Truck Driver's Blues

I woke up early this morning, and reflexively reached for the alarm clock, but then remembered I didn’t do that alarm clock shit anymore.  I rolled out, sat on the edge of the bed, and grinned.  This new reality was going to take some getting used to, all right.  But it was a nice problem to have.

You see, I’m a truck driver.  Long haul is my specialty, and, like the song goes, I’ve driven “every kind of rig that’s ever been made” all over the USA, for the last twenty years or so as one of the best of the best, an owner-operator.

And the thing is, I’m still driving today - right now, in fact.  After I get some coffee in me I’ll turn on my laptop and find out where my truck is.  And that’s the thing that has me grinning to think about, the idea that my new truck is out there on the road right now, making me money with every mile that rolls under its fancy new individually powered wheels driven by electric motors supplied by the battery pack that sits up front where the engine used to be.  There’s no cab, of course, just an aerodynamic cover to maximize stability as it rolls along with a 70,000 pound load in the walking-floor equipped self-loading trailer, the wheels of which are also powered.  Electric motors having maximum torque at stall speed means the eighteen driven wheels can hum along at 75 miles an hour all day and all night, with stops at the service platform every 600 miles or so for a 15-minute battery swap.  And the real beauty of it, of course, is that, without an old grouch like me behind the wheel trying to grind out as many miles as possible in the limited driving time allowed for humans, my truck sits in the slow lane, happy to roll along as fast as traffic allows while still leaving plenty of room in front for entrances and exits, all while consuming zero diesel.

I understand some truck stops keep a fuel tank in the ground and an old pump, just for nostalgia sake and to keep some of the old Luddites happy, but the rest of them are now converted battery swap joints, while the few remaining restaurants are living on tourist and local traffic, and the whores, shoplifters, petty thieves and homeless beggars have long gone the way of ultra-low-sulfur diesel around here.  The UBI we enacted years ago, as it became obvious that most traditional “jobs” were going the way of the steam locomotive in the modern era, has removed the junkies and nut cases from our public areas and got them taken care of.  I’m still surprised that the Powers That Be were smart enough to realize that truck drivers were an essential part of our economy and society and passed the law that allowed one robot truck to each driver and awarded that person the total earnings from that truck.  Surprised, yes, but very glad they did, with a lot of pressure applied by everybody out here in the real world on the politicians we elected.  Just like every ironworker gets the money earned by their replacement robot, and every electrician and carpenter, too.

That reminds me, I have a meeting this afternoon with the neighborhood cleanup committee. We’re talking about rehabbing a couple of old service stations in the neighborhood with the help of the construction ‘bots and turning them into music hangouts.  We’ve got enough kids playing these days we can have a Battle of the Bands every Friday night for weeks without rotating the players.  The new playgrounds and ballfields we had to build when so many more parents had time to help with their kids’ Little Leagues and Junior Football games are starting to produce world-class talent, and the local schools, because so many of us have time for Booster Clubs and PTA stuff, are on a roll with the college applications going up all the time.

Looking back, I realize it was all worth the battle we started, to take back our country from the Robber Barons who controlled our lives for decades and stand on the principle of One Robot Per Person that has made it possible for everyone to be freed from the drudgery and grunt work that used to be inevitable, not to mention the idea that when you couldn’t work anymore you were useless trash to be tossed into the streets.  The funny thing was, and the way it worked out, that when you take economic pressure off people and provide them with the basics of life along with a path to do better individually, suddenly a whole bunch of crime goes away too.  It’s so obvious that criminals are driven either by the hunger of an addiction they can not control or the anger that a young, strong person feels as they realize that all the decks are stacked against them with no way out, it’s a wonder we were so greedy, those of us who had a say, that we didn’t realize that the obvious benefit that flows to the rich as well as the poor when society is stable and everyone’s needs are met is true security.  No more gated enclaves, no threats of kidnapping, no security cams everywhere, no slums, no neighborhood patrols, no guns going off in the night.  Sure, it cost the rich a big part of their cash at the time, but it’s not like they couldn’t afford it, and most of them now realize how much better off they are, too.  No Big Brother is a good thing, and they’re still rich, if not as much.

