Sweet Pea is the first that I saved when I moved out to this farm. Hubs was on a fishing trip the week I found her, which was a good thing since he thought cats belonged in barns rather than houses. We had numerous ferrel cats that lived in the barn, but I couldn’t ever get my hands any of them to do much with them. I was outside planting a couple rose bushes in front of the barn when I heard the mews of kittens. Here Pea and two others had fallen out of the hay loft. I’m guessing they were looking for their mom in search of food. They weren’t very old, since their eyes were still closed and they looked really tough, which broke my heart.

Pea and her sister Bella were loudly telling anyone who would listed they were unhappy. The third of the tribe wasn’t doing so well. I set them in the sun and just rubbed them down trying to warm them up and quiet them down. I knew they needed food, and I had nothing that would work, plus we live 20 miles from anywhere. I got them nestled up in a  box and tucked them away and ran into the vets in town.

When I got to the vets, the gal on duty told me I was wasting my time since kittens born so late in the season rarely made it. She also told me that bottle feeding rarely worked, and that it would be more humane to bring them in and let them go…. To which I told her I wasn’t doing that. I knew my chances and if they were suffering I’d bring them in, but I wasn’t giving up. A phone call from hubs that evening told me about the same thing, but I told him tough luck… I’m bullheaded and I figured he’d come around.

By the time I got home the worst off of the three had given up. I figured that would happen, but it still wasn’t anything I wanted to see that day. Luckily two of them were strong enough to keep fighting. I made up bottles, and tried to feed them, which was a challenge in itself. They were so mouthy! I didn’t know much about babies in general, but I knew I couldn’t force feed them in fear of drowning them, so I spent hours getting a tiny bottle in each of them. It got easier from there, once they figured out what they needed to do. For the most part.

They were fun to raise, and Pea is still with us 7 years later. Bella only lived about a year and a half. Of coarse it was too short of a time, but both hubs and I were happy to have her! Luckily hubs did come around, because there were more on the way….

Jackson is all my mothers fault. Although I did save him indirectly, my mother is to blame for him being on our farm. She saved him first. I saved him second.

My mom was out on a gravel road trying to make a phone call on her cell phone. Like I’ve said, I live in rural america, and sometimes you get better reception out of town rather than in town. So, it was summer and she was sitting in the car making her phone call and she started to hear a cat crying.

My mother is a huge softy when it comes to animals… When she got out of the car and started calling for it. Of coarse when Jack came out of a cornfield looking like death warmed over, he was coming home with her… I don’t blame her, as he looked awful! The bad part was I was asked if I would take him to the vet because she thought he had been pecked by birds or something worse.

Jacks head was totally bald in between his ears. His nose was scabbed over, and his face was missing his whiskers,   his shoulder blades and back was missing hair, and his paws were bloody and missing most of the claws on his front feet.

I brought him into the vet the next day, had him tested to make sure he was healthy, except for the obvious. The vet told me he was healthy, but no birds had ever bothered him… The vet said she was 100% sure he was thrown from a vehicle.

Ugly as ever, Jack came home with me to heal, and even though hubs once again put up a fuss, loves him just as much…. Jack now sleeps on my head nightly when I’m home….

Sass was another barn baby. Another left by his mother. Hubs and I had been outside working and we could hear him crying in the barn. Looks were exchanged, we tried to ignore, and keep busy hoping the mother would return… Funny thing was, the kitten didn’t quit crying, and hubs was off doing something, so I figured I could sneak into the barn and see what was going on, but who was already heading up the stairs into the hay loft when I walked into the barn? Hubs.

We found Sassy, whom hubs swore was a female… We brought her in the house, introduced her to Jack and Pea and started bottle feeding once again. Sassy was brought to the vet, NEUTERED, and came home Sass… He’s our biggest boy, and the three get along very well.

It taken a few years, but I have weeded out the ferrel cats from our barn. Spayed and neutered the animals we have and the barn is now home to chickens and my quarter horse when she’s home. We have healthy animals now, and I try to keep it that way.

