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Not My Worst Year Ever; Not Even Close

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A Melancholy Look Back

By the time you read this it will be 2021, or on the utter verge. Finally and mercifully. There are a couple of reasons I haven’t yet written this ode to this truly shitty year. One reason is a true lament: I don’t get much time to write these days. When I do I try to make it count.
Hopefully this will count for something. But the real reason, I say with only some jest, is that there was still time for more awful stuff to happen. As it’s happened nearly every day since early March.

In Canada and the world, far too many people can honestly say that the past 365 days (from March on, specifically) have been the worst ever. I agree wholeheartedly. Excluding those that have lived through war, famine and other atrocities and personal struggles, it’s been the nastiest bugger of a year that many millions of people have lived through or are likely to ever experience.

I know a few folks who have experienced the very worst that COVID-19 has to offer. I think they know who I’m talking about and for what it’s worth, I believe they know that they have my heartfelt sympathy.

Amid all the chaos and turmoil, somehow, almost inexplicably, this hasn’t been my worst year. Far from it. In fact, so far that I can’t even draw vague parallels. In some ways, my 2020 has been a largely uninterrupted extension of my 2019, one of my best years ever. I’ve been reflecting on this paradox for weeks. Continue reading →

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Because I Can – It’s That Simple

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The inner voice has a way of motivating

Decision time. It’s 9:30pm now and you thought you’d be stopped by 7:45. It was six degrees Celsius then and now it’s two degrees. You’re a little tired and you still have paperwork to do – not much but enough to make you a little more weary.

I get it. You’ve wanted to get outside to exercise a while ago, while you still felt vibrant and weren’t yawning. Now you have a choice to make: Do I still go for it despite the fact I’m nowhere near 100 percent? Should I do what I can, for as long as I can? Or do I pack it in and hope for a better day tomorrow?

You know that tomorrow might be just as busy and tiring as today was. Meanwhile, you have two hours before you need to sleep. You won’t sleep right now anyway. And you’ll feel much better if you get out there, start slowly and build momentum. You know it’s true. It happens every single damn time.

So, take a few minutes to relax and unwind from your long day of driving. Put those pain-in-the-ass dock workers out of your mind. Forget about all the drivers that cut you off, failed to use their turn signal and drove without their lights on.

Dust your dash if it will make you feel better for tomorrow. Vacuum the floor or your seat if you like. You know you like the cab super clean, and that’s okay. But consider putting the paperwork off until morning.

Done! See how easy that was. Now get your workout clothes out of your duffel bag and put them on. In the meantime, don’t psyche yourself out by thinking. Thinking means second-guessing your choice to get outside and do it. This isn’t about thinking. It’s about preparing and doing.
Continue reading →

joe biden wins election

A Day Of Hope In A Year To Forget

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November 14, 2020

Last Saturday was a spectacular day, amid a year that’s truly sucked like few in recent history. The centrepiece was an outing to Dundas Valley Conservation Area, where we celebrated our niece’s birthday with a nice hike. We stopped several times, to take a good look at Tews Falls and then at the Town of Dundas below us. Then the five of us – including our daughter and our niece’s boyfriend – enjoyed a delicious charcuterie-based lunch. The temperature was an unseasonable 22 degrees Celsius, allowing us to go jacket-free and sit on blankets laid out on the grass.

The hike had barely started when my buddy from work texted me two messages in quick succession: “Biden wins!” and “273.” The first message is self-explanatory while the second shows three more than the number of electoral college votes required to boost Joe Biden from candidate to President-elect of the United States. Four days of highly contentious vote counting had evidently produced a winner.

I was immediately as ecstatic as he was and blurted out the news. We’re both long haul truck drivers who spend two-thirds of each week on the highways and byways of the States. We’ve talked often about our strong dislike – to put it extremely mildly – for Donald Trump. Now we got to share in the revelry of him losing the election. I checked Facebook and more than a few friends took time out of their Saturday afternoon to share their cheer at the news. Continue reading →

Black Lives Matter, holding hands, anti-racism

A Simple Act of Decency From Long Ago

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Late one evening in the summer of 1993, I was on a bus with my then-girlfriend. I was accompanying her home to the northwest area of Montreal. I didn’t feel right letting her go alone because I didn’t like the thought of a young woman being on a bus by herself well after nightfall. Little did I know that it wasn’t her that I would end up worrying about.