But it all started with the election of 2020, when we went into the voting booth and threw out the liars, the grifters, the cheaters, the demagogues and the party hacks on both sides and replaced them with people just like us, who listened to what we said and went and did what we wanted for everybody’s benefit.

And that’s why I’m grinning this morning, as I sit in front of my laptop watching through the remotes as my truck drops a load off in Chattanooga, Tennessee and picks up another one for Rhode Island somewhere.  I might go visit it next time it comes through town to pat it on the fender and thank it for the money that shows up in my account every week.  Yep, life is good here in the USA.  Raise the flag.  :-{)}

The Beggars of Toulon

The following observations stem from a trip my wife and I took to Europe a few years back.  My brother-in-law, the college history professor, had been hired to teach American History in English to a summer class of students in Hyeres on the French Riviera for a month, pre-pandemic, and we were quick to jump at the chance to join them in the 600 year old house they rented in Old Town.  It was a fascinating opportunity to experience old European culture from the inside, and prompted the story that you read here.

Beggars in Europe are different from beggars in America.  It’s almost like the Art of Begging is considered an honored profession over there, while here it is considered evidence of depravity or personal failings.  There, typically, the beggars sit quietly on the ground with their hands out, saying nothing.  Their targets are the pedestrians walking by.  Here they will be standing at intersections with hand-lettered cardboard signs, seeking funds that are handed out the window of a vehicle.

Even in Europe, there are differences between the various types.  Coming up out of the underpass after departing the Eiffel tower, we were confronted by a toothless old woman sitting on the upper step of the exit.  The crowd comes in spurts as the giant elevators disgorge their streams of tourists, and, when we came around that last corner, she went into a practiced routine where she rubbed her ample belly and cried out loudly, “J’ai faime!  J’ai faime!”, meaning “I’m hungry!”

Later, as we crossed the large open lawn of the Champs De Mars we were accosted by one of several young Roma women who wordlessly handed us a note written in English explaining that they were lost and in desperate need of funds and could we help them?  I noticed as I sent them away that there was always a young man in the vicinity, apparently wandering aimlessly.

When we went to the Sacre Coeur in Montmarte, as we got off the subway we were accosted by young men from North Africa who would take us by the hand and quickly braid a leather tie around our wrists in hopes of getting 10 Euros out of us afterwards.  The technique was to ignore our protestations and assume we would not punch them, which seemed to work, mostly.  I had to speak rather sternly to the young man who made the mistake of picking me, then I had to go rescue my wife from hers.

In the evening, if you were seated near the edge of a roped-off outside dining area attached to a bistro, it was not unusual to be approached by one or two elderly Roma women asking for funds.  The waiters would run them off quickly.

But in the South of France, along the Riviera, the beggars become different again.  We rode the TGV fast rail down from Paris to Marseille, then switched to a local train for the last leg to Toulon, and from there to Hyeres Les Palmiers, where we were based on this trip.  The name refers to the Casino that was the center of town, but we were up the hill in the old town.

On the train ride East from Marseille we shared a compartment with a group of young people, who were all laughing and talking like any other similar group on a vacation junket.  The funny thing was, they were beggars, a fact that was revealed a couple of days later when we came back to Toulon for an evening of touring and bistro hopping with my sister and her family.  As we walked through town, I saw that exact same group of young people sitting on the sidewalk in a busy intersection, but the difference was night and day.  On the train, they were laughing, joking around and having fun.  Here they sat in a disconsolate sprawl up against a building, their eyes downcast and their faces sad and quiet.  Their earrings had disappeared along with their jewelry, and they appeared to be the picture of poverty as the people passing by dropped an occasional coin or bill in their bowl.  It’s a living, I guess.

Of course, those experiences on that trip to Europe are separated from these days by more than a few years, and world events have no doubt changed the makeup of beggars all over the world as desperate people migrate from their homes in search of peace and security.  One thing does seem to remain consistent, though.  The people all over the world who are living in the street, where every day is a scrabble to survive, and satisfaction is only to be found in a needle or a bottle, those are the ones who are on the bottom rung of the ladder of life.  When times get tough, there are more of them, and when things improve, they get less visible.

