One Day

All of this happened today, I swear:

1.) I woke up in Danville, Kentucky where I was supposed to deliver a load of engines yesterday but I got held up in Dallas as my truck needed some work on its own engine. (I got there last night but they were closed which made me nervous since I had already been assigned another load to pick up in the morning and the pick up was "critical" what they call "line shut down" as in, you don't show up on time you fuck up the works.)

2.) I got unloaded fairly fast with just enough time to get where I needed to go.

3.) I booked it down US-150 part of which is not a legal truck route, but had I took a legal truck route I would not have made it on time (which I did).

4.) The pick up was at a tobacco warehouse in London, Kentucky and the whole "line shut down" thing was because they basically have trucks coming in off farms unloading tobacco all day and that tobacco is then graded and weighed and put in new trucks and sent to North Carolina to made into cigarettes (this kind of tobacco, Burley, is grown almost entirely in Kentucky (70% of national production) and is prized for its mildness and ability to grow in really shitty soil. Almost all cigarettes in the US are made from this varietal.

5.) Last night in the hills and hollers of Eastern Kentucky a sloppy wet snow had fallen and as a result the tobacco was coming in slowly since the farmers were either waiting for it to clear up or were just plain stuck. Consequently trucks were being loaded slowly and there was absolutely no rush since I would not be loaded til later.

6.) When I returned to my truck I realized I had somehow managed to lock myself out. I have never done this before.

7.) I tried to see if i could get in through the wing windows since the hinge on the driver's side one is broken and therefore the whole thing is a bit loose. In my over exuberance I broke the window and in braking the window I managed to cut my wrist. (not too badly, But I was so startled by the way auto glass just sort of 'pops' that I didn't realize I was bleeding until five minutes into cleaning up the glass when I felt some wetness running down my arm.)

8.) I sat around waiting to get into a door at the tobacco warehouse until after noon.

9.) After I got into a door it took til 1:00 til someone came by to inspect the trailer.

10.) The manager found a hole in my trailer that I failed to notice and told me I needed a new trailer or to have that one repaired.

11.) Luckily there was a Walmart DC nearby that Schneider runs a dedicated account out of and so I went over there and the bored mechanics were thrilled to have something to do.

12.) They fixed my broken wing window at the same time.

13.) I went back to the tobacco warehouse.

14.) As I went into the office I heard the manager say "Yeah trailer TA739376,[my trailer] we're gonna have to cancel that load." There wasn't enough tobacco coming in that day.

15.) I drove down to the Pilot in Corbin were I wait still for a load. It's friday night, freight is often bad on the weekends and we are in one of the "softest" freight markets in some time. (i.e. There's a chance I'll be sitting for a while.)

16.) I went to use the bathroom at the Pilot and as I was standing at the urinal a man and his 10-12 year old son come in. The son says, "dad I got to poop again" and goes into a stall. The man takes the urinal next to me. We both stare intently at the wall. From the stall the son says "Dad?" and the Dad says "yeah" and the son says "I love you" and the dad says "I love you too."

Sheila

I was sitting in a truckstop in Effingham, Illinois, a city I have often noted for its humorous name. I can suggest others, Essingham, Beaessville, Washington G.D.
Anyway, I was in the lot of the TA (while we're on the subject of lewd initials). Some TAs are nice, new and shiny and generally well kept. But many are not. The parking lot is full of potholes and the whole place seems to be covered in a patina of diesel soot and hair grease. This TA was one of the later variety. I had just delivered a load of newsprint and was awaiting a new assignment when a woman pulling a small wheeled suitcase approached my door. I rolled down the window.
"Hey there, you wouldn't by any chance be going to Toledo would you?" She was polite but seemed a bit desperate and had the look of an older, more haggard Courtney Love.
"No Sorry." I began to roll the window back up.
"Can I use your CB to see if there's anyone around here headed that way."
I turned on my CB and handed the mic out the window. She pouted a bit and whined, "what i can't sit down?" I let her in the passenger side door. (It is at this point in the telling that most people freak out. She didn't seem harmful (except perhaps to herself) though later in our conversation I contemplated how likely she was to stab me with a short knife and take what little money I had in my wallet.)
I had recently downloaded a new ap for the iPhone that allowed me to make relatively hi-fi recordings and as she settled in I started it up and so what follows (however unethically) is a transcript of that conversation:
S=Sheila, M=me, mark

I started by asking her how she came to be looking for a ride in Effingham...

