This happens sometimes.
Nothing.
I made delivery of the Washers and Dryers this morning. A jam packed lot. Four other trucks waiting at the gate when I arrived. Eventually I managed to wedge the trailer in between another and a container dropped it and grabbed a shitty old empty from the other side of the lot. New trailers begin with the number 3. The older ones begin with 4, 6 or 9 this one begins with a 9. Old trailers are fine in almost any respect except for the tandems. These are the wheels on the back of the trailer and as you should know by now, they slide back and forth and lock into place in order to redistribute weight on each set of axles. In order to unlock the wheels and slide them you go back to the wheels and reach under the trailer and pull a rod that retracts four 1.5" bolts that lock the tandems into a track on the underside of the trailer. On newer trailers the bolts are attached to the retracting mechanism by a spring so you can pull out the handle, lock it into place and then when you begin the sliding process the bolts will snap back out of the track allowing the tandems to move freely. On old trailers the bolts are more directly connected to the release rod so when you pull the rod, if the bolts are jammed in the track the rod won't budge and you have to either move the truck just enough to get the bolts into the right place relative to the track that they will not bind. Or you can pull the rod out as far as you can, put a visegrips on it and pound (with a hammer) on the bolts until they retract. There is also a sort of puller that is made to apply mechanical advantage to the situation but when those bitches are stuck they are stuck.
And that is why you try to find new trailers. (did that make any sense)
So I got this crappy old 9 trailer and got out of there and went up the road about 6 miles to a Pilot on the edge of I-95 and the Savannah River that separates Georiga from South Carolina. That was at 9:00am.
Presently it is 7:54pm and I am sitting here in the same space. It seems that Savannah is a port but not a producer. Lots of trucks coming in, not a lot going out.
I get frustrated at times but mostly it is just one of those things you can's really do anything about and so it goes.
I've been listening to a lot of NPR, more perhaps even than usual. I typed this. I added the other entries that I wrote yesterday and the day before. i took a shower. I've read. I bought two gallons of water. (BTW this drought in Georgia is no joke, I don't even care that Sonny Purdue wants to have a rain prayer session at the capital, these fools need some rain. The ground is so dry its white and i passed a lake yesterday whose docks were high and dry up on the reddish margins of the water where the lake had long since receded. Madness.
I look forward to getting out of here. Anywhere. It doesn't matter. Shit, I'd even go to Florida.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Richmond Hill, Georgia
Everything
My nasty ass I’da ripped him up.
Uh huh
An be sure you didn’t get caught.
Ha, whew, hey Laurence you know…
Right, I’m in the…
You fuckin with em nasty
(a roll of laughter)
Oh man.
Bitch was doin shit all night,
He’s sittin’ there at the kitchen table all cryin’ and shit
He aint even looking at me just got his face in his hands
Do I really give a fuck at all, really.
You got me bro.
You know what I’m saying.
My moms a whore, ha.
You know what I mean.
I seen him out at the bar and shit.
(a high pitch cackle)
I made your sisters fall out.
I’m talking about bitches I, I used to fuck.
Sisters and cousins.
The above, snippets of a conversation of the mechanics overheard while I was getting a PM (preventative maintenance i.e. oil change) I didn’t catch all of it and I didn’t type it out because I thought it was exceptional in any way. It was just something to do.
I’m in Georgia. Richmond Hill to be exact. South of Savannah. I came down here because I needed to get a PM and a front end alignment. They don’t do front end alignments here and so the PM is all I get.
I have this load that was supposed to be delivered at midnight however the guard at the warehouse said people don’t show up at the Electrolux part of the facility until 6am and I should probably come back at 8am. Way to go Werner with that well made appointment.
