I think it was Robert Pirsig who, while a Technical Writer, collected assembly instructions. He had a badly translated instruction for assembling a Chinese Built BBQ Grill. Apparently, the BBQ instructions bordered on useless, but they began with the deeply Eastern “Assembling Barbecue Grill requires Great Peace of Mind.” As the author of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” Pirsig rather liked this though it was likely more accidental than oriental. There are days, many many days, when Trucking requires Great Peace of Mind. And flexibility too, but any arguments of how many, or if any, truckers possess such states of mind is a topic for another day. On a recent trip to Chicago, I had the opportunity to practice my flexibility and had to desperately hang on to the remaining shreds of my Peace of Mind.

I hit Chicago about three in the morning. On the outskirts of town, I did a quick review of the directions I’d been given. Seemed like a straight shot; take the Tri-State up to the Eisenhower, second exit. The details were a little sketchy, but things usually work out OK. The first ebb of a night of evolving assumptions. Chicago, in the middle of the night, is not bad. There is always traffic, but at that hour, never enough to slow me down.

When I got off the Eisenhower, the sketchy details started to fall out of rather than into place. “Exit 13A, E US20. Go one block, proceed East on Lake St.” the directions calmly stated. East US 20, like all U.S. Highways, could be on a funky angle, but East Lake St. should be actually east [First Wrinkle of the Second Assumption]. It must be just off to the right [the rest of the Second Assumption]. Off the highway in the dark, there’s a couple railroad overpasses, some tall old industrial buildings. A couple, like grain elevators, loom into the hazy mix of darkness and city lights. I creep along for about a block. There is a road here but it looks more like a driveway. In another block or so, there is a road to the left. “To East IL-67” a sign shouts at my headlights. My directions don’t mention IL-67, so I move on [Yet, a Third Assumption].

Now I’m rolling down a typical Midwest industrial strip. There’s a few corporate buildings, a forklift dealer, an auto repair shop, and a couple machine shops. I’ve gone way more than a block; probably four. Suddenly there is a large parking lot on my right. I step on the brakes, jam through a couple gears and lurch inside.

Its a big city “pay-to-park” lot for semis. If you live nearby, or just do a lot of business nearby, they have semi size spaces for rent. As I lope into the lot, a guard comes out of the office trailer. He trudges down the aluminum steps as I pull to their stop sign. Scanning his clipboard, the guard walks across the front of my tractor. The beam of each headlight swells to a glare on his shoulder and fades away behind him. I roll down my window and raise my voice of the grinding diesel.

“Sorry, I missed a turn back there. Can I just turn around in here?”

Without a word, the guard smiles, spins back around and waves me through. As I pull past him and start a big circle, the guard trudges right back up and into his shack. The lot is in good shape. Mercury lights buzz dimly over a big flat cinder lot. In the vagueness of city night, bright light bursts out of the windows from three sides of the guard shack. The unyielding contrast makes the guard shack like a Dec-O-Rama in a huge Museum of the City. The guard sits at his desk facing a small TV sitting on a file cabinet next to a well used coffee maker. The rigid industrial lines of the desk, the cabinet, the trailer and the parking spaces are mocked by the kinks and wild turns of the unbent coat hanger that has replaced the TV’s antenna.

Back on the street, I retrace my steps toward the highway. If I was supposed to Exit on East 20 and then turn East on Lake Street, Lake Street is probably a right turn [recast Second Assumption]. It should have been obvious either way; maybe that driveway looking entrance was the right place [A Fourth Assumption]. Having seen no better alternative, I stopped in the left turn lane, across from the driveway, straining to read the unlit signs crowding the other curb. I flicked the brights on. One hopeful looking sign is completely useless. Eric Hiscock said “Fortune favors the reckless.” So I turned in.