They’re still there, though, and until we find a way to bring all of them up out of the gutter, everywhere in the world, we will never be completely able to relax.  There is no wall we could ever build that would keep them out if things got so bad that we thought it might.  And if it ever got to that point, it would be too late.  We would most probably join them, those of us that survived.  :-{)}

Story Time

My wife and I were both at a garage sale in the cul-de-sac kitty-corner behind us, where an elderly couple with a lot of history between them were lightening their load.  I snagged some very cool hand reamers in sizes I will probably never use, but they were so cheap, and some also very cool extension points for my lathe tailstock in graduated sizes, so I went away happy.  When you work with machine tools all your life you get where you just like to handle them and admire their precision and heft, all the more enjoyable knowing you don’t have to sweat and grunt over a T handle and actually use them.

My wife came home with a stack of old cookie tins, some quite faded and scratched up.  “Whatever possessed you to buy these?” I asked.  “Don’t you already have more than we need up on that shelf in the kitchen as it is?”  She laughed.  “You can’t have too many cookie tins, you know, and, besides, these have a cool story!  Apparently, they were among the residue of our elderly neighbor’s equally elderly Great-Aunt, who emigrated from the Old Country, and they’ve been kicking around ever since she passed.  She’s never even opened them, and some of them have stuff inside!”

I picked up the biggest one and shook it.  There was something inside, all right, but the lid appeared to be sealed with wax, and was resistant to being opened.  I took it out to the shop and clamped it down to the milling machine table with angle clamps, then proceeded to warm the rim with a heat gun until the wax liquified and I was able to gently pry the top off to reveal a very old, hand lettered diary, the text of which I now reveal to the world:

Jack and the Beanstalk:  After the Fall

Jack Spriggins is my name, and the following is a true and forthright account of what happened to me after I became famous following the chopping down of the giant beanstalk and resultant death of the giant himself, for which I was held liable.

I gotta be honest.  Some of those story-telling types made me out to be some kind of hero, where I called for my mother to toss me the axe, then chopped the beanstalk down just in time to throw the giant to his death.  Actually, I got away with the golden harp clean, and he didn’t find out it was gone for some days after I got home.  What happened was, I was outside one morning the next week, and I noticed that the beanstalk was shaking a bit on a regular basis as some very large feet were stepping carefully down what to him must have been a very shaky ladder.  That’s when I knew I had to chop it down, and it took most of the morning and into the afternoon, because the base was so thick.  The neighbors sawed great lengths of it for lumber, later, and when the giant fell he landed in the next county, so I wasn’t there for that.  Squashed a barn, he did, and two horses inside.

The beanstalk itself, as you would imagine, caused a lot of damage when it landed, wiping out fences and roofs for miles in a straight line.  When the shirriff followed the trail of destruction back to my place, there I was, with the axe in my hand, figuratively.

So a lot of the gold coins I got away with went to patch up the neighborhood, and a fair bit of it seemed to fall off into the hands of the various councilmembers and politicians in the process, but that was hardly a shock.  I did get to keep enough of it to pay off the farm and set my mother up for the rest of her life, and allow me to keep a wife and raise a mess of children over the years, so I guess you could say it worked out well.  I had to hire a team of soldiers to beat off the constant stream of shirt-tail relatives, scheisters and thieves, all coming at a run with their hands out, but that died down after a few of them lost parts of their bodies in the process, like the ones above the shoulders.

Then the Duke heard about the harp, and word quickly came to me that it would be a very good idea to grandiosely donate said harp to the Ducal Endowment for safe-keeping, which worked out well for him, until the Earl heard about it, and thence for him until the King got the story.  I was out the harp in any case, with no return beyond a few minutes of fame at a feast at the palace where I told my story in the short version before being escorted out the back door during the performance.  I was glad to leave with both ears.

And, of course, the Goose that laid a Golden Egg was not.  Not a Goose, that is.  It was a hen.  So the eggs were maybe a tad bit smaller than you would think they should be if it really was a goose.  Most of those were sold on the sly to a French family, the Faberges, and I never heard what they did with them.  I did get some pretty good money out of them, anyway, at least until the hen stopped laying, because it turned out she only did because they were feeding the chickens Golden Corn, and once that supply went away and the gold in her system was used up, the eggs were just decent brown eggs, like any other.  So one day we got hungry, and that’s what hens are for when they stop laying, right?

