Big Time Truckin': True Trucking Stories
Dispatch 20: The Truckman

by Kirk Gonnsen

In Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath there is a scene when the Joad family makes a stop on the highway to buy a loaf of bread, and meets two truckers having their lunch. The Joads, if you know the story, are farmers driven away from the prairies by drought to find a new life in California. They have nothing but each other and whatever else they crammed onto the pick-up truck they are travelling in. The truckers, on the other hand, have it all. They have a good job, money to buy dinner on the road, to tip the waitress, play the jukebox and to buy candy for the Joad kids. They also have something greater, pride in their work and a carefree attitude. They are full of mirth and bad jokes, and yet they manage to be respected by their fellow countrymen. That persona of the noble and free truckman is something that still exists out on the road, however it seems to be slipping away in the quickbuck slob mentality that has taken over in a time of want and need for things to be shifted in a hurry.

What am I to think when I have to move away from the gas counter to let a four-hundred pound mass of a man get by with his armload of pop, chips and chocolate bars. Or I have to repeat myself over the whine of a greasy haired stinky man letting loose with his tongue about cocksucking this, and motherfucking that.

I used to subconsciously belittle the poor saps who worked for UPS, CONWAY or the other big courier companies. Standing in line at customs in their uniforms, neatly pressed and presentable. But now I admire them. Taking care of themselves. Getting the job done right. They're always quick with a piece of advice or story to pass the time and yet these men can also step out of character and drop a perfectly-timed dirty joke or a snide remark about having to wait for your turn at the customs desk.

The difference between the 60 percent of the drivers that are good and the 40 percent that are weak is pride in what they do. Whether it's driving, dressing, or telling a joke about how PMS got its name because Mad Cow Disease was already taken, it's all about the care and the effort of the man behind the wheel. Any jackass can get behind the wheel and steer the truck down the road, but it takes a real trucker to make the highway a part of his life, instead of a being another bloated corpse floating on the polluted river of the grand American commerce.