Its definitely industrial. I pass a trucking company at the base of one of the grain elevators. Off to the right is a large cross dock with several semi trailers. That is promising but I can’t find a street to get over to it [Fifth Assumption]. Suddenly I’m funneled into short pole building. As I enter, bright lights flash on and the interior explodes into stark detail. I keep rolling slowly through. Without a sound, its dark again. My night vision is shot, but another brightly lit, squat building is just ahead. I pull under a structure like a toll booth. There is a unit like the drive thru bank below my window. I’ve been transported into some Terry Gilliam Postmodern landscape.

There’s a click and the hum of a small room behind an old analog microphone.

“You’re lost. Aren’t you?” blares a happy voice from the tinny speaker. Central Casting from Gilliam’s Brazil couldn’t have cast a better, vaguely ethnic, beguilingly cheerful disembodied countenance.

“Yeah, I’m looking for Jewel/Osco but I’m not doing very well. Do you know where they are?”

“Well, this is the railroad. You didn’t look like you were headed for the railroad. That might be them over there to your right.” The happy voice oozes with empathy. He’s been lost in the city at night too. “Turn left as soon as you leave our exit gate.”

My truck rumbles into the rail yard; another big circle. More post industrial buildings with weird catwalks and railroad sidings. There are monstrous cranes that swallow a whole rail car, lift off the container and then spit the car out again. Guys in yard switcher engines, pickups and, oddly, a Volvo. Hard hats, steel toe boots and worn denim wander everywhere. They all carry a smirk knowing I don’t belong here tonight.

Out the exit gate and . . . there is just no way to turn left. Even a small car couldn’t turn left. To go left is to climb a concrete barrier, leap to a scale the chain link fence. Then over the razor wire and you’re in. I’ve had enough of this fun and pull over most of the way down the driveway.

The small scale map of Chicago in my Atlas is no help. Not enough detail for the rail yard or even Lake Street. I look at my phone. It can reach the internet, but a detail map on that little screen is like looking at a computer circuit board; lots of unlabeled lines and intersections none of which I can decipher.

Its then when I have a vision. The sun is suddenly shining behind a large cloud. Angels appear from the left and the right. They bend over in unison and put big brass horns to the backs of their robes. In a glorious God calling chord, the cloud shimmies open like a Punch and Judy Stage. Monty Python’s Old Man God appears complete with his cut out, nut cracker mouth. His chin slips up and down, just out of sync with the audio and he says, “Viaduct Clearances for Chicago Streets and surrounding neighborhoods.” And with that the vision dissipates into a spray of confetti and a some noise of the bowels. They’re all gone, but I’m digging through my truck stuff with a determined grin.

In the Seventeenth month of my tenure, I have yet to touch a map that I was given at orientation. Miraculously, the map is called “Viaduct Clearances for Chicago Streets and surrounding neighborhoods.” In the chaotic world of freight shippers in the Chicago Area, you cannot cut across town on the surface streets without checking for low bridges. However, I have never had to cut across town in this manner and have yet to even unfold that nearly forgotten map. The very map I was now clawing open.

The Front side of the map is all downtown City of Chicago in close detail. With a sigh of relief, the back side is “surrounding neighborhoods.” There’s Lake Street! It _is_ IL-67!! That changes everything. Scanning the map for my next assumptions [Sixth] I see that IL-67 is the Northern border of Melrose Park, my destination. The sketchy details in the second half of my directions are “Take Lake St. East to 15th Ave. Proceed past first stop sign. Jog and continue to second stop sign. Turn left on Armitage. Jewel/Osco is on the right.

The Trucker Logic goes if IL-67 is the Northern Border of Melrose Park, the destination. Then traveling East to get there, I must turn right (south) to get to Jewel/ Osco Receiving [where was I?, seventh! Seventh Assumption]. With a new confidence, I exit the rail yard, find the loud “To IL-67” sign and turn left. At IL-67/Lake Street, I turn East (right). Whoever looked up these directions on Google Maps must have thought that you could easily take Exit 13A to East US20 and “Proceed to East Lake St.” However, not being from Chicago, not knowing IL-67 _was_ Lake Street, . . . I was lost and in the dark in more ways than one.