S:Oh that's a long story

M:Yeah

S:I couldn't cross the Canadian border with my boyfriend cause I didn't have my birth certificate, all i had was my driver's license with me.

[I'd have to go down to] South Carolina to get that but I don't really... (trails off)

M: Your boyfriend a truck driver?

S: Yeah outta Montreal

M: Oh, OK.

CB: WHATS THE FASTEST WAY TO GET TO EVANSVILLE, INDIANA FROM HERE?

S: (to herself) close to Coryden (into the CB) Is that close to Coryden, driver?

CB: (response to driver's question inaudible)

CB: TAKE IT, TAKE IT, GO DOWN TO MOUNT VERNON AND GET 64?

CB: (another inaudible response)

CB: OK, 10-4 THANKYA MAN. IT AINT BETTER TO GO DOWN 33 TO 130 AND ALL THAT CRAP, OR JUST GET ON THE INTERSTATE, I GOT TWO HOURS TO BE THERE.

M: Well he better hustle then.

Me and Sheila: (chuckle)

CB: IF YOU GOT TWO HOURS YOU BETTER HAMMER ON IT

Me and Sheila: (Heartier chuckle)

CB: I WILL TRY

S: Maybe I should go on, to, Toledo,

CB: THANKS A LOT THERE, SAYS ITS ONLY 100 MILES BUT, I DON'T KNOW...

I hate going all the way out to Tucson I mean, I been livin there but I hate fuckin Texas, all that, It's hot down there,

M: That's a long way

S: mm hmm.

S: (on the CB) Anybody goin towards Toledo?

S: Is anybody goin towards Toledo?

(nonsense CB noise)

S: oh, no...

(long pause)

M: What's in Toledo?

S: I've been there and I, I know the town.

M: Oh, OK

S: I know the city...

M: How about Coryden?

S: (emphatically) Coryden is a GOOD place in Indiana.

M: Yeah?

S: Yeah. A really good place...

M: It near Louisville?

S: (somewhat surprised) Yeah. (long pause) but there's not one truck stop in Coryden.

M: No, It's all hilly down there, not much flat space.

S: (almost emotional) That's a good little town, (mumbles) I gotta make my mind up,
(mumbles) really go to Tucson.

M: Tucsons an option too?

S: Yeah

M: What's in Tucson?

S: Well I been livin there the better part of a year so I know people there.

M: Oh, OK. That's a whole different place isn't it?

S: Mmmm Hmmm. I mean it gets cold in the desert but ...

(CB cuts in somebody selling something, we exchange a few unintelligible lines)

S: Lot a truck stops there in Toledo (to the CB) Anybody goin to Toledo, Tucson or Little Rock?

(long pause)

S: Anybody over there at the Flying J can y'all hear me drivers? Sometimes it takes a little bit. Are you in a hurry?

M: No I was about to go inside but, I'm just waitin on a load.

(long pause)

S: (on the CB) How bout it at the uh Flying J anybody goin to Toledo or Tucson?

CB: (a female voice) Break 1-9. Hi Speedco Customers if you're planning on stopping at Speedco truck lube and tire service at exit 160 we currently have 3 open oil bays 2 open tire bays.

(pause)

M: Lemme, I'm going, Lemme check and see if it's calibrated right, sometimes it falls outta calibration. (pause) yeah it should be doing pretty well

S: It doin alright?

M: yeah

S: Drivers at the TA or Flyin' J anybody going to Toledo or Tucson?

(pause)

S: Sometimes you have real good luck sometimes it takes a little bit.

M: Yeah.

S: Well while you're sittin here.. My name's Sheila (she offers me her hand)

M: Hey

S: Hi, What's your name?

M: Mark

S: Mark, do you care if I drink a beer while we're sittin here?

M: I'd prefer if you didn't drink it in my truck just caus...

S: Oh, Ok.

M: It's a company thing, you know.

S: Even when you're sittin still you can't do it can you?

M: Yeah, I can't ever have alcohol in the truck.

S: Oh. Yeah?

M: Yeah, I wouldn't mind usually but it's just...

S: (sincerely) Yeah I understand.

M: You never know if you know, another driver's gonna drive by..

S: Yeah everybody tells on everybody so much! I didn't know drivers were like that but they, do, they can be (CB crackles) They're nosy.

M: Yeah they think if they get somebody else fired they'll get more freight or, I don't know its stupid, the companies enormous, they got like 13,000 drivers.

S: Yeah?

