CHAPTER 2

The Over-the-Road Transportation Business

30 Sept 1996

I’m a trucker. I feel tough, as if I’m living up to my nickname, ‘Ma.’ We are in Spokane, WA sitting, waiting for two hours now at a warehouse, to be unloaded.

I’m finding out about the over-the-road big truck transportation business. Truck stops are places that have $4 showers ($5 depositonthe towel) or free if you fuel up (say ‘fuel,’ not ‘gas’). The $5 towel deposit applies, regardless. They sell items that plug into the cigarette lighter, meaning they run on 12-volt or battery power: coolers, coffee makers, TV/VCR’s.

We could not afford the electric ‘fridge’ or cooler—it was almost $100—but we bought a special burner plate for $5 that screws onto a small (quart size) propane bottle, which then stands upright in a base— a little stove—which can be lit to boil water for making a thermos of coffee or for heating anything or for toasting bread. Quite a change from my ancient ‘granny’ stove.

My first night was noisy. I tried to sleep squished between our wall and Nick on the single bunk. The ‘refer’ or the big refrigeration unit for our trailer (holding 40,000 lb. of frozen French fries) is on the other side of that wall, and the refer kept blasting on and off. Trucks all around us kept engines running or were leaving or entering and parking, all night. It’s unsettling to know that a matter of inches from your head, someone is backing, blind-side, his or her semi-trailer, itself 53 feet long, and tractor, to nestle in beside you—meaning a few feet away, not counting the side mirrors. If you count the mirrors, then it’s a foot or maybe only inches.

Earlier a driver lady named Anita talked my ears off. She and her hubby own their own truck but contract out to Foss. “They have a stipulation that children cannot ride along,” she said, “but anyone who can’t hide a kid in there … I’ve raised four on the road.” The logistics of that blew my mind, and thinking of it later, still, I have absolutely no sensible response.

She also pressed upon me a hard-learned method of taking a leak without making the driver stop, or for times when there were no facilities at all. “Use two containers,” she said, “one inside a larger one, and a baggie, then tie it up when you’re finished.” I knew I’d never need to try that, but smiled and thanked her all the same.

The CB (Citizens’ Band) is another language full of kssshtst’s (static) and cut off words, mumbles and sudden eardrum-piercing pops and crackles. Apparently, once one becomes a truck driver, he or she understands perfectly. There are insider terms for this and that. Everyone knows that ‘Smokey’ or ‘Bear’ means a police car. ‘Smokey with a gun’ is a speed trap, an officer aiming a radar gun at traffic. The location is always given, too, by mile marker, which I’d never really noticed before, those pegs with numbers that mark each mile along every highway. Mile marker numbers rise as you head east; numbers go down as you head west. Headed north, your numbers go up; south, the numbers go down.

CB conversations fade out with distance, depending on the strength and expense of one’s CB radio. Ours is a cheapie. Lots of times we hear ‘Radio check?’ over the CB, which is someone asking if his radio is either working or being heard at a certain distance. I think it’s sometimes an excuse to hear another voice or a hope to drum up conversation. Nobody swears or says the F-word, but this morning a woman driver was moaning as if in enjoyment and making a whip-cracking sound—to lighten everyone’s spirits. Ha. P.S. Truck stop coffee and food ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. All those big rigs crowded around a restaurant? Not a dependable sign of good food; more likely, it’s a sign that there is enough parking space and they are allowed to park there.

22 October 1996

Wow, what a trip through Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming and back to Great Falls. It was mostly vast freeway lands where nothing much lives or grows. Then there were the cities, stuffed like sausages with traffic.

At the end of one long day, when we were already looking wearily for a place to stop for the night, came an excruciatingly slow, air conditioner-killing climb uphill in dense backed-up traffic, and then a downhill dive through San Bernardino, CA that went on and on. Where were truck stops? Mile after mile of city went by with none. I began to think of the guy in that song doomed ‘to ride forever ‘neath the streets of London’—for lack of fare to be allowed off.

Teeny ‘blob’ cars practically made left/right turns to occupy the bit of safety space in front of our 40-ton vehicle. Despite my looking and looking for a billboard, it was Nick’s eagle eye that spotted, finally, a small place where big trucks were allowed to park, and we gasped to a stop for the night.

The bumpiness of those cement freeways felt like ridges of a sidewalk. I found out why drivers have an air-ride seat. Its effect is like standing in one’s stirrups … whereas my passenger’s seat, usually not used except for storage, is solidly bolted to the floor. My back was raw from ‘go carting’, it felt like—and the bouncing continued through Arizona.

