Tag Archives: virginia

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Cults, Wine and Warehouses

Trumper at the Wine Counter

Typically, when I visit my local grocery store, I don’t expect to become embroiled in a contentious discussion. I frequent this higher-end establishment weekly. It has everything I like to eat during my five days on the road. When you enter on the west side, there’s a fridge section full of wraps, sandwiches, salads and sushi that are tasty and nutritious. That’s the gateway to my trucking provisions. I know where everything is and often, I’m in and out in half an hour.

Sometimes things don’t go as planned, and that was the case on Saturday March 1st. I was in the store the day after the infamous meeting between Ukraine President Volodymyr Zalensky and US President Donald Trump, accompanied by Vice President JD Vance. In case you live in a cave and didn’t catch it, Trump and Vance seemed to ambush Zalensky, whose country is embroiled in a bitter war started by Russia. They insulted him and embarrassed him and his country, calling them ungrateful for past American financial and military support.

This meeting wasn’t front of mind when I walked into the small wine store that’s nestled inside the store. Rather I was thinking more of Trump’s economic campaign against Canada, which he had just begun with promises of tariffs and encouraging Canada to become the ’51st state.’ I wanted to support the fast evolving ‘Buy Canadian’ movement.

Yup, me, a trucker who spends almost five full days each week in America. Until now, I’ve never considered myself much of a ‘homer.’ I’m more a ‘man of the world.’ But a swift and unprecedented attack on my homeland changed that in a heartbeat. Suddenly I’m backing my country to the glorious end. Continue reading

Duffer and the Deer

Highway I-79 near the West Virginia - Pennsylvania border

I-79 near the West Virginia – Pennsylvania border

Steve Duffer III

Steve Duffer III died on I-79 in West Virginia, just north of Meadowdale. A homemade memorial dedicated to his memory is perched on the hill beside the highway. It’s legible even from a passing trucker’s vantage point.

Each time I drive by the memorial, I quickly read the name and return my eyes to the road. For some reason I can’t recall much else about the memorial besides the dedication. I think it’s a white wooden cross that’s been hammered into the ground.

Research on Mr. Duffer’s death reveals a tragedy. He died in February 2007 when his southbound red Nissan Frontier pickup crossed the meridian on Jennings Randolph Expressway (what I-79 is named in West Virginia) and hit a tractor trailer.

The 2001 Mack tractor trailer in the northbound lanes was running out of Hickory, North Carolina – where I have picked up and delivered numerous times in my nine months as a truck driver. Continue reading