were the repairs to the rig, which were not cheap. Still, all in all, because of lost time and miles, the owner-op wound up losing a huge chunk of change because this "thirty year veteran" couldn't drive.

So, lesson learned, right? Wrong. They hired the joker.

A few months later, the newb's truck was in the shop, and the newb needed a lift to Salt Lake to pick it up. The owner-op made it clear: No. He wouldn't allow that guy in his cab for any reason.

"We'll pay you extra," the company said.

So, there they were, rolling along on I-84, and the owner-op, under company orders, let the newb take the wheel. "Wake me up before we get to Ontario. I will take the wheel then. Got it?"

The newb said he did.

A half hour later, they were in the gravel again.

The Oregon State Police showed up for this one, and as the Bear and the newb were talking, the owner-op jumped out of the sleeper, wearing little more than a pair of briefs and a smile. "You know what? I'm not just going to kick your ass, I'm going to KILL YOU!"

He never got the chance. The Bear had him down on the his belly and in cuffs in less than a second. "I sympathize with you, driver," the Bear said. "This guy's an idiot. But I can't let you do this, or I'd have to arrest you for assault and battery."

I don't know what happened to the newb. I do know the owner-op, though, doesn't allow anyone else behind the wheel of his rig, no matter how badly he needs the money. He's the only guy who drives his truck, no matter what.

Now, I realize on the surface, this has nothing to do with religion. But when you take a moment and look at what actually happened, you begin to make the connection. Most of the time, in spite of all the promises of religious belief, in spite of all the testimonies, in spite of all the "evidence," and the reputation of any belief system, the reality remains that it doesn't deliver.

We realize this, we turn away, and then someone comes back, saying there's something new for us if only we'll try it again. We wind up in the gravel again, and we wonder why.

It's been proven belief in a god does not work. I'm trying to remember this, and trying to keep the wheels clear of the runaway ramp. The promises are coming in hard and fast, and I'm still trying to remember that I wound up in the gravel up to the hubs every time. It's not worth it.

It's all understandable, of course. I spent over 20 years, (25 to be more precise), within the confines of the church. And in the end, it's turned out to be a lie. It was a comfortable lie, but still a lie.

No one wants to admit that they've lied, especially to themselves. It's a character flaw, and no one wants to admit to having any. The reality, though, is that you can't correct what you won't admit to. I have to stand before people and say, "I lied to myself for over 20 years that there was some supernatural presence which controlled everything and nothing, which guided my steps, yet let me fall on my face. This supernal being permitted the greatest evil to enter my life all so I could ultimately experience the greatest good, or so I'm told. I can't prove any of this, but I chose to follow this anyway."

There's no joy in admitting you've played yourself for a fool.

Part of what bothers me with the changes I've made is that, unlike Christianity or any other religion, you're pretty much on your own. All joking aside, what it comes down to is your own recognition of who you really are, and what you choose to do about it.

At this point, I've gotten past the "Jesus loves you" part, and recognized that if Jesus was so frickin' crazy about my sorry posterior, he'd have done something about pervo priests, mad bomber bozos, lying cretins like Sylvia Browne and Pat Robertson, and Paris Hilton. (Okay, on the last part, God gets a pass. There's nothing that can be done about Paris Hilton.)

Trucking, and the Morality behind it, is fairly simple: Pick up load, deliver load, get another load. The ethos becomes a bit more complex: Your goal is to do so safely, with minimal damage to the material being shipped, and without accident or incident en route.

Still, there's no magic involved in this. As long as you have a basic understanding of the Laws of Physics, and a healthy respect for what it is you're doing, and who you're doing it for, you should ultimately have no problem. It's difficult, but it's do-able. Failure results in a call to the insurance company, not a one-way ride into a netherworld of eternal pain and heartbreak.

There is no readily written guidebook of Skepticism, no "Gospel of Sagan," or epistles from those who have questioned before. There are books, but, as is obvious, they are individual views of people who are or were looking themselves to undertand. Just like you, they had to muddle their ways through, and there were no absolutes, just like now. I now cringe when I think about what has been recited through the Church about Carl Sagan, and how at the end of his life, he violated his own ethics. I don't see it like that, as Sagan's ethics, like any other skeptic's, were in a state of flux, influenced by the latest, best information available. He adhered to basic principles which were few, and rooted in fact, rather than his own opinion. For skeptics, it seems, there are no stone tablets upon which you can throw yourself in hopes of finding the easy answer to the hard questions in life.

With my laptop seemingly on the fritz, and a bit of writer's block hitting me on this latest trip, not to mention a series of dispatches which made absolutely no sense, I had plenty of head time this week. It left me time to try and establish a sort of almost moral center to where I am, and at least give something to shoot for, even if I wind up revising this later on. It's a trucker's ideal, I suppose: Get moving; if you're headed the wrong way, dispatch will call and let you know.

So right out of the gate, it came to me, somewhere between Toppenish, WA and Hood River, OR. The first "law" I could concoct:

You will do no unnecessary, intentional harm.

In other words, while there will be harm done to others, and to yourself, for that matter, you simply won't go out of your way to do it. If anything, you try to avoid doing anything which might cause harm. This means you have to think first, then act, (or speak, or whatever.)

Well, I guessed if Jesus could have two commandments, I could do at least as well, so the second was like unto it:

You will base your thoughts, actions, and words on fact, on what can be proven to any rational mind.

Okay, that seemed solid enough. In other words, as much as is possible, you keep yourself out of it. What you think may be the case may not be, and if you're shooting off at the mouth, you usually discover you've been aiming for your feet. Find out what you actually know, first, then think, act, and speak. Once you have that down, you discover you're better off.

I figured if I could come up with two, a third one might make sense, too. By the time I was on I-84, heading west, I had it.

You will show others the appropriate respect they are due.

This one was a little trickier, simply because: How do you respond to someone like the psychoreligious bigot who screamed in my ear that I was headed for Hell unless I turned away from Atheism and back to Jesus?

Actually, you don't. Appropriate respect is ignoring his rants and his bigotry, and working on the previous two "laws." Responding to him only convinces him he's "right." Ignore him, and you've not only shown him disapproval for his hate, but you've denied him an audience.

Further, you've done something more powerful: You've demonstrated the ethos you hope to propogate among others.

It's a start, I suppose, but I still wonder if I've covered enough.

Sites to See:

If you're an "ancient mariner," you'll love The Wooden Boat Foundation.