I can read a book, but it is hard to write or doodle—much less sketch. I guess I could claim to be a 90-year-old artist with wavering style—besides, that’s about how I felt by the time we’d gotten through the first week’s 3,500 miles. I tried to remember things to tell—while wildflowers and Factory Outlet Malls zoomed by, both a blur of pastels. I particularly liked Woman Hollering Creek in Texas, and Peek Road. Just outside of Walla Walla we drove past Humorist Road. In California’s northern part where green and gold fields go on for miles, I noticed a herd of Black Angus cattle all staring in one direction. Strange, I thought, until I saw why: a Mexican guy under a sombrero was sitting on the tailgate of his truck, playing the harmonica. Any audience is better than none, eh?

There isn’t as much free time in this long haul business as I expected. Truck speed is regulated 5 or 10 miles slower than for other vehicles (what illogic prompted that regulation?) and the distances are daunting—to me, not to Nick, anymore. Some appointments are at 3 a.m., whether to pick up or deliver, and some companies are acres big so we have to wind carefully through corridors of other trucks to find ‘door 131’ to back up to—without skinning trailers already parked at doors 130 and 132.

Nick’s paperwork routine is intense. When he gets an assignment he looks up the state in our big book of maps, his ‘Bible,’ and studies the route that comes with the assignment. He makes his own notes of major turns, and all the roads. He also has a tablet of daily timekeeping forms, one for each day, and must account for every 15 minute interval, all day long. The paperwork for each job is stuffed into a pre-addressed ‘trip envelope’ that he puts into the yellow ‘trip envelopes box’ in almost any truck stop, and these get mailed back to the company. This is how they calculate his pay, by each envelope received. But the only thing he gets paid for is the number of miles he drove doing the delivery itself. Not actual miles from the odometer, either, but a predetermined distance—and I don’t quite know how that was figured.

Oh, did I mention this constant task? As soon as we get a load on, the load weight has to be balanced, or stretched proportionally over the double tires, or axles. There are scales that weigh the entire truck as well as axle by axle. Nick has to adjust the axles—meaning set the trailer brakes and back up until the loosened latch snaps into a shorter span to put more weight forward, on that set of tires. The opposing trick is needed when the axle needs to be farther back under the trailer; he sets the trailer brakes, guns the engine and we lurch forward—until the snap. It’s a tricky concept until you get used to it.

Almost every truck stop has a big scales that truckers have to use, and every trip envelope has a scales ticket receipt as part of the paperwork. Weight is such a critical thing that some big companies have drive-onto scales on their property, which makes a driver’s life less complicated. Being able to weigh the rig axle by axle, as well as finding the total weight, minimizes the chance of having to interrupt travel down the freeway to pull into the next truck stop to do it or, worse, having to pull into a weigh station not sure that one is of legal running weight.

In Houston, the Anheuser Busch Company thought our truck smelled too much like our previous load of onions (those Walla Walla Sweets) so they required us to travel across town to have the trailer washed out. Also, we had to drop off the pallets that were smelled-up from the onion load at a different company that buys and resupplies those wood pallets. That was a separate errand in another direction. Sometimes an entire day or more is wasted on this sort of travel—for which the trucker is not paid, I repeat.

The ‘refer’ or refrigerated trailer is an amazing thing. The 42,000 lb. of frozen turkeys we picked up in Tracy, CA had to be kept at 0 degrees in a land where it was 108-110 degrees hot. That is when the ‘refer’ really roars—but does its job.

It’s hard to believe there are so many trucks on the road. Lots of older couples are out there, and I think this must be a more satisfying retirement than to be in the motor home or camper lumbering across the USA getting poor gas mileage. With trucking, someone else pays that bill. We average a paltry 6.4 - 6.8, and occasionally 7.2, miles per gallon of fuel.

It is almost as scary being in a semi while another semi is passing as it is being in a car while a semi is passing. As short as my arms are, I could reach out and touch the truck going past. But it’s mostly fun because I see the level of skill of these drivers.