The warehouse is in Port Wentworth on the northwest side of Savannah. In a rundown (very southern) part of town with narrow roads, deep ditches, and tight lots jam packed with trailers and containers. I would guess that it is the destiny of these washers and dryers in my truck to be put in a container and given a fine cruise to Europe. Electrolux after all is a European brand. Design it in Europe, build it in Iowa, truck it to Georgia, ship it to Europe. The logic of this system fails me still. Sometimes I wish I could get together a team of people who would look at where everything is made and reorganize the whole goddamn mess so that things were made near the source of their materials and near the place of their sale/use. The increase in efficiency would blow everyone’s mind but truckers would get all pissed off cause all of a sudden there would be many fewer jobs in this area. But we humans are so terrible at seeing the forest for the trees especially when the trees are ourselves.
When I open my bakery I hope to buy local wheat and sell bread to local people. I have no desire to sell bread outside even of Kent County, Maryland. If people in other states or counties want bread baked in small batches in a wood fired brick oven someone is going to have to build that oven and bake that bread but it won’t be me. Maybe I’ll help start it up. I don’t hate money.
It is always so nice to be in the south in the colder months. The surprise of stepping out of the truck and not being bitten in the face by the wind is lovely, like a hundred first days of spring. The traffic southbound on I-75 from Chattanooga through Atlanta all the way to Macon was heavy. Lots of Cadillacs moving slowly toward Florida. At Macon I veered slightly east onto I-16 possibly some of the dullest road in the country. From Macon to Savannah 165 miles of nothing but pine trees. I really dislike driving in the inland south because you can’t see anything. Nothing but dry scraggly loblolly pines. Nothing like the lush evergreens of the northwest. Driving near the gulf is not so bad. I-95 in Georgia is close enough to the Atlantic, with its wide estuarine marshiness, as to be interesting. The southern Appalachians are great. But these fucking pine trees. They feel so empty.
And then there is the smell. The paper mill smell, overcooked broccoli and something metallic, chemical, carcinogenic. Maine smells like this, Louisiana, Washington, but each place is a little different, each place is cooking different trees into Copier Paper.
It’s a nice clear night, a low in the high forties, fresh oil in the crankcase.
My nasty ass I’da ripped him up.
Uh huh
An be sure you didn’t get caught.
Ha, whew, hey Laurence you know…
Right, I’m in the…
You fuckin with em nasty
(a roll of laughter)
Oh man.
Bitch was doin shit all night,
He’s sittin’ there at the kitchen table all cryin’ and shit
He aint even looking at me just got his face in his hands
Do I really give a fuck at all, really.
You got me bro.
You know what I’m saying.
My moms a whore, ha.
You know what I mean.
I seen him out at the bar and shit.
(a high pitch cackle)
I made your sisters fall out.
I’m talking about bitches I, I used to fuck.
Sisters and cousins.
The above, snippets of a conversation of the mechanics overheard while I was getting a PM (preventative maintenance i.e. oil change) I didn’t catch all of it and I didn’t type it out because I thought it was exceptional in any way. It was just something to do.
I’m in Georgia. Richmond Hill to be exact. South of Savannah. I came down here because I needed to get a PM and a front end alignment. They don’t do front end alignments here and so the PM is all I get.
I have this load that was supposed to be delivered at midnight however the guard at the warehouse said people don’t show up at the Electrolux part of the facility until 6am and I should probably come back at 8am. Way to go Werner with that well made appointment.
The warehouse is in Port Wentworth on the northwest side of Savannah. In a rundown (very southern) part of town with narrow roads, deep ditches, and tight lots jam packed with trailers and containers. I would guess that it is the destiny of these washers and dryers in my truck to be put in a container and given a fine cruise to Europe. Electrolux after all is a European brand. Design it in Europe, build it in Iowa, truck it to Georgia, ship it to Europe. The logic of this system fails me still. Sometimes I wish I could get together a team of people who would look at where everything is made and reorganize the whole goddamn mess so that things were made near the source of their materials and near the place of their sale/use. The increase in efficiency would blow everyone’s mind but truckers would get all pissed off cause all of a sudden there would be many fewer jobs in this area. But we humans are so terrible at seeing the forest for the trees especially when the trees are ourselves.
When I open my bakery I hope to buy local wheat and sell bread to local people. I have no desire to sell bread outside even of Kent County, Maryland. If people in other states or counties want bread baked in small batches in a wood fired brick oven someone is going to have to build that oven and bake that bread but it won’t be me. Maybe I’ll help start it up. I don’t hate money.
