The Pain and Pleasure of Being Home for a Few Days

I'm in Albert Lea, Minnesota tonight, sleeping at the Love's truck stop at exit 11 on I-35.  It's a Wednesday, and I am looking back amazed that last Wednesday I was anesthetized into oblivion while a surgeon was removing some more tissue from my fore head and face.  I am continuing to have issues with basal cell carcinoma - a skin cancer condition that keeps plaguing me.  I actually enjoyed being home for a week to take care of this problem.  It is most unusual for me to be home for seven or eight days straight, and I made every effort to make the most of it.  I love to cook, and while I was there I cooked up a bunch of tamales.  I cooked the pork roast I had selected for the meat filling on Friday, and then my daughter Sarah pitched in on Saturday and helped me with the whole assembly process of the masa and the corn husks, and the steaming of the tamales in the pot.  Here is a look at what this great pot of tamales looked like as we were getting started on the actual cooking part of the process.

I had a great time with Sarah while working on that project, and I had a great time with my wife while at home.  I enjoyed seeing some of my friends at church, a special treat for me since I am gone so much of the time.

Here is a shot of my new look. I didn't even need a mask for Halloween this year, I was pretty scary looking with my very own fresh set of stitches on my forehead and along side my nose.  I've been frightening my customers this week without even thinking about it.  I am happy to be working again, and I completely forget that I'm kind of frightening looking until I realize that folks are looking at me kind of askance, and then I remember - oh yeah - I've got stitches that are kind of prominently showing on my face!

Oh well, I was just as glad to get back to work as I was to be at home.  I do enjoy what I do, but it is a problem being separated from the folks you love so much.  It is a part of what makes this career so challenging, and yet the adventure of it all makes it rewarding at the same time.  The conflict that goes on inside the soul of the American Truck driver is seldom understood.  He loves his job, and he loves his family.  His profession needs him, and his family needs him.  There is no getting around that conflict, we live with it as our constant companion.

I started back to work on Monday.  I was heading to the SAPA plant in Delhi, Louisiana from my home in Nacogdoches, Texas when my dispatcher called me about a load that he was distressed about. I had planned on getting there Monday, and then taking a break so that I could grab a load on Tuesday with a full clock ahead of me to work with.  He asked me if I could go ahead and rescue a load that was sitting at the plant ready to go and get it up here to Minnesota as fast as possible.  It was supposed to leave on Saturday, but apparently one of our new drivers completely dropped the ball, and now it is up to me to save the day.

I took the assignment and have made some really good time on the load so far.  I had four other drops on this load on the way up here.  I had customers to deliver to in Lead Hill, Arkansas - Lenexa, Kansas - Yankton, South Dakota, and Lennox, South Dakota.  In the morning I will deliver to a Valmont location in Farmington, Minnesota, and then will go back down to De Smet, South Dakota to deliver the last of what is loaded on this trailer to the consignee.  After that I will pick up a back haul load from the SAPA plant in Yankton, South Dakota that will get me back down south.  From there I think the plan is to get me another load going to Texas, so I can go and get these stitches removed.  I'm tempted to whip out my pocket knife and remove them myself, but I guess I'll restrain myself.