My recollection of the events are sketchy but the gist of the story is certain. A small group of young white guys got on the bus at one point and began making derogatory comments about a young black guy that was sitting near us. He was clearly minding his own business. I didn’t hear what they said but I knew it wasn’t good, considering the way they kept looking at him. My girlfriend knew it too.

Soon the black kid dinged the bus bell and was set to get off. The group then motioned to leave as well. My girlfriend told me she thought they were going to jump him. In my naivety, I asked if she was sure. ‘Pretty sure,’ she said. I said, ‘okay, we’re getting off too.’

I had no idea what I was going to accomplish by getting involved. I also didn’t know if my girlfriend or I might get hurt. Neither of those things occurred to me at the time. I knew I had to do something to prevent this innocent young man from getting hurt, or worse. Continue reading →

Highway 77, north Carolina, covid, stay home, coronavirus

Into The COVID Coffers

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Two Different Deaths and Other Isolation Thoughts

1. Mournful

Tuesday April 7, 2020 was an unusually warm evening in this strange new coronavirus world. Just after 9pm, I pulled into my go-to truck stop in Mount Nebo, West Virginia. Usually I park among strangers: road-weary drivers that I don’t know and don’t care to meet. This time my friend Paul parked beside me at the back of the massive lot. He typically drives a different route and on a different schedule, and we talk only on the phone. But the COVID-19 crisis has quickly forced major changes in the trucking industry and on this rare occasion he was in the Carolinas too.

He departed North Carolina an hour later than I did but his loaded trailer was much lighter than mine. So he managed to pass me minutes before the U-Save Travel Plaza. We were glad to have the opportunity for in-person conversation. Of course, we were six feet apart as per now-standard COVID regulations, him sitting in his driver’s seat, me standing outside in the clean air of the Appalachian Mountains.

We talked for a short while before Paul went for a walk to stretch his legs and then ate his late evening dinner. I breezed through my regular 30-minute workout outside my truck then went inside the store for a shower. As I waited for the shower to heat up, I took a quick look at Facebook. I’ve become more curious about my friends’ posts since this virus struck and started upending all our lives.

The first post I saw announced the worst possible news. A woman I know from high school had just lost her husband to the virus. She posted several photos of him smiling and surrounded by family. She wrote a brief and sincere message stating that they always believed he would come back home. I teared up immediately. I looked back at her previous posts to remind myself of her husband’s circumstances. Then I posted a short message of condolence. This was the first person even remotely close to me to contract the virus. I never anticipated the first might be fatal. Continue reading →

New Respect in a COVID World

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Respect, Remarkably

I always wanted to feel valuable at work. I rarely did during the decade-plus that I toiled as an online journalist. Sure, I wrote enough great content, did some cool video editing and was a collaborative team member. But I never felt useful and respected at the level I had anticipated when I started my journalism training.

In fact, it wasn’t until this last week that I felt that level of usefulness and respect. With the shit storm of COVID-19 running rampant all over the world and me out on the road faithfully trucking along, the adulation that I’d long figured would one day come … well, it finally did, in an ironic way.

I originally set my sights on journalism because I wanted to turn my writing gifts into a sustainable living. I foresaw recognition and advancement that never came. Then the bottom dropped out of the journalism world. In 2013 my department at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) got axed. I went through four hard years of varied employment before I looked into trucking. It seemed to be the only quick route back to a decent living. Nearing 50 and with few options, I jumped at the opportunity. I never envisioned that I’d be much more than content in this new world. I surely never imagined being bestowed with admiration. Continue reading →

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Oh, The Glow

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Last evening, July 19, 2019, as dusk turned to dark, Kim and I sat outside on our stone front porch, each armed with a wonderful Cranberry Rosé Cider from the No Boats on Sunday beverage company. I had just return from inside because Kim rightfully suggested that we drink from classy beer glasses rather than straight out of the bottle. We were looking around our neighbourhood and discussing who lived where when we first moved into the townhouse directly across the street 17 years ago. That was seven years before we made the gargantuan leap across the road to our semi-detached backsplit.

It was a particularly warm evening, on the heels of a hot day. Here in Burlington, Ontario we were considerably above the 30-degree Celsius mark, not figuring in the humidex. But that’s nothing compared to what New York City and the rest of the American Eastern Seaboard was facing. We had just returned from NYC a day earlier and were reflecting on the amazing sites we had seen there, having scoured much of central Manhattan and the lower west side. We were grateful not to be there now, because walking around in 30-degree Celsius heat was arduous enough. Now it was closer to 35 and feeling like over 40.

