Breaker 1-9 for a Radio Check?

My work day has spread out before me like the never ending fields of the Great Plains. Arriving late to work today due to an hour and half of what I like to call "extra sleep," I've got another 3 hours or so before I finally get to leave the office, shouting a little "I'm free!" while skipping across the front door threshold.

On days like today, stuck inside while the most glorious of days passes by outside, I like to think about what life would be like had I chosen another, radically different career. Today, there's a huge green GCI delivery semi-truck parked across the street. What would my life be like as a truck driver?

At the age of 3, my dad read "Big Joe's Trailer Truck" to me every night before I fell asleep. I often imagined myself hauling all sorts of stuff, from GI Joe action figures to fireworks (hey, I was a kid), around the country in my sturdy Mack truck, a big buckle on my belt and a big, well-worn truck stop baseball cap, with the mesh in the back. Around age 9, my cousin Wormie (Yep, Wormie) told my dad the coolest sentence I'd heard yet: "I'm earnin' my bread on the red-eye, hair-pinnin' lumber from Boone to Peach City." Later on, my cousin Randy, Wormie's brother, actually became an indenpendently-contracted truck driver, despite having a degree in civil engineering. I asked him once why he chose to drive a truck for a couple of years instead of jumping into his chosen profession. His reply: "There's just something about the road, Lil' Max."*

Nothing's better than cruising the highways with a good mix CD. Whenever my friends hit the road, I always make sure they're armed with a good mix of songs, both old and new, but always with a flair of '70s rock. I'd bet that I've probably made around 200 mixes since I left Danville for college. This past summer, I drove 8 hours straight from DC to Jonesville, Va. Hitting the mountains at high speed, I leaned out the window, feeling the cool wind in my then-long hair, while "Flirtin' with Disaster" blasted out of my stereo. There's a special joy that comes when you realize you've got the entire road to yourself for as far as the eye can see.

In my imaginary life as a trucker, I know no barbers. I'm the Last American Cowboy and my beard grows long and wiry while my hair creeps down from my "Purolator" baseball cap to drape across my shoulders. My truck would have an American flag in the grill and naked lady mudflaps. I could say things like "Watermelon 500," "Wiggle Wagons," or "Double Nickel" in everyday conversation. I'd get me a hound dog named Buddy, and we'd drive across the country together, always on the lookout for the coppers and wild women named after flowers, stopping to fish in creeks and rivers with my trusty Ronco Pocket Fisherman. I'd be a Truck Stop Casanova with the CB handle "Rolfe Diamond." I'd play my Dirty Old Man Card 50 years too early. Buddy and I'd listen to nothing but '70s Arena Rock and Old Country, like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings or this guy:



There's something about the road, indeed.

For more information on becoming a trucker, check out:

American Trucker
"Diary of a Trucker" from the Kansas City Star
Truck Drivin' School Locator
The locator's great b/c they actually sell mesh hats on the same page. Awesome.

*I'm referred to in my family as Lil' Max, since I was named after my dad and am the youngest member of my generation, as was my dad before me.