We are all familiar with some of the reasons that the professional truck driver is under attack. Although I see these drivers out on the road too, I want you to know there are more top notch drivers out here than you may think. As a professional driver, I am very proud of what I do and the people I have come to know out here on the road over the years. Besides teaching people what a drivers life is like, I am trying to introduce you to the cream of the crop of truckers. The Kings and Queens of the road. These are the people that are out here on our roadways. You could ask them for help, and you would get that help tenfold.

Today, I would like to introduce Doug, or Saltydoggie as he is better known.

How many years have you been trucking?

Well, I started my first driving job in 1971, so I reckon that would make 39 years later this year. That first job was hauling groceries to a major food chain, 7-11 stores, and small rural food markets here in the Southwest. The job paid $2.30 an hour and time and a half over 40 hours. Normal hours were around 80…so for the day I guess the pay was pretty good for a single fellow.

What state do you reside?

I reside in the State of New Mexico

Is trucking today what you thought it would be when you first began?

No way. Today’s regulations are very restrictive compared back then. The federal government and the state’s both have regulations covering almost every conceivable aspect of the trucking industry. Don’t get me wrong, there were regulations when I started but the enforcement of the regulations were almost non-existent compared to today. Unfortunately, most states have found it extremely lucrative to there failing budgets to pick on the trucking industry and it’s drivers.

The equipment nowadays compared back to then is a WHOLE different ball game. Trucks today are like Cadillac’s that have all the modern amenities–sound, comfort, some even with automatic transmissions, electric gadgets of all varieties etc. Back then it was basics. No power steering, no air conditioning, some trucks did not even have air ride seats, no air ride suspension, no forgiving transmissions–twin sticks–main and brownie boxes and the rpm had to be right on. PERIOD.  Most modern drivers would not have the foggiest notion how to operate them correctly. There was a pride that was down to the bone. Mom, Dads, and kids travelling the highways revered the American truck driver.

Do you have family to spend time with?

Yes I do. My daughter Kathryn first started trucking with me at the tender age of 2 and a half. I strapped her baby seat into my 1984 Peterbilt 359 and away we went. As with most Dad’s, my little girl was the apple of my eye and I was so glad to share my work and  time with her.

My wife of 32 years was a truck driver also in her early years. We met in a truck stop where she was a waitress. She hauled taters out of Aroostook county in Maine down the eastern seaboard. We are a very tight family to this day, thanks to the good Lord.

Can you tell us of some of the hazards of daily driving?

Yes, People really need to think about some of their actions. Passing a tractor-trailer to exit right ahead and hitting the brakes in front of the truck is a very dangerous move. Please stay behind for a few extra seconds and exit safely. When passing a big truck, do not cut right back in front. Should an problem arise to brake quickly, the truck will not be able to stop before running over the four wheeler. Remember people, it takes 3 football fields for a tractor trailer grossing out at 80,000 pounds to stop at 55mph. Today’s speeds are much higher and it takes longer. Please give professional drivers the respect and the courtesy that they deserve. Professional drivers will try to give you all the room that you need. Please use your turning signals…they are put there for a good reason.

Pre- tripping a run

Most drivers are very serious about their equipment. We are constantly looking for defects while walking around or loading or unloading the truck. This is our job and our responsibility to the motoring public and us. Not only that but finding a problem can alleviate many hours sitting on the side of the road due to a breakdown. I can honestly say that I spent very few hours on the side of the road because inspection of my equipment was a big priority. Safety is no accident.

Do you have a special license?

Yes I do. I carry a class A CDL with the TX endorsements. This means I can run Double trailers; triple trailers, hauling tanker trailers and hauling hazardous materials in any of these combinations. I have always been very proud of my abilities and my record in a tractor-trailer. I have over 5 million accident free miles in a tractor-trailer.  This record can only be achieved by being a safe and courteous driver. Barr none…

What kind of advice would you give to a non-professional that would make your job safer?

Safety Tip…many drivers fail to take in the whole picture. By that I mean, do not concentrate on just the car ahead of you. Look way up ahead as well. If traffic is shutting down up ahead, you will see it and take immediate response–turn on 4 way blinkers and get your vehicle slowed way down. If you wait till the driver ahead of you locks up their brakes, you are going rear end him big time–and the dingbat behind you is going to slam you. Truck drivers are always looking way ahead to see potential problems and taking appropriate actions. This is SAFE driving.