It is always so nice to be in the south in the colder months. The surprise of stepping out of the truck and not being bitten in the face by the wind is lovely, like a hundred first days of spring. The traffic southbound on I-75 from Chattanooga through Atlanta all the way to Macon was heavy. Lots of Cadillacs moving slowly toward Florida. At Macon I veered slightly east onto I-16 possibly some of the dullest road in the country. From Macon to Savannah 165 miles of nothing but pine trees. I really dislike driving in the inland south because you can’t see anything. Nothing but dry scraggly loblolly pines. Nothing like the lush evergreens of the northwest. Driving near the gulf is not so bad. I-95 in Georgia is close enough to the Atlantic, with its wide estuarine marshiness, as to be interesting. The southern Appalachians are great. But these fucking pine trees. They feel so empty.
And then there is the smell. The paper mill smell, overcooked broccoli and something metallic, chemical, carcinogenic. Maine smells like this, Louisiana, Washington, but each place is a little different, each place is cooking different trees into Copier Paper.
It’s a nice clear night, a low in the high forties, fresh oil in the crankcase.
Morton's Gap, Kentucky
A fine enough day, I awoke this morning at 5:30 restless and unable to sleep thanks to some odd, pleasant but unsettling dreams (hmmm). The night was spent in Webster City after picking up some washers and dryers from the Electrolux plant here. It seems that Iowa has a monopoly on appliance assembly. (Maytag and Amana are/were also located here). I had hoped, last night, to pick up that load quickly and jaunt down to Grinnell, where I went to college to visit a friend who is still living there but this was not to be and I spent a nice long time at Electrolux and when I was finished drove only down to the edge of town on US-20 and parked for the night.
This morning I drove from Webster City, Iowa to Altoona, near Des Moines, where I stopped at the Bossellman travel center to look clean for breakfast with my Grinnell friend, which was a sort of consolation prize for not getting to spend the evening. Breakfast was fine at the A&M, a place that tries for bizarre roadfood-esque ambiance but the effect is a bit too odd and a little creepy. I had some biscuits and gravy which, despite being a bit overly viscous were tasty and certainly filing. The food tasted better than I remember likely because I was not miserably hungover. It was also cheeeeep and I was reminded, and astounded by the thought, of how little money I must have had in college. I had parked down by the interstate at a new Kum and Go (the actual name of a Midwestern gas/convenience store) which had some truck parking. Grinnell is about 3 miles north of the interstate so I biked into town imagining that I must have been crazy to do this, as I often did, up a 4 lane 55mph road with only a loose gravel shoulder. There was, on the way, a big new Wal-mart super center, directly across from where the old, tiny (not super) Wal-Mart used to be. My dad loved the old walmart because it was small and he thought perfectly adequate (this being relevant because Chestertown, where I grew up, had been fighting the installation of a large Wal-mart store at the time, a historical footnote: we won.) But clearly it was not an adequate walmart and the nearest existing super center in Newton, a ghastly 16 miles down US-6 was much too far away. That 16 miles, by the way, is some of the prettiest Iowa road you’ll find, bumpy, but pretty.
So back to the truck I biked, into the wind this time and with a belly full of biscuits and gravy sludge and the ride was not as fun. Then it was out across the prairie and down to my present stop, Mortons Gap, Kentucky with only a short 10 minute rest stop break on I-57 north of Mattoon, Illinois.
Just south of Mattoon I left the interstate to avoid the absurd westward bend I-57 takes and headed south on little roads through Newton, Olney, Albion and Greyville, hopped onto I-64 east and then US-41 south through Evansville, Indiana and into Kentucky. Originally the border of these two states must have been the Ohio River but over time, it seems, rivers change course (who knew?) but state lines do not and so, before crossing the river you cross the state line into a little sliver of Kentucky where the river once was. Throughout the Ohio and Mississppi river systems wherever the river makes up the border of the states (which is pretty much everywhere out here) you will find these little anomalies, look at a map of southern Illinois or Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, its ridiculous.