M: One person's not gonna affect that, you know. But... Yeah I'm not gonna say I've never had a beer in the truck you know but I'm just trying...

S: Yeah... I understand

M: try not to.

(CB crackles)

S: I just don't wanna go down south

M: How come?

S: Hot. Can't stand the sun and the heat.

M: You prefer it like it was last night?

S: mm hmm.

M: In the 20s?

S: Oh, yeah.

M: That why you wanna head up to Canada?

S: Yeah, Well my boyfriend's from Montreal. I love that weather. And the Snow.

M: Mmmhmm. snow much in Little Rock?

S: No, Very seldom. (pause) If they try and give me some problems about knockin on doors, askin to use radios, The police brought me here.

M: Oh they did?

S: I needed them to, Yeah (defensively) so they know exactly what I'm doin so, you know.

M: How did the, uh...

S: Oh...

M: the uh police...if you don't mind my asking?

S: I went to the hospital last night to get detox.

M: Oh really?

S: And they don't medically detox you in Effingham. So I asked them, they said the police'll pick you up and take you, so the police pick me up and I, I told em I need to get a ride and he brought me right here. So... They can't say shit to me.

M: I guess not.

S: And I am gettin (interrupts herself, on the CB) Break 1-9 for a radio check.

(unrelated CB chatter)

S: Break 1-9 for a radio check...
Break 1-9 for a radio check...
Break 1-9 for a radio check...

CB: (Indian accent) Yar radio ees workin.

S: Thank You.

CB: Yar welcoom.

S: Driver is anybody goin toward Toledo or Tucson?

(long pause)

S: (sigh) I guess they're not goin right now

M: Na...

S: I'm gonna go in and use the bathroom, and fool around in there, maybe I'll get somebody.

M: I as just about to head in, go to the bathroom myself. Good luck.

S: Thank you.

M" Sorry about your... your uh, luck out here. You know it's a slow time, slow time.

S: I know!

M: Everybody's...

S: It'll come around.

M: Yeah.

S: I just don't like waitin, waitin for it. You know, just like anybody else, impatient.

M: I hear ya. Good Luck.

S: Thank you.

(climbs out of the cab and heads towards the TA, suitcase in tow.)

-fin-

Run Down

I don’t know why I haven’t been writing. Haven’t wanted to. Haven’t thought of it. Don’t have the time. That last reason is certainly the most full of shit for I do indeed have the time. Here’s some things that have happened in the last few weeks:

I hauled Eucalyptus Pulp from the port of Baltimore to Central Illinois. It was harvested from mono-culture groves in Brazil and would be made into automotive filters. It is good to know that in addition to hauling freight for Wal*Mart, consuming a gallon of fuel every 7 miles, and generally contributing to an economy that I think is fundamentally at odds with the way in which humans should live on the earth I am also helping to destroy the rain forest. Perhaps next week I will get to haul the clubs that are used to beat baby seals.

(The way that started off it sounds like I am going to rant but, I assure you, that is not my intention.)

I hauled bicycles from Illinois to a Wal*Mart DC (distribution center) in southern Virginia. The company, Pacific Cycles, is a big conglomerate that you probably haven’t heard of but they have bought up a number of brands you probably have heard of (Schwinn, Mongoose, etc…) and made them cheap and crappy, almost assuredly at the behest of their great satanic overlords, The Walton family. In the run down warehouse I asked the shipping clerk if they made the bikes there.
“We used to…Now we just distribute ‘em.”
Unbelievably it is cheaper to manufacture these things in China, put them in a container, truck that container to a port, put the container on a boat, float that boat 6000+ miles to Los Angeles, put those containers on a train, roll the train 2000+ miles to Chicago or Saint Louis, put that container on a truck chassis, drive the truck to Olney, Illinois, unload the container only to load it onto another truck which takes it 700+ miles to Virginia where it is unloaded only to be put in yet another truck which unloads it at a store so you can go pick up at Wal*Mart, your “green” means of transportation/exercise or whatever it is people ride bikes for. It’s cheaper to do that than to make the goddamn things in the United States where we could, I don’t know, pay people a living wage to do skilled work that, at the end of the day, they could be proud of. Then they (we) would have money to buy other things made by Americans and we could get this effing economy out of the shitter. But it’s just an idea.