Lack of courtesy is the biggest problem on the road today. Seems like many drivers (big trucks and cars) have adapted the “screw you” philosophy. This creates nothing but animosity and extra problems. Please let us all share the road.

What kinds of loads do you or did you haul?

Over the years I have pulled dry van, refrigerated, tanker, flatbed, and car haul equipment–hauling groceries, produce, carpet, empty milk jugs to dairies, meat, liquid propane gas, butane, anhydrous ammonia, new and used cars and trucks— and the list goes on and on. Truckers haul every conceivable product that the consumer purchases. As the saying goes, America moves by truck…or without trucks, America stops.

What advice would you give to those wanting to be a trucker?

Many people get into trucking for a variety of wrong reasons. It will quickly weed out those who are not serious. The hours are long and getting home is not the priority—moving the freight is. The bottom line is that you must have almost a burning desire to become a professional driver. I knew when I was a little kid that I was going to be a trucker. It was either that or a heavy equipment operator. In other words, don’t just do it cause you hear the pay is good. Like any other occupation, the bottom line is that you have to LIKE what you are doing…or you will not succeed or be happy.

If you could, what would be the one thing that you could change about the trucking industry, as it is today?

I would definitely change the unfair practice of shipper’s and receiver’s requiring a driver to pay a lumper to load or unload their freight. All shipper’s and receiver’s should load or unload their products for no charge to the driver or their company. I feel this is nothing but a rip-off occurring within our industry.

What is the most rewarding part of truck driving?

To me the most rewarding part is getting the job done and done safely. In trucking, there many unknown obstacles that occur on a daily basis. It could be traffic, it could be severe weather, it could be a long wait to get into the dock, it could be the dispatcher changing your load, it could be a blown out tire, and the list goes on. A driver does not really know what kind of challenges the day beholds. But as they say–that is trucking. I find it very rewarding to meet all these daily challenges and GET THE JOB DONE. In other words, no two days are alike. On most other jobs, the boss is always looking over your shoulder. In trucking, when you pull out of the gate, YOU are the captain of your ship. Get it Done.

Also, the sound a good horse purring under the hood and the sound of the pipes as I am easing through the gears gives me a great feeling that I cannot put into words.

In conclusion, for the right person, trucking can be a super job that will get in your blood and will reward you immensely.

First off, I want to thank every one of you for all the kind, thoughtful comments you have made in the last few days on my Alive and Unscathed post. You people are wonderful!

I posted “alive and unscathed” for a number of reasons. First, to get it off my chest, I knew if I kept driving it would do me no good or anyone around me. There are times you just don’t belong behind the wheel and I knew I needed to be off the road. Secondly, I posted this to show readers what truck drivers deal with more than not… Usually though, not in such an extreme way.

I am no expert. I will say though, sitting up here, watching the back of peoples heads all day has taught me a lot about people and their actions. Most days I can ward off stupid people just by watching the back of their head or how they are about to pass me. Some days, like last week are unavoidable. I know by how people drive whether they have respect for me and the road we are traveling, are inexperienced drivers or kids, have had too much to drink or are tired, are old, or if they think I’m an asshole just for being out here on the road with them.

I will repeat myself again, and say every mile I’m behind the wheel I drive for both you and I. I have to because most people look at driving as no big deal. I believe there are more people than not, that can not understand, or even think of what can happen to a person when they are involved in an accident until it’s too late. Most people do not drive like their life depends on it and it’s a shame, because although I have never been involved, I have seen way too many gory accidents that could have been avoided . If they would have paid attention and slowed down, the accident would never have happened.

Although I have days that are totally uneventful, most days I have someone who will pull out in front of me, cut me off to make an exit, stop in front of me, pass me when they are not suppose to because I’m holding them up, or stop in the middle of the road, and not ever think about what I’m doing to try not to hit them while behind them.

Please, if you do anything today on your way home from work, the grocery store, or school. Pay attention! Slow down! Give both cars and trucks room! Look at your habits behind the wheel. Are you being safe? Really safe? Are you signaling your intentions? If your in a big hurry to make it home, slow down. 5 minutes late is worth far more than having an accident that could change you and your families life forever, or worse.

I had to post this, as it’s cheap entertainment when I get home. This hen is my worst for giving up eggs. When she gets ahold of you, she will not let go! This time she drew blood! I have threatened many a time she will become chicken soup, but she has yet to believe me!