The sleeper area behind the seats is like a cave. There are storage cubbyholes. We hope to purchase, eventually, a 12-volt television for what seems to be the perfect place for it. Next trip I hope we stop at more rest stops and cook our own meals. Those truck stop diners get not only expensive but ugly. They wouldn’t know a peach if one hit them in the nose—not much of anything fresh on the menu. Nick made sure to bring the Scrabble game, so we often play a game or two while waiting to be assigned a door to back up to, or to be unloaded or loaded once we are there—or to relax in the evening. He is trying to figure out a suitable cushion for me to use to prevent so much back pain; something with a built-in spring, perhaps. How about something to prevent any more weight gain? That reminds me; I’m feeling hungry …

If you ever want to be a truck driver, friend, here’s a free tip: Work for a prosperous trucking company. During Nick’s last trip he had noticed that the running lights of the truck were burning out half the time, despite his replacement of bulbs, and so were the turn signals, so he had mentioned it to the company—wrote it down on a special work-order slip—and assumed they’d be fixed for this trip, our first trip out together. Not so.

Lights were not the only problem. This is what happened on our last day out as we were headed back toward Great Falls, anticipating getting home.

Rumbling swiftly down Mac-Donald Pass in Idaho, the truck engine shut itself off, in automatic safety mode, which disabled all hydraulic steering and brakes, which means all driving aids. Nick wrangled the big rig to the shoulder, and we coasted to a stop. He undid the springy rubber hooks on either side, stepped up on the front bumper, and used his body weight to lever open the truck’s engine housing, the entire nose. Water had gushed from somewhere and was draining across the pavement. We had brought a 5-gallon jug of spring water from the cabin (I insisted, for coffee water) and this he poured into the radiator. Thank goodness.

The CB crackled. “Foss, do you need help?” It was another truck, passing by.

Nick was working outside, so I grabbed the CB. “I’ll ask,” I said, and hollered the question out the window at him.

“I don’t know,” Nick replied. That’s all I could answer, and soon the other truck was out of sight around a curve.

Our truck started right up and we swung, carefully, back into traffic. “Good thing I insisted on bringing that water,” I smirked.

“Yeah,” he agreed, distractedly.

About then, the engine shut off again. He instantly flipped on his flashers and manhandled us to the side of the road. It had lost all of its water—again.

I guess Nick was lucky—in one way—the road paralleled a rushing river, which is usually the case, if you notice, when traveling hilly terrain. He took the big blue jug down to the river, filled it, hauled it up to the road and once again filled the radiator. Once again we were on our way. Once again the truck stopped.

“I’ll bring up the water this time,” I offered, now understanding what he’d known from the first. A hose had ruptured. Badly.

“I’ll do it,” he growled, and I realized he needed to work off some anxiety or anger—one of those man reactions. This bad break for him gave me the chance to be in a fragrant mountain meadow in a remote place where the public is not allowed to stop, a sign said. In the shelter of a grove of trees I took a leak, and picked flowers. Then it was time to get back inside the truck and hope we came to civilization soon. We came to Lozeau, MT which consisted of a general store—like the one in the TV show Northern Exposure—and a big log cabin tavern with a pay phone next to the jukebox.

Nick’s dispatcher told Nick to hitch a ride to the town where the company has an account, get the needed part and then fix the red hot diesel motor himself. He did find someone willing to give him a lift, and called the store to make sure they had the part; they refused to extend service because the company’s account was in arrears. Nick called his dispatcher back with that news. Well, then, would he purchase the part himself?

“You call them—it’s your company, your truck,” Nick said. “I’m not going to tap on shoulders!” He left out the part that we did not have much money anyway.

It was 8:30 at night before a grumpy repair guy showed up—at exactly the time we were supposed to be in Great Falls delivering to Buttrey Foods—and he and Nick did the repair. He and I were sloshed by then. Don’t judge us too harshly.

A three-week stint of constant annoyance in one way or another, delays, equipment failure, looking for elusive addresses with poor directions in busy cities—which had begun with the old dependable Monte Carlo blowing a head gasket on our way in (more about that later)—had ended us up here in Lozeau waiting for a repair truck for the big truck, for 5 hours, on our very last day—whew, yes, we felt as convoluted as that sentence.

We had waited quite awhile, coolly professional, sternly tee totaling, resisting the friendly bartender lady’s offers of free drinks, chatting with other patrons. As darkness fell, Nick knew he would not be driving any further—there went our chance to make our delivery on time and head home—and had been assured he could stay parked there overnight, so we began accepting the offers from various people of a free drink. We knew everyone in town by then, and a few visiting relatives. The place was enveloping, welcoming, entrancing.