Mortons Gap is nice enough, just a truckstop on the Edward T. Breathitt Pennyrile Parkway. Kentucky has this extensive system of Parkways. Apparently the Interstate system was not going to meet their needs, so they built a bunch of toll roads but it was written into the rules that once tolls had been collected enough to pay for the construction of the roads they would become freeways. And so they have. Edward T. Breathitt was a Kentucky politician who was a big civil rights supporter. He was born in Hopkinsville, where this road terminates ergo the dedication. Pennyrile is another name for Pennyroyal, an herb in the mint family known for its use in folk medicine as it contains a toxin that can stimulate abortions. This may be familiar to some readers aware of Nirvana’s song “Pennyroyal Tea” from the In Utero album. I suppose that this is a plant that grows round these parts.
Anyway, these Washers and Dryers are destined for Port Wentworth, Georgia, near Savannah where hopefully I will be tomorrow, where hopefully it will be pleasant sleeping as the last few nights have been a might chilly, and being, as I am, someone not inclined to burn up yet more diesel fuel just to stay warm, so hopefully I can ward off the apocalypse for another hour or two.
This morning I drove from Webster City, Iowa to Altoona, near Des Moines, where I stopped at the Bossellman travel center to look clean for breakfast with my Grinnell friend, which was a sort of consolation prize for not getting to spend the evening. Breakfast was fine at the A&M, a place that tries for bizarre roadfood-esque ambiance but the effect is a bit too odd and a little creepy. I had some biscuits and gravy which, despite being a bit overly viscous were tasty and certainly filing. The food tasted better than I remember likely because I was not miserably hungover. It was also cheeeeep and I was reminded, and astounded by the thought, of how little money I must have had in college. I had parked down by the interstate at a new Kum and Go (the actual name of a Midwestern gas/convenience store) which had some truck parking. Grinnell is about 3 miles north of the interstate so I biked into town imagining that I must have been crazy to do this, as I often did, up a 4 lane 55mph road with only a loose gravel shoulder. There was, on the way, a big new Wal-mart super center, directly across from where the old, tiny (not super) Wal-Mart used to be. My dad loved the old walmart because it was small and he thought perfectly adequate (this being relevant because Chestertown, where I grew up, had been fighting the installation of a large Wal-mart store at the time, a historical footnote: we won.) But clearly it was not an adequate walmart and the nearest existing super center in Newton, a ghastly 16 miles down US-6 was much too far away. That 16 miles, by the way, is some of the prettiest Iowa road you’ll find, bumpy, but pretty.
So back to the truck I biked, into the wind this time and with a belly full of biscuits and gravy sludge and the ride was not as fun. Then it was out across the prairie and down to my present stop, Mortons Gap, Kentucky with only a short 10 minute rest stop break on I-57 north of Mattoon, Illinois.
Just south of Mattoon I left the interstate to avoid the absurd westward bend I-57 takes and headed south on little roads through Newton, Olney, Albion and Greyville, hopped onto I-64 east and then US-41 south through Evansville, Indiana and into Kentucky. Originally the border of these two states must have been the Ohio River but over time, it seems, rivers change course (who knew?) but state lines do not and so, before crossing the river you cross the state line into a little sliver of Kentucky where the river once was. Throughout the Ohio and Mississppi river systems wherever the river makes up the border of the states (which is pretty much everywhere out here) you will find these little anomalies, look at a map of southern Illinois or Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, its ridiculous.
Mortons Gap is nice enough, just a truckstop on the Edward T. Breathitt Pennyrile Parkway. Kentucky has this extensive system of Parkways. Apparently the Interstate system was not going to meet their needs, so they built a bunch of toll roads but it was written into the rules that once tolls had been collected enough to pay for the construction of the roads they would become freeways. And so they have. Edward T. Breathitt was a Kentucky politician who was a big civil rights supporter. He was born in Hopkinsville, where this road terminates ergo the dedication. Pennyrile is another name for Pennyroyal, an herb in the mint family known for its use in folk medicine as it contains a toxin that can stimulate abortions. This may be familiar to some readers aware of Nirvana’s song “Pennyroyal Tea” from the In Utero album. I suppose that this is a plant that grows round these parts.