This may ramble. At this point I’m so shook up I don’t know if I should shit or go blind, but I want to write this while it’s fresh in my mind, and right now I don’t belong behind the wheel.

20 minutes ago I was going north on HWY 83 in Kansas. I was all alone, no one in front of, or behind me. This part of Kansas is very desolate, with not much traffic, which is why I love it. It’s a road I’m very familiar with, as I have traveled it for years now.

I was heading north bound on HWY 83 just south of Oakley Kansas. The road is beautiful, and I was enjoy the rolling hills and vast prairie that is always beautifully laid out before me. I was listening to the tunes, singing away, watching the road and blue sky, thinking about the roast I’m going to cook, and what I could accomplish tomorrow when I get home….

I start to go up a hill and Rosie starts to slow down a bit. I see a Kenworth cresting the hill ahead of me. He’s going south, I’m going north. No big deal. I notice he’s pulling a tanker, still no big deal.

All of a sudden, a blue car juts out from behind the tanker. The car starts to pass him. I’m thinking to myself, he’ll jump back in behind the tanker, but he doesn’t. Then I’m thinking to myself someone is going to die. We are on two lane road. Again, I will say the tanker is going southbound, and I’m going northbound. We are on a two lane road. The tanker has crested the hill, I’m about 3/4 of the way up.

I hold my lane. There is a shoulder, but I hold my lane. He’s coming head-on at me, along side the tanker. I hold my lane and hang on. The tanker swerves. The guy in the car passes me on MY shoulder. Again, I’m going north, he’s going south. There are 3 of us on a road built for 2. He passes me on my right side, on the shoulder. The guy in the car takes off like a bat out of hell. Luckily, he’s alive.

This event could have had many different outcomes. Many of which flashed through my mind as this was happening.

• I could have hit the car head on, seriously hurting myself, totaling my truck, and most likely killing the guy in the car. Even though I did nothing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I would have to live with this the rest of my life.
• The tanker, because he swerved to avoid the car, could have rolled his truck and been seriously injured. If he was empty there is a good chance the tanker could have exploded. If he was loaded, there would have been one hell of a mess to clean up.
• If I would have given up my lane (which I will not) I could have flipped my truck in the ditch.
• There could have been trucks or cars behind me that didn’t know what what happening and been involved.

All because someone is in a fucken hurry.

I could go on but I won’t. The thing is, all of the above events has end results on me and my well being. Right now my legs are numb, I’m shaking, I’m pissed, I could cry, and luckily I have finally gotten over the feeling of having to vomit.

I’ve said this before. I DRIVE FOR BOTH ME AND YOU. I want to explain a few things though. I WILL NOT GIVE UP MY LANE, OR PUT MY VEHICLE IN THE DITCH TO SAVE YOUR LIFE. These days, truck drivers are at fault before anyone even looks to the other person. If I would have hit the shoulder to give this DUMB SON OF A BITCH room, and my steer tire would have went over the edge of the road, I WOULD HAVE BEEN AT FAULT for not having my vehicle under control, AND THE DUMB SON OF A BITCH that caused the accident would have kept driving…

Please people. Drive like your life depends on it. Because it does. Slow down. Have respect. Think about the other person. What you do, does have a direct result on other drivers.

I know everyone thinks because we drive big trucks that weigh 80,000 pounds we are indestructible. I may not get killed as easily as you in your passenger vehicle, but there is still a cost. There are human lives driving these trucks. We have the same feelings as you. We have family we want to go home to. And speaking for myself, I don’t ever want to kill someone. Even if they are in the wrong. I CAN NOT IMAGINE!

When I’m home, or running local I like to come home and cook. The bad this is, it ends up being  a late supper, usually though, hubs is willing to wait for homemade food anytime!

Pizza is a little more time consuming since you have to wait for the dough to rise, but the results are always worth the wait! You can skip this step any buy pre made dough too, but I like homemade! Bad thing is, usually after piling of all the good stuff on, the crust is the last thing you think of when eating it!