So, all in all, you might say I did all right because of the adventure.  I can’t help thinking about that place up there, and all that Golden Corn.  The giant must have had some relatives, because I understand one of them passed himself off as Jolly, and started a food company, but none of them have come looking for me, and that’s the way I like it.  :-{)}

Quora Question

What is your perception of Harley Davidson, Harley Riders, Harley owners and the Harley Culture?

Alan Brittenham, former Journeyman Machinist (1973-2014)

Answered just now

Me and my buddy Griz were standing outside a tavern on a warm summer night one time. Now, I’m a reasonably big dude, but Griz, well, he come by that name honest. He was a total cream puff, of course, with a heart of gold, but he did have a tendency to look the part. Black t-shirt, black leathers, black beard, big burly biker. Both our Harleys were parked on the sidewalk there.

So these two young guys came out of the bar to their bikes, a couple of Honda 750s, parked right close to us. One of them turned to us and said, “Hey, could I ask you a question? What is it about Harleys? I mean, everybody knows they’re slow, and heavy, and expensive. Why do people buy them?”

I took a slow breath as I formulated my answer. “It’s not about speed, or power”, I was gonna say. “It’s about how they make you feel when you ride them. There’s something about that big old engine, with two coffee cans going up and down one after another inside those huge barrels, that just comes out right. You can’t spin ’em too fast, and you don’t want to push ’em too hard, and they will carry you around like an old horse for years, and feel good all the time. And you can fix them yourself!”

“On the other hand”, I was gonna say, “there are so many levels of parts and expertise out there you can take any Harley and make it into one that your friends will recognize in the middle of that giant field outside Milwaukee in 2003, you can make it something that is yours, and yours alone.  You can make a show bike, restore an antique, pop wheelies, whatever you want!  

And ignore that shit about the “Harley Fraternity”, it’s not like that. What happens is, you get some time on the road, you run into some folks who ride similar bikes, you get to know them at the bar, you show up at a few meetings, you go on rides together, and before you know it you’re part of a brotherhood. You can’t do it on purpose. You have to earn it.”

That’s what I was gonna say, but, before I could get a word out, Griz took a step towards the young guy and growled, “Fuck You! Get on that piece of Jap Crap and get out of here before I kick your ass!” Both young guys did just that, amazingly fast.

I’m like, “Gawdammit, Griz, that was a reasonable question! You’re only pissed because that 750 will run circles around your shovel! I coulda talked them into showing up at the next Chapter meeting, maybe! You just gotta stop running off the young guys, or we turn into a bunch of old farts reminiscing all the time.”

Griz laughed. “Yeah, but fuck it. Let’s go back inside, have another beer.”

And so we did. And that’s how that shit happens. :-{)}

Attitude

They paid me for the holiday

And then they let me go.

It’s not as if I’ll starve to death

Thank God that doesn’t happen anymore.

But a working man without a job

That’s got to be the saddest thing I know.

And if I don’t get killed with kindness

It takes a lotta nerve to say I told you so.

With these two hands

And what I know

I earn my daily bread.

I never have that much to show

But I always keep my family clothed and fed

But these days it seems

I got to work

A whole lot harder just to stay ahead

And if I don’t get killed with kindness

It takes a lotta nerve to say I told you so.

It makes me mad

To see those fat cats

Living off the land

It makes me mad

To have them tell me

That I’m not a man

Well, one of these days

I’m gonna get my gun

And make my final stand.

And if I don’t get killed with kindness

I’ll show a little class and say I told you so.  :-{)}

That Sinking Feeling

Our kitchen sink faucet gave up the ghost the other day.  It started with a tiny drip, and grew from there into an annoying drip, the kind that shows up unannounced and hits the stainless steel sink with an audible thud that my wife can hear from the next county, or in her sleep.  It’s almost as bad as when I forget to turn off the air compressor in the attached garage, and it comes on with a basso profundo bray around 3 AM, and I get the elbow in response.

So I went down to McLendon’s, first, as usual, and bought two complete new cartridges, since I wasn’t quite sure which one was the leaker, brought them home and installed them.  That’s when I realized that I could have just bought a seal kit for one third the price. Ah, well.  The leak did not stop.  Consternation ensued.