The trees in the area were all mature pines and cottonwoods. Shade was thick and cool—as was the tavern. Its logs were at least a foot and more through. A central upright was fatter, and a sizable crotch of the tree had been left to branch overhead as ceiling support. The door to the women’s bathroom was constructed from only two boards—about 20 inches wide, each of them, and 4 inches thick. Hanging in the women’s bathroom was a 1904 year poster calendar of a ‘Gibson Girl’ whose skin shone as if she were made of pink snow. The full length mirror tacked— unkindly?—beside it showed a sturdy woman in black, well-worn jeans and red loafers. An old pink sleeveless shirt was tied at the waist, leaving a gap of skin not nearly as delectable as the old gal’s on the calendar, and dark hair needing a shampoo was tied back with a black ribbon. But both of us had a happy lipstick smile.

The next morning we journeyed the last miles into Great Falls, did the delivery, and went to the terminal to turn in the truck.

The new manager of Foss Trucking (an ex-football player still massively impressive in old age) pursed his lips when we walked in. “Heard you went a little crazy out there, Nick.”

Apparently the grumpy repair guy had squealed. As it turns out, drinking alcohol anywhere near a big truck is (understandably) the worst offense known to trucking, and trumps everything else.

Nick apologized abjectly, as men can, surprising me. This manager had no idea what we’d been through. I thought we’d handled everything well. I had been impressed that Nick did it all successfully—and had run the risk of a receiving a ticket that would go on his driving record, not the company’s, with the unreliable unrepaired lights.

And what about our own personal truck? While parked in the company lot it had been vandalized, equipment and music stolen, while he was away on his last trip? The company’s insurance had not covered any truck repairs, so it sat unrepaired up at the cabin, but neither had they offered so much as an apology. This is why we’d driven in from home with the old lady Monte Carlo—which had blown a head gasket— and now was sitting at a garage, not drivable without major repairs.

For once I didn’t say anything. I was not in Woman Land. This was Man Land. After scolding Nick but not firing him, the Foss manager gave us a ride home, 45 miles one way, clear up to the cabin.

That’s where I am now. It’s morning. I’m sitting, with binoculars and a cup of coffee on the stump at the end of the yard, the pointy part of our mountain where the ground breaks off and mountain ranges fling themselves into the distance. Seen through binoculars, some farmer’s field near Craig, MT looks like a gift box in green with silver ribbons across it—acre-long sprinklers twinkling in the sun—his toy farm arranged neatly beside it. A flock of birds traveling along mountain valleys—they look white, since I cannot see them at all except when the sun strikes them—swell and shrink like a jellyfish floating in deep water. The half moon is a flour taco in the sky. No amount of squinting or imagining can conjure up the other half of it—I’m afraid it’s really gone this time. I’m home. All is well in this world. Three royal cats, well-fed and well-petted, lounge in identical poses, all watching something, from the shade, in a bare area of the rocky, bone-dry yard.

Let’s see. What else happened on this trip?

We had departed in the semi around 9 p.m. from Great Falls. Despite the tragedy with the car on our way in, our spirits were high. Adventure puts us in a good mood.

Color fled the evening sky as we sailed past newly cut hayfields of vivid gold, which seemed to have caught and held sunset’s retreating glow, and windows in farm homes glowed gold, as well, as night fell. Farms moved farther and farther apart, until vast dark spaces were punctured occasionally with a yard light on a pole. Nick leaned forward and slowed as the road seemed to end—and did—in the middle of a herd of Angus cattle as black as the night itself. About forty of them were crossing the highway or thinking about crossing—or had crossed, were sorry they had, and were turning back. A wide gate in a nearby fence stood open.

Nick used the semi’s air horn, and the startled cattle hopped left and right, still undecided, but letting us through. A farmer’s yard light flipped on about a half-mile away, and as we went past this house, we saw someone hurrying to a truck—so we think they got corralled. Nick did warn semi’s coming from the other direction for the next several miles.

It was dark when we entered Helena National Forest, climbing a winding, two-lane mountain road, Montana highway 200. I lowered my window (with a toggle switch) and was enveloped in sweet piney perfume. I can see why cleaning solutions imitate this scent, but they aren’t even close. Midway along this stretch, for about a mile, another scent mingled strongly with the pine—honey—intoxicating.

Our green mechanical beast, trimmed with orange lights, labored up inclines and rushed down the valleys, freely, for there was no other traffic. A wary moon eyed us occasionally from behind clouds. At these times we saw flashes of a small river that slithered along one side of the road and then the other. Before long we were nearly to Missoula—where Fred’s Truck Stop billboard advertises exotic dancing nightly—and were aware of non-working turn signals and 4-way lights and, worst, a headlight that was blinking.

