A unique advantage to truck driving is that you often times will get the chance to stop and visit with friends or family along the way if you happen to be passing near where they live. My good friend Jim Rogers, who now resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma with his dear wife Virginia calls me at least once every week wanting to know the same thing with every call, "Where in the world are you today?" He also wants to know when I'm coming to Tulsa.
I have not seen them in well over a year now. I used to get through there to see them fairly often before I took on this dedicated SAPA position. I knew we had a customer in Tulsa because my good friend Paul Anderson is often times delivering over there. Of course once I told Jim about that, he from that point on has been asking me when I'm coming that way. I have never been dispatched on that run until this week. Due to me breaking down last week it has kind of thrown me off of my usual schedule so that I am back in Delhi in time to grab a load heading up to Connecticut. My dispatcher likes to put me on that one because, as he told me, "I know you will take care of it and not be late."
So, as soon as I realized I was heading to Tulsa I gave Jim a call and he was so excited I thought he was going to burst. I parked at my consignee (that is a fancy truck driver word for the customer that you are delivering to - it is an old word left over from the days of British seamen who delivered goods across the oceans on their ships) and Jim came and picked me up. The three of us enjoyed a nice lunch together at a place called Fish Daddy's. They are both getting on up in years and Virginia is having some mobility issues, but it sure was good to see them again. I've known them since 1978, and I count them among some of my dearest and closest friends. I only wish my wife could have been with me, because Virginia is very dear to her also.
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