The Dough

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoobs extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup whole wheat flour (sometimes I use rye instead for a sweeter crust)
• 3 cups flour

Pour half cup water into mixing bowl, stir in yeast and set aside until foamy. This usually takes about 10 minutes in a warm kitchen. Add the rest of water, olive oil, and salt. I use my Kitchen Aid for this, but you can do it by hand too.

Start by adding your whole wheat flour, followed by some of your white flour. You want just enough to form a shaggy dough. Turn it out onto your counter and kneed until smooth, adding more flour as needed to keep it from sticking.

We like a crisp crust, so I make sure my dough is on the moist side, which means it’s going to be slightly tacky.

Put the dough in an oiled bowl, turn the dough a couple of times around the bowl so that it wont stick to your bowl once it rises. Cover dough and let sit for 40- 60 minutes. It should double in size. When ready, take the dough out of the bowl and divide into the number of pizzas you want. I usually do 2- 12 inch rounds since we like different items on our pizza. Set dough on floured counter, cover with a towel and let rise one more time for another 20-30 minutes.

Take one ball at a time and flatten dough into a disk, pushing it outward with your palm. Work from the middle, until your dough is about 1/4 inch thick and even. I use a pan, (but you can use a peel and stone as well) so I flour my pan set the dough on top, and cover with a towel for the final 15 minutes of rest.

Add any topping you like!! I use tomato paste rather than pizza sauce for a bolder, not so sweet taste. I usually do pepperoni, sausage, fried onions, green olives, cheese (both cheddar and Pecorino Romano), and tomatoes. In the summer I switch my tomato paste and use Basil or Arugula pesto for my sauce. Hubs likes canadian bacon, sausage and pineapple with no olives… But you can have whatever your heart desires, and aside from time, it’s a cheap meal that tastes good and makes your house smell divine!

This recipe makes enough dough for eight 6-inch pizzas, four 10-inch pizzas, or two 12-inch pizzas!

Last trip I woke up to this view… Now if only I had a hot cup of coffee and a deck to sit on and contemplate my day…

Somewhere in New Mexico… One of my favorite states since there is such history here!

My reward for getting home safely! I got home Sunday afternoon. Luckily I made it before the wind blew our roads closed. Since I had a couple friends get stuck in the weather, I considered myself lucky to sit in my kitchen and watch the sun go down!

Miss Bethany presented me with a series of questions about my passion for trucks and how I deal with my profession in today’s world of trucking. I thought I’d answer her in a different context with a story of myself and how I started watching trucks ply the roads as a child.

Today I’m known as “The Highlander” and this is my story.

As a child, anything with an engine fascinated me. I lived close to a major drag strip and would listen to the cars racing at night off in the distance. This started my passion for anything with a mechanized engine in it to grow.  It was the ‘60s and this was an urban area, but my parents didn’t like the drugs and free love of the times and thought it was time to move to a safer haven.  In 1972 I was uprooted and plopped down in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia along Interstate 81 in a small town with only 600 residents. I81 is a major thoroughfare for trucks heading north and south on the eastern side of this country. I no longer had cars racing in the distance to listen to, but the trucks were there–off in the distance. I could hear them for miles, depending on the type of engine and whether they had straight stacks or not.  I know today this isn’t the cool motor to run, but the V8 Detroit sounded BAAAAAAAAAD back in those days. What’s even more interesting is I didn’t know at the time what I was listening to…I just liked it. The whine of the tires and the roar of the motors on a dark summer night, miles away, coming and going up and down the highway was music to me. Whenever the family took a trip up and down this Interstate, I would look at the trucks coming and going, watching the black smoke roll off the top of the trailers as the drivers accelerated up the hills. My father would always complain about the smell of burnt diesel fuel enveloping the car…I would just inhale the smell of raw power and smile. It would amaze me on certain nights how many trucks I would see running north, then two nights later see them running south, all trying to get their loads delivered.

During this time I got involved with horses.  You might ask what this has to do with trucks and trucking. My father started dealing in horses and I would have to take care of them as my daily chores. Horses need to have their hooves trimmed every six weeks and the Ferrier that came to do this was a teamster driver who worked for a company called “TimeDC” for many years. He was a brute of a man of about 6’4” tall, probably weighed 250 lbs and was as strong as an ox. I watched him handle many a rank horse without putting any effort into it while I held the other end of the lead. He was a truck driver by profession and a Ferrier and horse trainer for the passion of working with horses. I thought anybody that could handle a horse and truck like this had to be the coolest person in the world.

