The Village Truck Driver

Toiling,---rejoicing,---sorrowing,

Onward through life he goes;

Each morning sees some task begin,

Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night's repose.

-From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's “The Village Blacksmith”

I seriously wanted to start this post with a bastardized version of this great work of poetry...

Under the spreading diesel canopy,

The village truck driver stands...

But I thought better than to lower myself to such a foolish act of rewriting one of the great poets words.

I couldn't help but think of Longfellow's words as my day came to it's close. “Something attempted, something done” was just the way I was feeling. Each day I have to make a plan as to how I am going to accomplish the things I need to, then I usually need to have a back-up plan or two in case the first one fails. There is a great deal of planning and calculating that goes into any successful over the road truck driver's day. We face incredible odds on some days, and today was just one of those type of days.

I'm not sure how I managed to hit both of the major blizzards of 2015 here in the North East, but I did it with remarkable accuracy. Just last week I was here in Connecticut when the forecasters were scaring everyone with their prognostications of an epic storm of historical proportions. And then just one week later I'm here again in a storm that was, as far as I'm concerned, much worse than the last one. I'm not one to “toot my own horn” very much, but I will let you in on a little secret as to why I am here again. My dispatcher keeps giving me this nice piece of work because, as he put it to me last week, “Dale, you are one of a small handful of drivers who always manages to get this run done on time no matter what happens.” Now, those are encouraging words from your dispatcher – for one thing you realize that he's paying attention to what you are doing, and the other thing is that you know he trusts you.

This has been a mantra of mine as I try to instruct new drivers at Truckingtruth.com.  You don't even need your dispatcher to really know you or like you, but you do need him to recognize that you are someone he can trust to “get er done.” That makes all the difference in the world in how your paychecks turn out. This whole job is completely performance based, and you are usually only as good as your last load. If you slip and stumble on something, you will more than likely start getting passed up on the good stuff until you've proven yourself time and time again. This customer in Farmington, Connecticut buys a lot of product from SAPA, so we are coming here at least twice a week with a full truck load, and there are other carriers handling usually another couple of truck loads out of our plant in Delhi, Louisiana. That is a lot of stuff that goes up here every week. To be honest with you, I love getting put on this job, it is a money run as far as I'm concerned. It's so familiar to me I can drive it all the way without even consulting the atlas. They can give it to me all they want – I enjoy it thoroughly.

Well, do you remember where I parked last night – Port Jervis, New York? Here's what it looked like out my windshield when my alarm went off at 3:00 in the morning.

The snow came in just like they said it would, and I got myself up and started my early trek into Connecticut. From Port Jervis, it is roughly 100 miles to Farmington Connecticut. I started driving at 4:00 am, and arrived at Stanley Access Technologies approximately at 8:30 am. That's right – four and one half hours to get 100 miles! The snow was really bad – I don't think I ever got above thirty or thirty five miles per hour at the most. When it is snowing this heavy they simply cannot keep the roads plowed because it just re-covers everything they've accomplished immediately so that their efforts are null and void. When it is like this you can't even see where the lanes are on the interstate, and it is hard to tell where the edge of the road is also. In fact, you can not even tell that there is pavement underneath you other than the fact that you know the interstate is paved because you've been through here before on nice sunny days.

It might surprise you to know that one of the most dangerous things about driving in this kind of weather is the ice build up on your windshield wipers. Most people would think it is the slippery roads, but for a truck driver it is those windshield wipers. In a heavy snow the influence of the wind against your windshield causes ice to build up on those wipers and then they won't wipe your glass clean, which then starts producing ice build up on your windshield. Then your visibility goes to zero very quickly. I had to stop and break the ice off of my wipers probably about eight or nine times during that 100 miles. Having your defroster on helps with this some, but I've got to tell you, I had it so hot in my truck that I was feeling like a roasted pig, well maybe I felt more like a roasted prime rib! Don't want to sound like I'm a pig... I was definitely sweating in here though.

Since I was driving I couldn't take any pictures, but here's a look at the driveway I had to back down into at Stanley Access – and that is pretty much how the interstate looked as I came over to this town.

Check out the snow that had built up on the under sides of my flat-bed trailer...

And even though my tarps were clean because of the wind, take a look at the back of the load where the vortex of wind at the tail held the snow onto the back of things.

Once I got unloaded I decided to call it a day and parked at the TA truck stop at Southington, which is where I parked last time I was here – remember it is the one that charges you a fee to park. It would not have been prudent of me to try and risk any more travel today. The Lord helped me thus far - I will not push myself onto Providence, but just be thankful for the accomplishments of the day so far. There are well over 150 trucks in here tonight, and they only have 145 spaces. People are parking wherever they can. In fact I am blocked in right now by some folks who just had nowhere to park. It happens all the time up here – it is just something that you accept and deal with it as you can. I was hoping to leave out early in the morning for Massachusetts, but we will just have to see how it goes.  If I have to wake truck drivers up at 3 or 4 in the morning to move out of my way, they usually understand it, and can't wait to take my spot when I pull out. Here's a look around from inside my truck after I got parked here.

Well, I'm going to get some rest now. I'll do my best to keep you apprised of my goings in and out among the peoples up here in this blustery part of the country. Good night, my friends, good night.