(I’m not doing a good job of not ranting, but it is what seems to be coming, so I’ll let it come)

I hauled potato chips to Canada. (The kind with interesting flavors like “All Seasoned” or “Ketchup” that they (apparently) make here but only sell there. I brought back from Canada a bunch of John Deer “Gators” Those sort of all terrain golf carts that landscaping folks often ride around on. (I don’t have a problem with buying Canadian goods because they have more or less parity when it comes to wages. Besides vast oceans do not separate us from Canada, only vast stereotypes.) It is interesting to me that going through customs with a truck load of goods is much easier going into Canada than it is coming out, though perhaps not surprising. While I was waiting for my paperwork to be processed I sat in a truck stop in Fort Erie, Ontario and a friend who lives in Buffalo joined me for dinner. It was good to see you Jamie.

I hauled Corn Oil from Archer Daniels Midland (Supermarket to the World™) In Decatur Illinois, a town that calls itself The Soy Capital (in institutions such as Soy Capital Credit Union) in deference to ADM’s main business, the processing of Soybeans. Just doing the lord’s work. (That oil was going to a Mexican food company in Atlanta that makes, among other things, tortillas.)

I was given a short load from the operating center in Atlanta to downtown Atlanta. I had to drive underneath a building and back into a dock through an obstacle course of concrete support pillars. It was a delivery of furniture and other various home décor to a “Merchandise Mart” type place. A place that functions as a show room for hundreds of décor manufacturers (?) I don’t know who goes here and buys stuff. It is one of those situations that is so hopelessly “businessy” that I do not intend to comprehend it.
Once I was docked many of the small strait-truck drivers (or just strait truck drivers?) came up to me and were amazed at my ability to dock this behemoth truck in this little dock.

On my way to Texas, however, I stopped in Lafayette, Louisiana to have lunch with a friend who always knows where to have lunch. We went to the Creole Lunch House which, true to its name, is a house in which a creole lunch is served. I had stuffed bread, a sort of cross between a calzone and a maid-rite loose meat sandwich if the meat in a maid rite was delicious. The ady behind the counter insisted that i have more food than i was eating. It was delicious, Thanks Rachel.

I took a that load to Sealy, in east Texas where I sat for over two days before getting another load. Only to head 400 miles up the road into Arkansas and sit again for a day. Freight in the mid south is slow my friends, avoid it.


After delivering a load of Sears crap to Wilmington, North Carolina and getting entirely too drunk with an old friend who works at UNCW I was sent up to Henderson, North Carolina (entirely sober) to run Wal*Mart frozen food runs for three days. My day would start at about 1pm when I would pick up a reefer (refrigerated trailer you single minded drug addicts) loaded with deliveries for 2 or 3 Wal*Mart or Sam’s Clubs in Eastern North Carolina and Southern Virginia, I’d make these deliveries and return to the Distribution Center. This would be a pretty sweet gig if I lived near the dc since I would be home every night and still making a decent amount of money. Seeing the backroom of a Wal*Mart is an enlightening experience. A complete mess, total disorganization, in stark contrast to the militant organization of the supply chain up to this point. I wish I had taken a picture, but they probably wouldn’t have let me.


I took Dog Food to New Jersey and Imported Beer (Heineken) from Elizabeth (NJ) to a distributor (Blue Ridge) in Waynesboro (Virginia).
Tomorrow I will take domestic beer (Miller) through the house (meaning I will keep the load while I go home) for thanksgiving.
And I’ll give thanks cause, I hope by now you see, I have a lot to be thankful for.

Love's

Last night after a slog through the North Carolina/ Tennessee mountains with 43,500 pounds of newsprint I pulled for the night into a Love's in Dandridge (the pic above is of a Love's in Lufkin, Texas). Two or three cop cars were pulled in at that jaunty 'no time to park-looking official' angle, lights whipping silently.
The CB chatter was what you would expect. "What is goin on at the Love's?!" "oh boy, three bears at the love's, somethin's goin down."
I finished my daily paperwork and got my dinner ready to be taken in and microwaved and then headed in (with a bit of excitement).
By the time I had made it in, although, most of the to do had been done. In the hall way between the Love's store itself and its appendage Subway a couple employees were mopping the floor in front of what I'll call the "fancy stuff" case.
A lot of truck stops have gifts presumably for truckers to buy to give to their perennially neglected families. These would be nice if the gifts were interesting or unique or place specific but they aren't. They're all the same, frightful dolls (often with questionably 'sensitive' racial characteristics, remote controlled semi-trucks, etc... Some of the "nicer gifts", big eyed child figurines, swords and knives, anything made of crystal (aka glass) are put in a locked glass case.
As I was microwaving some baked beans I asked a passing clerk what had happened. She was older and painted in make up and spoke in a clipped southern mountain accent roughened by cigarette smoke.
"This guy come in here try to break into that case so those two fellas behind the counter tackled him down to the ground. Says he was just tryin to get somethin for his kids. They all say that. See we gets a bonus if nothin gets stole, if nobody takes nothin, so those guys they tackled him. He broke the lock on that case, he broke it. He was tryin to get them two swords out the bottom of the case. For his kids, yeah right!"
"Does this happen a lot" I asked.
"Yeah, mostly this time of year."
"Oh cause of the holidays?"
"Yeah, all this time of year. We already had 4 in the last month."