We were both at the end of a very long day, having had to run a dozen necessary errands in three different towns before we could leave (not discounting the wrench of leaving our animals in the charge of others)— and then the unexpected delay and more trouble of having to tend to the expired Monte Carlo. Now Nick had to arrange for the repairs he’d warned the company about a week ago. They had merely replaced the bulb he complained about—despite his telling them he’d already done that, repeatedly.

I fell onto the bunk exhausted as Nick drove into a giant’s repair garage—more like a jet airplane hangar—with operating theater lighting. I suppose if one has to look at the underside of a semi truck, that is quite an operation. Lights were so bright they came through the heavy drape that separates the sleeping compartment from the seats and the cab.

Nick decided to take a rest, too, so we lay together while the repair mechanic, arguing with himself about inaccessibility and possibility, lay wedged between the driver’s seat and the gearshift, monkeying with the fuse panel in hopes of finding the short in the system. A couple hours later we woke to a sharp rap on the side of the truck—and news that he thought he had found the short. He had jimmied it around to work temporarily— but we needed a replacement part, and did we want him to order it?

Nick somehow came back to life to deal with the problem, ‘yes, order it.’ Then Nick drove us out of there to the nearby truck stop where trucks herd closely together to rest—because no one but a proper Truck Stop wants them taking up their space and pressing ruts into their concrete. In all of this, he’d also had to ‘drop’ our trailer so the truck could be worked on, and then ‘hook’ it once again—before, finally, backing into a slot with other trucks and trailers for what remained of the night.

The following days we traveled through Washington, Oregon, California—making deliveries and picking up other goods to deposit somewhere else.

Name of a gorgeous place with miles of green grass and white fences

At the Budweiser plant we had to wait five hours for them to load the trailer. At Smuckers in Stockton, CA they had neither our company’s paperwork nor sympathy for us. Delay at one place lead to delay at the next, or to stressing out trying to get to the next place in time. Six partial loads (to make up one full load) we took on in California for a Buttreys order, and the next to last one was in Sebastopol, a tiny, organic, apple processing place—but also the town my brother Alan lives in. I hadn’t seen him, his wife Kathy, and their two daughters, in twelve years.

In Sebastopol, Nick struggled to wedge our gigantic rig to and through the tiny factory area (where people drove up and left their cars sitting right in our way), which put on a single pallet of applesauce, and then back through the picturesque, little, highly-trafficked town, given to 15 mph, sharp turns. I saw my brother waiting beside his little Volvo at a corner.

“Sure, you can make it down our street,” he said. “Follow me.”

Nothing could have ruined my enthusiasm over seeing him and Kathy and their smaller daughter, Hillary, about eight—but their street was really a lane well-bordered with trees. Once Nick got into it, it was the first order of business to get our hulk the heck out. Alan had trimmed up the tree that hung into their driveway—just for us—but there was no way we could have turned in. Few people realize how truly big a big rig is—and almost 14 feet high. Alan was mortified by miscalculation— something he, a cabinet maker, never does.

But there stood Kathy and Hillary—beaming ‘in situ,’ which I’d never seen. The truck had come to a stop (so Nick could tell Alan he had to get out of there) and I jumped out. I’d never met Hillary, who had taken my phone message out of the blue without mistake or hesitation, but she could have passed for my own daughter at that age. Kathy seemed unchanged, as sweet and optimistic as ever, an emotional joy to be with. “You get right back in that truck if you haven’t brought pictures with you,” was Kathy’s greeting.

Meanwhile Alan was talking with Nick over the roar of the truck, not only about his present dilemma, but he also found out that he would only barely make our next appointment, due to terrain, the nonconnecting roadway system in that area along the coast and around San Francisco, of which Alan was savvy.

“He has to leave right now!” Alan exclaimed to Kathy.

Kathy and I were hastily exchanging family info and compliments, etc., talking as fast as we could.

“All this chit-chat …” Alan cut in.

Nick beckoned, leaning out his window. “I could get a ticket for being on this kind of road, Toni, we really must go!” I knew he meant business because usually I’m ‘Ma.’

In a flurry of regrets, hugs and wet eyes, we left within five minutes, tops, of arriving—and Alan guided Nick and me and the big hulk of a truck out of the neighborhood, startling a few kindly neighbors. The top of the truck lopped a branch here and there, but electric wires were left intact. We did manage the next pick on time, at Corning, CA—whoop tee doo—the truck now being packed full as a tick, and spent the night, not being treated as royalty, as guests of Alan and Kathy always are, but in a noisy, rumbling, bright, city truck stop with the worst food yet.

Aha, there is Nick driving in, towing the ‘75 Monte Carlo, so I’ll quit.