The decision was made to toss the old one and buy a brand new faucet, the kind with the graceful swiveling neck like a swan with a funnel for a beak and a handle on each side, and a spray nozzle in its own socket over on the right.  There was nothing wrong with our spray nozzle, other than a minor tendency for the thumb lever to detach itself without warning, but a new one was part of the kit, so there you go.

I assured my wife that, despite my retired status, my assembly skills were still sharp as a tack, then shooed her off to work while I contemplated the Rosetta Stone instructions, which taught me everything I needed to know in three languages.

The hardest part was getting down under the sink and working overhead on my back in a tight space.  This would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, if I had not been attending yoga classes at Michelle Peterson’s Aspiration Community Yoga for the last few years.  The second hardest part was pulling all the stuff out from under there.  I got my son-in-law to hold everything steady while I tightened the nuts on the stems underneath and attached the hoses where they went.  Piece of cake, really.

Then, when I got up to test run the new faucet, I noticed a strange thing.  The two handles were reversed.  When I would reach for the cold tap, for example, it opened with a counter-clockwise push, rather than the pull I expected.  The same thing happened on the hot side!  Very interesting.  Must be a new design feature, I decided.  All the package said was that the spout swiveled 360 degrees, but not a word about opening the valves.

Anyway, I checked for leaks underneath and declared it good.  I decided I rather liked the new configuration, and hoped she would as well.  I announced the completion in a text and got on the next project, out in the shop.

My hopes were impetuous, as it turned out, along with my logic.  The first words out of her mouth were, “Why did you put it in backwards?  Look, the handles have a C and an H on them, and the C is on the left!”

“In the first place,” I replied, thinking fast, “You have to think outside the box here.  See this instruction book?”  I held it up.  “It is in three languages, one of which is French.  That C could also be for Chaud, which means Hot in French, does it not?  And the H could also mean Hrim, with is an Old Norse word in the Norman dialect for “Cold as the Icy Heart of a Landlord at the end of the month, could it not?”  She elevated an eyebrow.  “And furthermore”, I continued, “those letters are on little caps that can easily be transferred to the opposite sides if you insist.  But why not try it for a while?  I like the fact that while I’m rinsing dishes they don’t have a tendency to knock into the valve handle and turn the water cold this way.  But I’m willing to agree, for the sake of harmony, that, on the face of it, a good case could be made that I did indeed install the faucet backwards.  I assure you that that was not fully in my mind at the time, and I would be happy to put it back the other way, but first, why don’t you try it for a few days and see what you think?”  She grudgingly assented.  “Yes, Dear” and “Ok, Fine” work both ways.  Besides, I do all the dishes.

So I think I may have skated on this one.  My only concern is that she might decide that all the other sinks in the house should be reversed, for consistency, but I’ll deal with that if and when it happens.  It looks like the sprayer is powerful enough that I can mostly hit the dogs’ water dish on the floor next to the fridge without having to pick up the full dish out of the sink and place it on the floor and not spill too much, so that’s a bonus.  Kitchen innovation is a never-ending opportunity, I tell you.  :-{)}

Travels with Dog, pt. 2

I think I have a new favorite road, now.  As usual with these sorts of things, an accidental happenstance leads to a discovery.  When you are on the road for whatever reason, you are also on an adventure, and should be open to new experiences when they present themselves.

In this case, we were on our way home with the dog, Nash, or Fuzzbutt, as I call him, from the National Specialty show for the Bouvier des Flandres breed, held this year in a suburb of St. Louis at a facility owned by Purina Farms, maker of Dog Chow and so much else.  The factory resembled the place where Soylent Green was made, to me, but the show facilities were top-notch, even air conditioned, a rarity in the Dog Show world where local fairgrounds are the most common venues and rustic is the most common description. It turned out we were right close to Route 66, the Mother Road, and I spent some time retracing its path as I explored the neighborhood.

We were running a day late because we had gotten caught on the east side of the Continental Divide when a big storm blew down from Canada and blanketed the Great Plains with an unseasonal early snow from Alberta to northern Texas and I-70 was shut down for miles west of Cheyenne, Wyoming, forcing us to wait it out in a Hotel in Kearny, Nebraska.  This was far from the worst case scenario, given that the Seahawks were on the tube in London and the local beer was fresh and good.  We seem to have finally arrived at the way things were back before Prohibition was enacted, with small breweries in every town making great beer for the locals, and travelers lucky enough to find them on their way through.