Cruising down Lake Street, I crossed 35th Avenue. Twenty blocks to go. Then there was 25th Ave.; right on time. There was a big Jewel/Osco logo on the left. WHAT!?! Rolling past in the dim light of dawn, I watch the Jewel/Osco facility move by. There is a sign I can’t quite make out by a truck size driveway. Several Potential Assumptions flip through my caffeine addled brain. Did Jewel/Osco move and my directions are still to the old location? Is that the dry goods warehouse and perishables is down 15th Ave.? Should I keep moving or stop and ask? Should I join the circus? Where is my other blue sock? Oh, never mind.

I’ve pulled a semi through lots of cities, including New York City, the Big Apple, where I once parked tractor and half a trailer, illegally, on the sidewalk for four hours while being loaded. My big city instincts have me pulling to the left without really thinking. The place to be for a confused truck driver, in the big city, as the morning traffic is about to start, is the left turn lane, mid block. Safely in the center, I pull on the four way flashers, set the brakes and stop to think; or find a stiff drink.

I can see 15th Avenue, a block or so up the street. Craning my shoulders, I can see back toward Jewel/Osco. Their logo and color scheme is orange. I can see orange trimmed buildings, behind the stores on the street, coming most of the way up toward me. There is a big facility back there. There is also no good reason to have dry goods and perishables several blocks apart. In the liquid logic of suburban boundaries, Jewel/Osco is on the North side of IL-67. This puts them outside the primary color shading of Melrose Park on my map, but apparently inside the actual boundaries of the town in real life. The unspecified turn on 15th Avenue must therefore be left or North [the Final Assumption?]

The smoke test will be the two stop signs and the jog. If I turn left and see them right away, I’ve made the right guess. If not, I’ll need another large space to turn around in a big circle and a new assumption.

Before I even complete the turn, I can see two stop signs, askew. I’m on the right path. From completely lost to making the delivery, I ended up only twelve minutes late. Another nearly Zen night on the American Byways.

Tags: I swear, On The Road

It was a classic Monster Movie motif; big city traffic jam confronted by raging prehistoric monster. South of Milwaukee, I was diverted off the highway and straight into its path. But no screaming pedestrians, no thump thump thump of police helicopters, no city bus lifted to the monster’s bloodshot eye. Just an ancient Snapping Turtle lumbering across the pavement.

He was huge for a turtle. In each cautious step, a foot would stretch forward, almost pointing the toe and then drop to the ground. Each stride just less than the reach of his toe, oddly mimicking the strut of a majorette. In a panic, his neck stretched impossibly far out of his shell, like he was taking turtle enhancement supplements. Yet he stared straight ahead and strode on like a general into battle. Rather than medals, he wore a shawl of moss. It looked less like a turtle shell than an old stump crawling out of the swamp.

The detour had taken me off the highway. The road widened into two lanes just as I spotted the majestic turtle. I made an exaggerated arc into the left lane and around him. The first several cars behind me caught my drift and followed me around him. It was a good start. I hope he made it.

Tags: I swear, On The Road

It was clearly a night that I should have called in sick. Or at the very least bailed as soon as it started to go bad. We had had a slight warming and then a ferocious cold snap. The drop yard was thick with ice and full of ruts and clumps and holes from the last traffic before the freeze.

Creeping along in my pickup, I bounced and shimmied and shook across the lunar lot. Occasionally, the violence of falling in a hole or clammering over a ridge was almost painful. My forward progress interrupted enough that I wasn’t sure I could get moving again.

Dispatch had given me a tractor number to use. After two painful trips around the yard, I was convinced it wasn’t there. Calling back in, I got “Well, let me see here . . . damn, someone else is in that one.” Armed with a new, and successful, truck assignment, I started packing. I’ve got a duffel of clothes, a cooler, a tub of truck stuff and another tub that serves as my pantry. As usual, I also have a 12 pack each of water and Diet Mountain Dew. This week, I didn’t bring my guitar. All that and a broom to hang on the back of the cab; I’m ready to roll.