So that’s where the desire to drive a truck got planted, but it got worse.

In the late ‘70s my best friend started driving a truck over the road for a local company.  I stayed home and worked to help my father in his business.  When my friend got in off the road on Friday nights, we would go out to raise Cain in the local establishments.  He would have his co-workers join us.  There was Water Baby, Cowboy, Jeffro and others that I didn’t know by their real names. These were their CB names used in trucking and still used by a few today. The stories of mischief this group of men had running from as far north as Boston MA to as far south as Brownsville TX each week was fascinating to me. The jokes they played on each other and the fun they had doing a job was amazing to me.  I thought no one should have so much fun working.  You see, I was still working a real job with my father in construction doing heating, air conditioning and commercial refrigeration.

One of the most unusual jokes they played on each other that still stands out in my mind still today is the time they found a co-worker asleep across his steering wheel in a rest area and they set him up for a rude awakening.  They took a second truck out on the Interstate and turned it around to come in the exit of the rest area then pulled this truck up to the front of the sleeping driver’s truck, facing head on.  Then they lined up two more trucks slightly ahead, but facing in the same direction as the sleeping driver’s truck.  As a coordinated effort, the two trucks alongside started backing up slowly, while the truck facing him head on, turned his lights on and blew his horn.  You can only imagine the startling awakening that poor driver went through, but all had a great laugh in the end.

I kept asking myself how it was that a group of individuals could have so much fun working. Their loads were always delivered on time and undamaged.

My friend was called “The Little Rebel” in those days, today he’s known as “Mr. Haney”. In the mid ‘80s he moved to Florida and I didn’t get to hear too many more trucking stories. Every now and again he’d stop on his way through and pick me up for a ride up north and drop me off on his way back south to home. He always had a fast running truck with the fuel cranked up, blowing smoke and running just fine. The sound and vibration of the motor working always made for a good ride to wherever he was going. The V8 CAT he had was the “baddest” of the bad company trucks he ever drove. I never thought the sound and acceleration of that truck could be duplicated.  I never thought the smoke screen it left in its wake could be duplicated…but I was wrong, as time will tell.

So as you can see the addiction had started…the desire…

…fast forward to the ‘90s.

As you can remember, I was still living in a rural farming area. My younger brother decided to be a broker for hay and straw to the rich horse people in Virginia and he bought a small straight truck to deliver the product. Every now and again he needed someone to help him unload a load of hay in the barn, so I rode along. After a year or so he needed a larger truck and bought an International dump truck with a tandem axle to convert to a hay truck. This truck had a RoadRanger transmission in it and we had to teach ourselves how to shift it. I’d ridden in many a truck, but never drove one and didn’t know how hard it was to shift the transmissions in these trucks.  It takes much practice and skill. In all the rides I’d taken over the years with “Mr. Haney”, I only heard him scrape a gear once and I kidded him about it.  If he could have seen me that first time, I would have been blasted. I actually found a book that had written instructions on how to shift the transmissions in these trucks to teach myself. I had one friend that lived close by that took me out and showed me a how to shift.  I swear to this day I still need to learn to do it better.

Before this truck could be modified to a hay truck, a friend of my brother’s talked him into working it in “the city”…this is what us country boys called Fairfax County in Virginia. All of a sudden there is a dump truck working construction jobs in an urban environment. I wasn’t driving it at this time, my brother’s friend was, but he proved to be an unreliable employee. In order to provide a steady income for the truck, my youngest brother started driving the truck. He had to travel 90 miles to and from where the truck was being parked in Fairfax County to go to work. So he drove 180 miles to and from work each day only to drive all day long while working. At the same time my wife graduated from college and went to work in the same “city” area and had to commute this long distance to work as well.

After six months of commuting, everybody grew to hate driving so much.  My wife and I moved to the western edge of Fairfax County; this shortened her commute, but then I had to commute to Shenandoah County to work. My youngest brother was tired of commuting east and I was tired of commuting west, so we started trading work days.  Thus, I started my professional driving career working a dump truck in one of the most crowded urban areas in the country.