We finally got back on the road on Tuesday morning in sub-freezing weather, but clear skies and dry pavement supported the decision, and we made good time after that.  Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, and most of their neighbors have a 75 or 80 mph speed limit on their freeways, which helps gobble up the miles.

On the morning of the last day we woke up early in our hotel in Evanston, Wyoming and beat feet out of town in the shivering darkness on Interstate 84.  I have found that when you hit the road early and wait a while before breakfast, it tastes extra good when you finally find it, as if your body is celebrating the realization that you weren’t actually trying to starve it to death after all.

We blew through the last of Wyoming and a good chunk of northeastern Utah before we stopped for lunch in the very cool small town of Baker City, Oregon.  This is an old Western town (1874, with movie-set buildings to back it up) tucked into a valley where the burnt scrubland hills of Eastern Oregon give way to trees and sheltered dales with cultivated fields and small-town cafes like the Oregon Trail, where we sat at a booth and relearned that banana cream pie is a universal language.  Okay, okay, I will stipulate any kind of pie, but banana cream is the one for me.

Of course, after lunch my wife had to get the dog out for a walk before we left, which caused all of the servers  and at least one customer to abandon their posts for a look-see.  A purebred Bouvier in full show trim is a rare thing in these parts, apparently.  You have to admire their innocence.

We finally got back on the road and drove through town admiring the architecture and the old houses, only to discover that the onramp to Interstate 84 was closed and locked with a padlocked gate!  There were no signs, and nobody standing around explaining matters as a steady stream of cars and trucks were detoured back through town to state highway 30, which at that point had become a parking lot.  We skipped back to the original offramp we had taken to get in, only to find it also locked down!  The busy freeway was as empty as a politician’s heart at tax time.

In the old days I would routinely stop at a hardware store in these small towns and buy a Metsker Map of the county, which always had all the back roads, paved and unpaved, on it, a useful source of information and a pleasure to read later and mark the roads you had taken while setting aside others for next time.  Nowadays, I just pulled out my phone and hit the Google Maps button.  It seemed to show me that State Highway 203, otherwise known as the Medical Springs Highway, which started right at one of those closed-off onramps and seemed to head straight into the surrounding hills in the wrong direction altogether, actually wandered about through those hills and came back down to 84 some 35 miles down the road, which should have bypassed whatever problem was happening on the freeway.  So that’s the way we went, up into the hills in search of another way home.  What we found was delightful.

As we later learned from an Oregon Department of Transportation tweet, “I-84 closed in both directions between #LaGrande & #BakerCity due to a roll over crash involving a semi tractor-trailer hauling cattle. ODOT attempting to round up cattle. No detour at this time. Extensive closure possible.”  Some poor cowboy bought the farm out there, along with several of the cows he was hauling to market, while we were having our lunch.  The rest of them wandered the freeway until people arrived to round them up again.  I hope a few of them escaped to live an outlaw life hiding in the canyons and gorges that populate that country.  If they only knew where they were headed, they would have all run for it.

But for us, the closure led us to this old back road that twisted and turned up and down the scrubby hills outside of town for miles, until it picked up and ran alongside Catherine Creek before coming to the town of Union, which is where we picked up I-84 again, well past the chaos caused by the accident.

There is a town called Medical Springs, out there in the middle of nowhere.  Blink twice and you’ll miss it.  It reminds us that, back in the late 1800s, most of our ancestors lived in those small towns scattered all over the West.  Baker City was a pretty big town for the times, and the idea of a Portland or a Seattle or a San Francisco was too much to think about.

The State Park on Catherine Creek was beautiful, and empty on that particular day.  Nash got to take a long walk on his leash, out over the bridge to look down at the creek, and wander through the trees.  Here’s some pictures:

Our restful interlude in a beautiful little park out in the country by a creek was the high point of a day spent flogging our new van through parts of four states toward a home that was all the more desirable for the twelve days we had been away.

The best part of any journey is the homecoming.  That, and the little adventures that soothe your soul along the way.  :-{)}