Anyway, these Washers and Dryers are destined for Port Wentworth, Georgia, near Savannah where hopefully I will be tomorrow, where hopefully it will be pleasant sleeping as the last few nights have been a might chilly, and being, as I am, someone not inclined to burn up yet more diesel fuel just to stay warm, so hopefully I can ward off the apocalypse for another hour or two.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Sparta, WI
I’m pretty sure that the only thing on tv anywhere anymore is Two and a Half Men, which is total, unbelievable garbage.
In Wisconsin the all leaves have fallen off the trees and it looks very much like winter as I guess it must in November, most certainly in the upper Midwest. What is it about Wisconsin that I like so much. I think it sort of feels cozy, on a geographical level. It’s sort of jammed up in this cozy little corner between lake Michigan, Lake Superior and the UP. It has some of the vastness of the Midwest. But a bit more roll to the land. A few more trees in the south and then the thick northwoods. It is sort of a combination of New England and the Midwest. Besides the cheeses are unbeatable. Forgive me if I have related this before but here goes:
In college I got tired of driving through Ohio and Indiana (from Maryland to Iowa and back). At the end of one summer I decided to drive back to Iowa via Canada. I drove up through New York and Vermont. Through Montreal and into Ontario skirting along what felt like the far north of Ontario through North Bay, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie (really this is in the southernmost third of the province.) Then I came down through the UP and Wisconsin. Along with me on this trip I brought a cooler and en route filled it with cheeses. Delicious Cheeses. Vermont has many fine Cheddars (almost exclusively cheddars along with some goat and sheep cheeses and something called Crowley which, with all due respect, is like boring cheddar) but Wisconsin has a wider variety of cheeses. Many Swiss style cheeses (especially in the southwestern part of the state) many fine cheddars, many German cheeses (including the only factory in the US still making Limburger, a surface ripened repulsive smelling, mild tasting variety), and a lot of big industrial cheese factories. In short a more varied and, in my opinion, totally more awesome cheese state. Wisconsin doesn’t have that obnoxious new England arrogance or accent either. (some people don’t like the upper Midwest accent. I find it sort of homey and in some cases perhaps even attractive.)
I am en route to La Crosse with a load of Fiberglass. Presently I am in Sparta, which has some sort of army fort adjacent, I wonder if they are, well, Spartan, or just like the rest of the military. I was looking at a map of the area and was somewhat delighted to find that La Crosse’s airport is located on an island in the Mississippi. This section of the Mississippi is quite interesting. Lots and lots of islands and bars and really just a way. Like an empty highway. Not all of it being used right now but clearly it is the domain of the water and one of these days I’ll bet they will be sorry they put that fucking airport on an island. Or maybe they won’t, perhaps, I am wiling to admit, there is something I don’t know.
This area of the river is really great. It is in what is know as the driftless area of SE Minnesota, SW Wisconsin and NE Iowa, that was untouched by glaciers during the last ice age. As such it is more dramatically contoured than the surrounding land. And coming up from the river into Minnesota on I-90 one could be convinced, for a moment, that they were in the mountains. There is a lot of rock and bluffs and hills and all in all it is one of those places the Midwest is full of, pleasant surprises.
