Ed Miller - A Truckers Tale: Wit, Wisdom, and True Stories from 60 Years on the Road

S urely everyone knows that a fishing story grows each time its told. A minnow morphs into a largemouth bass after just a few beers in a bar full of new faces. You might have heard some awfully tall yarns spun by drivers, maybe at a truck stop lunch counter while you sopped up your eggs with toast and bacon. Theres the one driver who stopped along the highway to help a little old lady fix a flat tire. The third time he tells this story, the little old lady becomes a buxom blonde twenty-one-year-old. Perhaps by the fifth retelling, she takes him up on his offer for a ride.

I dont have many tall tales to offerthe stories in this book truly happened to me or to truckers I know. Some names have been changed in a good-faith effort to protect the identities of the boneheaded, dim-witted, and off-kilter, or because I dont want my ass whipped for telling the truth about those of you who might prefer to remain anonymous.

Ive been part of the trucking world for sixty years, and Im damn proud of it. I was born into a trucking family, and as soon as I could talk, I was pestering my dad to ride in his truck. Each time I asked, he would tell me that I could ride with him when I was old enough to climb into the truck without any help. I must have been five or six years old when I climbed onto the running board, the side step, and crawled up into his Mack B61. Id known the smell of diesel since I was three or four, but the diesel smell from the B61 was unique, and awesome. In later years I would come to associate the smell with a flash of lightningfierce, quick, and powerful. It burns the nostrils, leaves the tongue bristling, and makes your arm hair stand up. For me the smell conjures feelings of power and brings an adrenaline high. Its a symbol of a journey about to be undertaken.

Several years ago, I was privileged to be the guest speaker at a dinner for the Maryland Motor Truck Associationss annual Truck Driving Championships awards ceremony. The competition dates to 1955, and competitors are tested on their driving and inspection skills, knowledge, and professionalism. Winners qualify to compete in the American Trucking Associationss annual National Truck Driving Championships. Anyway, I began my talk by asking how many of the several hundred truckers in attendance had grown up in trucking families, and the majority of the drivers raised their hands. I asked how many of their fathers told them to stay the hell out of the trucking business, like mine did, and damned near every drivers hand was raised again. The room filled with laughter as we realized that not one of us had taken our dads advice.

I am sure my father offered this advice because he knew how aggravating the trucking profession could be. He understood the nature of trucking, that just when you think things are going great, unseen forces always throw the proverbial wrenchwhether they are flat tires, lights going out, hoses bursting, bad weather, or those cursed weigh stations that all truckers hate. Most truckers have lived at the mercy of these tough breaks and know damned well that these events are going to continue dogging them. Evidently, we are all gluttons for punishment.

So why do we it? Non-trucking folks are always asking why we drive trucks if we complain about it so much, and its a fair question, but I say, let em scratch their heads and wonder why. You cant understand trucking until you do itthe views, the lifestyle, the rush. Vacationers and businesspeople see some of the great US and Canadian landscapes while traveling, but only truck drivers get to enjoy the grandeur from high up in their cabs. While crossing bridges, the tall concrete walls and Jersey barriers prevent four-wheelers from having marvelous views of the lakes, rivers, or gorges theyre crossing. Truckers can watch the shifting landscape from their thrones.

Try to imagine the view a truck driver gets while driving across Staten Island at daybreak as he crests a rise in the highway. The sun, in all its enormity and fire, perched dead center between the two supports of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Ive seen views like you wouldnt believe while topping the hill on I-70 West in Hancock, Maryland, about a mile before the intersection of I-68. Just after midnight, halogen highway lights glitter off the bare limbs of apple trees. Its poetry, really. The whole orchard covered in sleet and freezing rain. An ice forest, etched forever in the mind. The road bears a certain beauty, sometimes most evident in the quiet hours and remote stretches that truckers are privy to every ride. Long hauls might inhere long nights and early mornings, but they also inhere access to a seldom-witnessed world.

Truck drivers also have bragging rights from having learned to persevere through rides that would paralyze other drivers. Imagine coming down Jellico Mountain, north of Knoxville, Tennessee, in a freezing fog so thick you cant see anything ahead but a very faint ticker of white lines on the road. You cant see whats behind you, and you have your four-ways flashing to warn drivers approaching the rear of your truck. You cant even pull over on the shoulderyou cant even see the shoulderbut even if you could, you fear another truck will think youre still traveling and hit you from behind. What thoughts race through your mind when you finally emerge from the fog at the bottom of the mountain, when you turn and see the four-inch-long horizontal icicles sticking straight back from your side-view mirrors? You wipe the sweat from your brow. You might even have to change into a new pair of pants. Maybe you add one last verse to the litany of prayers you offered the whole way down the mountain. (Truckers probably pray more in their cabs than in church.) But you survived, and you will next time too.

One of the first things a new truck driver learns, the lesson thats most important, is how to navigate around some of the, shall we say, less experienced , four-wheel drivers we all know and love. Most drivers of four-wheel vehicles dont think theyre doing anything wrong when they pull in front of a big truck just moments before traffic comes to a screeching halt. Perhaps theyre unaware that they did something wrong, perhaps theyre inconsiderate or blinded by road rage, but the action is careless and dangerous, and we see more of this behavior every day. Many four-wheel drivers seem to not notice trucks, acting as if four-wheelers are the only ones on the highway. I dont think they realize when they piss off a truck driver, and I think theyd be aghast to know that truckers have several near misses because of their shoddy driving. Take my word for it when I say that its the four-wheelers causing mayhem on the road. Truck drivers are paid professionals, while many car drivers still need a hell of a lot more practice. Until all four-wheel drivers become proficient at driving, which we doubt will ever happen, truck drivers will always be the more responsible onesever mindful of that carload of kids who have the misfortune of having their mother behind the wheel.