For most of my life I have been content to work, play and live within a small grid. I grew up in a small town, and that might have something to do with it; when one's home is twenty miles from the nearest shopping mall, one often learns to appreciate the charms of one's own backyard.
Not that I didn't love the occasional road trip. Indeed, two weeks after I got my driver's license, I found myself behind the wheel of a 1973 Pontiac LeMans, driving from central Connecticut to a Grateful Dead concert in Hampton, Virginia. (A case of very permissive parents with an obnoxiously persuasive child!)
My fondness for automotive voyages diminished somewhat as I grew older. By the time I was 25, I was commuting 80 miles a day, round-trip, to my job in Orange, Connecticut. I frequently made the three-hour trek to upstate New York to visit my mother and stepfather. And my vehicle was a four-cylinder Dodge Colt with a malfunctioning cassette player. Driving in Connecticut is a dreary proposition, and I decided I didn't care for it much.
Then I moved to Oahu. 44 miles long, 30 miles wide. No north or south, just mauka and makai; and no way I could get lost and end up in Vermont. I once found myself leaving my house in Kailua and driving across the island to H2, just so I could get my exasperated little Jeep up to a very nervous 65 mph. Though I never really caught "rock fever", I began to understand how some people might get a hankering for the open highway. But the complex beauty of life on the road eluded me. What motivates some people to spend eight or more hours each day behind a wheel?
Last week I got a first-hand look at some of the men and women who make their careers on the road. One of my clients, a Web-based company which connects commercial truck drivers & owner/operators with trucking firms all over the country, put me to work at the Mid-America Trucking Show.
An estimated 76,000 people attended the show, held at the Kentucky Expo Center in downtown Louisville. The largest transportation show in the Western Hemisphere, MATS incorporated over a MILLION square feet of booth space. I met people from every aspect of the industry, including a nice fella from the Hawaii DOT who brought me some chocolate macadamias and a guy who, I'm pretty sure, might have been Elvis. I met drivers and recruiters, dispatchers and logistics specialists, driving school instructors, owner/operators just starting with their first rig and fleet owners with thousands of trucks.
It was an impressive experience, and I gained a new respect for the people who work in this industry. To a civilian like me, they have peculiar needs and aspirations: regular weekends at home with their families… safe equipment… reasonable diesel prices… comfortable mattresses for their sleeper cabs… clean rest rooms in safe truck stops. And they came to Louisville to see, with varying degrees of success, if they could find these things.
Still, I wondered what was so great about driving a truck. As the weekend progressed, I looked at the people who attended the show. I looked at their faces, and heard their tales. And I listened to the stories told by my clients, Dennis and Judy Calhoun. They're both over-the-road drivers; in fact, Denny estimates that he's logged over three million miles on the highways of America.
"When Denny and I were driving as a team," Judy told me, "we used to go to Disneyland every weekend. Our truck would be the first vehicle in the parking lot. They practically knew us by name."
Being on a first-name basis with Goofy? Seems like a GREAT reason to explore a trucking career!
Get Yourself A New Set Of Wheels
Why am I writing about the transportation industry for an Internet newspaper? Well, my friends, the trucking industry has discovered the information superhighway. If you're looking for a career that will get you off "the rock", you might want to consider a job as a driver, and you can start your investigation online.
There is a shortage of qualified drivers in this country, and the starting salary for new drivers can be has high as $30,000; experienced drivers with no violations can earn twice that. In Hawaii, where the rent on a tiny two-bedroom apartment can be over $1,000 a month, this doesn't sound like much. But If you're living in a mainland town in which the average rent on a huge three-bedroom house with 2.5 baths and a nice two-acre lawn is less than $800, you might begin to see the appeal.
Below are some links that might help you begin your evaluation of trucking as a great way to earn your living. Even if you have no interest in a driving career, some of these links are mighty interesting and entertaining!
SITES TO SEE:
Driving Jobs Network (My clients' site; driver membership is free!)
The Web Truck Stop (Another of my clients' sites, and also free! The Driver's Lounge pages contain links to driving schools all over the country.)
Where's Wilson? (The ongoing saga of a truck owner and his travels, created on the road!)
The Trucker (One of the most popular publications in the industry)
Driver's Daily Log (A driver developed this computer logging program. It's one of the best anywhere, and it's freeware!)
Freightliner (The rig most everybody wants!)
eTrucker (Some excellent publications!)
Caroline Wright, of
WRIGHT FOR YOU
Word Services, is a freelance writer. A former resident of Hawaii, she now
lives in rural South Carolina. Feel free to e-mail your comments to Caroline
at
cw@wrightforyou.com.
|