In Wisconsin the all leaves have fallen off the trees and it looks very much like winter as I guess it must in November, most certainly in the upper Midwest. What is it about Wisconsin that I like so much. I think it sort of feels cozy, on a geographical level. It’s sort of jammed up in this cozy little corner between lake Michigan, Lake Superior and the UP. It has some of the vastness of the Midwest. But a bit more roll to the land. A few more trees in the south and then the thick northwoods. It is sort of a combination of New England and the Midwest. Besides the cheeses are unbeatable. Forgive me if I have related this before but here goes:
In college I got tired of driving through Ohio and Indiana (from Maryland to Iowa and back). At the end of one summer I decided to drive back to Iowa via Canada. I drove up through New York and Vermont. Through Montreal and into Ontario skirting along what felt like the far north of Ontario through North Bay, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie (really this is in the southernmost third of the province.) Then I came down through the UP and Wisconsin. Along with me on this trip I brought a cooler and en route filled it with cheeses. Delicious Cheeses. Vermont has many fine Cheddars (almost exclusively cheddars along with some goat and sheep cheeses and something called Crowley which, with all due respect, is like boring cheddar) but Wisconsin has a wider variety of cheeses. Many Swiss style cheeses (especially in the southwestern part of the state) many fine cheddars, many German cheeses (including the only factory in the US still making Limburger, a surface ripened repulsive smelling, mild tasting variety), and a lot of big industrial cheese factories. In short a more varied and, in my opinion, totally more awesome cheese state. Wisconsin doesn’t have that obnoxious new England arrogance or accent either. (some people don’t like the upper Midwest accent. I find it sort of homey and in some cases perhaps even attractive.)
I am en route to La Crosse with a load of Fiberglass. Presently I am in Sparta, which has some sort of army fort adjacent, I wonder if they are, well, Spartan, or just like the rest of the military. I was looking at a map of the area and was somewhat delighted to find that La Crosse’s airport is located on an island in the Mississippi. This section of the Mississippi is quite interesting. Lots and lots of islands and bars and really just a way. Like an empty highway. Not all of it being used right now but clearly it is the domain of the water and one of these days I’ll bet they will be sorry they put that fucking airport on an island. Or maybe they won’t, perhaps, I am wiling to admit, there is something I don’t know.
This area of the river is really great. It is in what is know as the driftless area of SE Minnesota, SW Wisconsin and NE Iowa, that was untouched by glaciers during the last ice age. As such it is more dramatically contoured than the surrounding land. And coming up from the river into Minnesota on I-90 one could be convinced, for a moment, that they were in the mountains. There is a lot of rock and bluffs and hills and all in all it is one of those places the Midwest is full of, pleasant surprises.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Apologies
My most sincere apologies for neglecting this blog for so long. i got side tracked. and for the last 2 weeks I was training. Which means that I had a student with me 24/7 and this was more than a bit stressful. In short it sucked and I dont think I want to do it again. The only apparent benefit being money, and not wanting to be someone who holds money above too many things, especially things like, reading, writing, privacy and sanity. So with my student who I picked up in Indianapolis we delivered pesticide to Girdletree, MD (on the way southern eastern shore), then took K-Mart junk from Chambersburg, PA to Greensboro, NC, Craftsman tools from Gastonia, NC to Columbus, OH, Beer from Columbus to Tarentum (NE of Pittsburgh), Laundry Detergent from Lima, OH to Bedford, PA. Then we got a multi stop pickup of clothes, books, and pots and pans (all-clad, ohh!), from Girard, OH; Blawnox, PA; and Eighty Four, PA (home of the lumber company). That was to be delivered to TJ Maxx in North Las Vegas but we swapped in Wheat Ridge, CO (west of Denver) with a load of Lowe's merchandise that had to get to Grand Junction asap. Then we had a 301 mile deadhead to Fort Collins to pick up some delicious Busch Light and Budweiser beer destined for Clarksville, TN but that load was swapped in Champaign, Illinois. Just before this my student quit on me. We got too close to his hometown (of Casey, Illinois) and he realized that this long haul, away from the family for a long time thing was not going to work for him. out of the swap I got a load of plastic pallets that were supposed to go to Coors in Elkton, VA but that load i swapped north of Harrisburg, PA with a guy who had no load making me free to drive home, which, beacuse I was so god damn exhausted, I did the next day after some decent sleep. i loped over the hills of Lancaster county and home where I rested briefly before going to a big party where i did not get too drunk and embarass myself. Yes!
For the next few weeks I promise to be more active on this blog since I learned that people actually do read it. Thanks guys.
For the next few weeks I promise to be more active on this blog since I learned that people actually do read it. Thanks guys.
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