There was little unusual about this evening, other than we only get the chance to do this sitting around and enjoying a beverage in the late evening once every few weeks. That’s because I’m away in the truck so much and Kim is often in bed by nine o’clock. So, here we were together around 9:30pm, with our Maltese Poodle Sydney resting on Kim’s lap. Continue reading →

When The ‘Going’ Gets Rough

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Highway 19, west virginia, hico, mount nebo, summersville, truck driver

An incredible view along Highway 19 in West Virginia – a place no one should ever want to soil.

I lament the very idea of ‘going’ here

There’s no denying the beauty of driving along Highway 19 in West Virginia. The green covered mountains and lush valleys make you forget – even if just briefly – how poor this state is and how hard life is for its people.

The vast hilly region is absolutely underappreciated. In fact, I’d heard remarkably little about the area until I started driving through it weekly as a long-haul truck driver. That was in the spring of 2017. Prior to then, I knew nothing of the spectacular New River Gorge and the mighty bridge that spans its width.

This entire part of the country is far too beautiful to soil. It’s a shame when you have no choice. Allow me to explain the messy details: Hundreds of trucks pass through these parts daily, en route to destinations where they deliver and pick up freight. It would make perfect sense that any route travelled so heavily by transport trucks would have ample facilities to support the volume. It doesn’t.

For cars, small trucks and motorcycles – plus most campers and even motor homes – it’s easy enough to pull over into any roadside restaurant or store parking lot, in Summersville, Fayetteville or Oak Hill, for instances. These drivers and passengers don’t have to ‘dirty’ the gorgeous environment. After all, no self-respecting human wants to leave behind a remnant of their visit. Continue reading →

Lot Lizards, Lamentably

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Lot lizard graphic from topsimages.com

Imagine a long-haul truck driver hundreds of miles away from home. He’s at the end of a long day of delivering and picking up freight. He’s found a parking spot in a truck stop and has decided he wants company.

Now picture another truck driver who arrived at the truck stop earlier, only to have the first guy park beside him. This driver wants nothing but an evening of peace and quiet, a decent dinner in his truck, a hot shower and a Leafs or Raptors game on the satellite radio. This driver is me.

I don’t care anything about the first driver. What he does on his own time is his own business, so long as it doesn’t affect me in the least. I certainly don’t want to see or hear about his ‘company.’

Check out these interesting “insane” lot lizard stories.

I Want To Pretend That I Didn’t See Anything

Unfortunately, this brings me to an evening a few weeks at my favourite Pilot truck stop in Gaffney, South Carolina. As usual, I parked in the far back corner of the lot. Typically, that’s where you get the most seclusion and least disturbance from the noise and headlights of the incoming trucks in the fuel aisles.

I was sitting in driver’s seat at around eleven o’clock, trying to decide if I should lie down in my bunk. I was fiddling with the radio and looking around when a car pulled around the corner. Continue reading →

Tragedy at Jane Lew Truck Stop

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truck stop image, tractor-trailer

A random truck stop parking lot, at dusk

Sadly, it’s not news when a truck driver dies. At least it’s not news to most truck drivers. But what happened on Wednesday, December 5th puts a devastating new spin on truck driver deaths. A young trucker was walking through the Jane Lew Truck Stop and was run over by a rig that had just entered the lot.

I learned of the tragedy on the Twisted Truckers page on Facebook. Initially, I saw the altered image of a truck driving upward toward heaven. That was unusual. Then I read the text and discovered the horrific truth. The last sentence of the post read: “Everyone needs to slow down in these truck stops and pay more attention to everything and everyone around you.”

A follow-up post on Twisted Truckers, a day or two after the tragedy, showed a picture of a set of truck keys, which the author said belonged to the deceased driver. She said the driver had a wife and children who now had to spend the holidays without him. She said she can think of no reason that anyone should be traveling fast enough through a truck stop to kill someone.

Details unknown

I asked my friend Tony if he had heard any of the details. He stops at Jane Lew frequently when he’s passing through West Virginia on his way back from the Carolinas. He later told me that he talked to a waitress at the truck stop’s restaurant. She said the truck in question came barreling into the lot and ran over the victim with all five axles.

How exactly the calamity happened, I don’t know. No doubt an investigation has started that will look at all the possible angles and answer key questions, such as:

  • Was the truck travelling at too high a rate of speed?
  • Was hitting the victim unavoidable? (Were his clothes too dark to see? Was he wearing reflective clothing or carrying a flashlight?)
  • Is it possible that the driver was unaware that he hit the victim?

Continue reading →