!

They must have to scout for these cashiers at high school football games.

Olyphant to Maine with Digis

I was sent up to Olyphant, Pennsylvania to pick up a trailer and move a truck. The driver who had picked up this load, as he was ready to depart, required the services of an ambulance and hospital. i found out later from the folks in shipping that he was complaining of chest pains. His truck, which I had taken a key for in order to move it was dusted like a fine snow with cigarette ash.
When I asked the shipping clerk what it was that was in this trailer He said "Scrap digis." in response to my quizical look he added "scrap plastic." Whatever.
I took these up to Biddeford, Maine to a tiny little factory tucked in the northern pines. Inside I found a nice young guy willing to give me a tour of what they do at Sagoma technologies.

What I had been carrying were empty unused "Digipacks" those things that hold the discs in a set of dvds, long pieces of cardboard with cd trays glued to them that can be folded up onto themselves. They were from a live aid set (like this picture) that must have been overprinted or discontinued.
What they do in maine is separate the trays from the cardboard and send the cardboard off somewhere to be recycled. Meanwhile they melt down the plastic and make new cd/dvd trays in various styles including new digipaks. When I was there they were assembling the trays for the third season of Weeds.
Once I was empty I headed over to a small gas station where I parked and headed across the street to a shaw's to get some comestibles. While there I saw this alluring sign:

mmmm.
I sat for a bit longer before being sent up the road 12 miles to Scarborough to pick up pallets headed to South Holland (near Chicago) Illinois.

Orientation

Orientation, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, went like most orientations do. Long and drawn out. I finished tests and assignments first and thus spent a lot of time sitting around waiting for the next thing to start. My roommate was a pleasant jovial fellow from Hazleton, PA. He had worked local/regional for many years trucking into NYC with mattresses and delivering auto parts throughout the midatlantic. He would be working the Northeast regional accounts and get home every weekend. As with many he had come to Schneider in search of better pay and more consistency. It's easy to sit back as someone in my position, to think "the economy's tanking? I don't feel a thing. But as I return to the trucking industry the signs are everywhere. Smaller companies are shutting down, bigger companies are cutting corners. Schneider, known in the industry for providing full training to drivers with no experience or CDL is now hiring almost exclusively experienced drivers and I think, at this point, has almost completely discontinued its training program (temporarily, I hope. I think it is one of the best in the industry for those that can handle its manic pace.)

Recruiters had told us all that We might get a truck by thursday afternoon and have a load by friday. Thursday came and went and then friday and it became clear that there were not enough trucks for everyone. I think the reason is this: Schneider hires drivers at a rate that more or less matches the rate at which drivers quit. If enough drivers don't quit in a given week then there are not enough trucks and given the current (potentially psychological) recession drivers are probably less inclined to leave a steady job than they might otherwise be.
They sent us away for the weekend.
I headed to NYC since getting home via public transport is impossible and the train from harrisburg to nyc costs only $45.
I had a fine time in New York, perhaps for the first time since I was a little boy, perhaps because I spent the majority of the time in Brooklyn.
On monday, as I was dining with an old friend at his office in columbus circle I got a call that i had a truck.
later that evening I got back into Carlisle and moved into my truck. Its a little old, with 600k+ miles on it but it'll do.
The next day I readied the truck and then got my first load, a pick up, a rescue of sorts, near Scranton.

On the Road again (again)

Back on the road and with the big orange, Schneider National.
(This is a wrecked trailer I saw while walking around the yard, I wasn't involved and the posting of this image is not meant as any sort of comment on Schneider National.)
I'm in Carlisle, Pennsylvania currently, attending a 4 day orientation which is painfully dull. I should be out of here by Friday, god willin and the creek don't rise.

Keep on coming out for wacky tales of this winter on the road.