The truck was being worked through a large trucking company that supplied as many as 150 dump trucks per day to large excavating contractors working the region. I got to work with the same bunch of guys each day…Wine Jug, Snake, Beaver Teaser, and a bunch of others. Again, here I was in a group of individuals that didn’t work for a job, but had a job to have a good time–with the benefit of making money. This made me decide to buy my own truck, thus starting my own small trucking company.

My beginnings were in a small tandem dump truck, but today I own and drive a tractor trailer. This transition in my career came about when I worked a construction site at Dulles International Airport. I was hauling wet concrete from a portable concrete plant to the runways that were being rebuilt. In order to make the concrete, sand had to be hauled in on dump trailers because the distance from the sand pits to the airport was so far away. I’d never worked with these dump trailers before and to watch the drivers raise their dump bodies so high in the air fascinated me………I wanted to do that. Actually, the desire to be a real truck driver came from watching these guys in their large cars delivering sand.

Finally, in the late ‘90s I had the chance to buy a new Peterbilt tractor to pull a flatbed trailer delivering hay for my brother. I bought the truck and again had to teach myself how to drive, only this time a tractor trailer compared to a small tandem axle dump truck. I would load hay in the horse country of Virginia and deliver it to the mushroom farms in and around Avondale PA. Each year I had to move 4,000 tons of hay and straw to Avondale by truck.  This lasted four years before many other farmers decided to make hay for the mushroom farms. Suddenly the price of hay delivered to the mushroom farms wouldn’t even cover the shipping costs, so I sold my flatbed and bought a dump trailer.

The commodities I deliver are sand, gravel and salt using what is known in the trucking industry as a “bucket”, or an end dump trailer. With the bucket trailer I still work within a small community of drivers working the region. Their names are Bad Company, JJ, Cookie Monster, Jungle Rat, Suicide, Lil Dog, Spike, Slim Jim and others.  We, as a group, loaded sand early in the mornings from an area south of here and delivered it to Northern Virginia asphalt and concrete plants.  On the return run south we took crushed stone to the asphalt and concrete plants because crushed stone isn’t as plentiful south of here. The salt comes by ship into the city of Baltimore and is used to clear the ice and snow off the roads in the winter by government agencies. As a group, we had fun and always watched out for each other.

I’m the guy that made it possible for you to drive your cars up and down the highways.  I’m the guy that helped build those buildings you work in.  I’m the guy that helped you have a safe ride home on a cold, snowy, winter night.

I’m “The Highlander”.

Most of my friends have left this industry, yet my passion for a high horsepower truck moving great amounts of weight has kept my desire to work in this industry alive. The drivers that have come to replace them……couldn’t. The new breed of truckers today will never replace the ole timers; they’re a few with the old values, but not many. Today I travel the roads with 95% of the 4wheelers trying to make my day harder…..yet without me there wouldn’t be any smooth ice free highways for them to travel, there wouldn’t be any concrete in the buildings for them to walk in.

I now work to experiment on how to increase the horsepower of the engine in my truck because there is no fun left in trucking. I’ve got over a million miles of experience driving in one of the most crowded urban environments in this country.

When you see me out there on the roads, could you please give me a little consideration, I’m just trying to do my job, and if I’m lucky I get a chance to smile while I do it.

• 1 lb of White beans – I use Canellini Beans
• 1/2 cup Barley
• Water
• One or two good sized ham shanks (I think ham hocks are gross and the shanks have more meat)
• 1 Large diced onion
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 2 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 tablespoon Organic Better than Bouillon (Chicken flavor)
• Salt and pepper
• 2 Sprigs fresh rosemary
• 1 Bay leaf
• 1 bunch of fresh parsley

Cover beans with cold water for at least a couple of hours or overnight. Drain the water, pick out bad beans, wash.

Put the ham shank in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a simmer and simmer for about an hour. Add the chopped vegetables, herbs, barley and beans. Cook for another hour, until the vegetables are soft and the ham meat easily pulls away from the bone. Add Better than Bouillon if needed.

Remove shank, rosemary stem and bay leaf. Pull usable meat off and add back to pot.

At this point I use my old fashioned potato masher and mash some of the beans and veggies to make the soup a bit smoother.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

* You can add carrots if you like. I don’t use them because I feel they make my soup too sweet.