It takes a couple more trips bouncing around the lot to find that the trailer my load is on rests across the street. I get hooked up and check the paperwork. I am 1200 lbs. over gross; not legal for the highway. The previous driver thinks its the ice on the roof. He’s probably right but this load is very heavy – bottled water for a warehouse store somewhere in Illinois.

This is where right and wrong, risk and reward, get paved over for a new Bypass to maintain economic activity. I could call in and refuse the load. More politically, I could call and ask for advice. They can’t tell me to go around the DOT Scales but they would really rather that I did. It is unspoken and retains the Clintonesque plausible deniability. Anything I do, other than drive away with the load, is going to cost me a couple hours and damage my working relationship with dispatch. I craft a plan.

I’ve got 7 hours to make a 2 1/2 hour trip. Its a set appointment, so getting there early won’t do me any good. There is only one scale between them and me. If I leave now, and get past the Indiana Scales, I can take a nap at a truckstop and then go in for the delivery. At this hour, on Dec. 26th, the scale is likely to be closed up tight. I take the gamble and drive off.

The trip goes fine. I run down the West side of Michigan. In the summer, I can smell the lake from the highway. I scoot through Michigan City, past the Scale and stop at Burns Harbor. The forecast is for warmer weather with the possibility of freezing rain. All I need is a three hour nap and I can roll again.

Halfway through my nap, I wake just enough to hear the rain. It must be getting warmer. I roll over.

When my alarm goes off and I climb out of the truck to make a pitstop, the last meddling detail of the forecast slaps me awake – Freezing Rain! The entire earth, as far as I can see in all directions, has been glazed over like a Krispy Kreme Donut. I can barely walk.

My well planned, half executed, plan has gone to hell. Rumors are that the State Police have closed the highway. I need to fuel up and get on down the road. I gotta go!

I break out my Motor Carrier Atlas and paw to the State Road Conditions page. I call Indiana and Illinois. Each prerecorded message gives weather conditions that sound hours old and cheerfully better than what it looks like now. Neither mentions any highway closures.

To get to the fuel island, I have to pull forward and off to the left. There is a small ridge of leftover snow right in front of my steer tires. Ice is everywhere.

I back up to nudge my way over the ridge with a running start. It seems to work, steer tires, then drive tires, both axles, lumber over the ridge. The trouble comes when I have to start turning right at the moment the first trailer axle reaches the ridge. It stops me cold, like a cow looking at a new gate. I back up and try to hit it a little harder, but the acceleration causes the drive tires to spin. The lot is so slick I can’t turn and clear the ridge at the same time.

A driver steps out to repeat the rumor that the highway is closed. I know its a mess out here, but I don’t want to shut down on hearsay alone. I back back into my parking space.

After a few moments’ contemplation, considering the lot is only two thirds full, I decide if I back up, there is no ridge to intercept my turn. Trouble is the parking lot imperceptibly cants down toward the back row. When I back up to come around the other way, the weight of my load takes over. Now I don’t have enough traction to pull the load up the slope. Back was easy; downhill. Forward is now impossible. Luckily no one is behind me, and I back into a slot in the back row. Now I’ve got to call this in. I’m not going to make my appointment.

Dispatch gives me to the shop and they call a wrecker to winch me out. The shop calls back to tell me the wrecker is two hours out if the highway remains open. The day is shot and I’ve driven 137.5 miles.

I jump out and slither my way across the lot to get a newspaper. About halfway across barely able to stand, let alone walk, an icy finger runs up my spine. The keys I confirmed were in my pocket are still my personal keys. I’ve just made my morning even better – I’ve locked my rig keys in the cab. It’s then that I notice the trucks sitting out on the highway. The State Police have shut it down. The wrecker can’t move.

Six hours, three newspapers and four cups of coffee later, the highway is open and the wrecker arrives. The ice has melted enough I could drive out, but I need him to pop the lock. I spent the entire time in a booth at McDonalds and milling around the truckstop, chiming in to complain about the ice, not letting on that I would rather be in my truck reading or sleeping but for the lack of a key!

Things were looking up for a minute or two. Then I learned the customer won’t take the delivery late. The warehouse store concept calls for deliveries after midnight but not during store hours. Dispatch has me take the load to a drop lot in Hammond. Someone else will take the load in tomorrow night.

Everyone on the highways is still a little skittish but they are moving along. The exit is fairly well groomed. The service road is pretty sloppy. Around the curve, first drive past the International Dealer, the drop lot is slick and white; like the underbelly of a great fish. Ice all the way back between the buildings, beyond the parked trucks – some waiting for Monday, some rusting hulks.

If I don’t pause, don’t hesitate for a split second, I can move over the ice. I see another of our trailers and turn toward it. My forward motion doesn’t even change. There’ll be no turning here. As I coast to the last curve before the fence, there is just enough traction at this speed to go around to the right. Carefully positioning the truck, I back into a hole next to my sister trailer.

I can’t get out from under the trailer. Traction, or lack thereof, still devil’s me. Dolleys are down, king pin unlocked, but my tires just spin. I try taking weight off, putting it back on to no avail. For traction, I decide to pull out and back in a couple feet to the right. There is snow there where no tires have travelled.

Halfway back in the lot, the trailer is not traveling with me! It has followed me out but is lolling side to side on the fifth wheel. When I bumped the trailer to re-lock the kingpin, the lack of traction psyched me. Luckily, the dolleys are still mostly down. If I’d have lost the trailer it would still be standing. I manage to get out from under the trailer but it is in the middle of the yard. Amazingly, the truck slips back under and I back in over the snow.

The snow offers no help – no traction. I’ve spun the drive tires a couple times. I might as well be on a lake Ice Fishing.

Over by the back of one of the warehouses, a skid with a built up crate of 2×4′s and big thick cardboard rest akimbo at the edge of a pile. The long sides are three foot by four foot pieces stapled on. I yank them off and skitter back to the truck. Stuffed under the drive tires, they might offer some grip. My Kingdom for some traction! Of course, my Kingdom is 8 or 10 boxes in my parents basement, mail at my sister’s and a boat that doesn’t float yet.

Easing the clutch out as slow as I can, in a gear just a notch too high to prevent spin, I eye the cardboard in my convex mirrors. Sweet potential savior cardboard, hear my croak; my anguished plea for mercy.

The tires begin to move, is it?!?!? Come on! And Zip!! . . . the cardboard slips under the first drive axle and curls up in front of the second. Like a Cash Register Receipt paper jam – my transaction could not be completed. Plenty of traction on top of the cardboard; absolutely none on the bottom. I call dispatch for my second winch out of the morning.

Same company, same model wrecker, new driver. A wrecker to haul semis is a special beast; one huge animal. He has little trouble on the ice. The wrecker is part crane for trucks in ditches. He backs in front of me, hooks a cable and pulls forward.

The crane part has feet that fold out to stabilize like cranes and overhead lifts do. Rather than folding the feet out flat, he stomps the toes into the ice and pulls the cable taut with a dip of the crane – like a Transformer doing the Macarena.

I’m literally yanked out from under the trailer. He left me in a spot of ice, so there’s a second yank. I crawl under the empty sister trailer but can’t get out. This time he connects the cable and tows me all the way out to the road. I’m back on the lake, but Water Skiing rather than Ice Fishing.

I sign his ticket and get on my way. A glutton for punishment, now I’m chasing the storm into Michigan with an empty trailer. What a week and its only my Tuesday! Two days in, I’ve spent $385 of the company’s money and, for me, I’ve driven less than 150 miles; about $50 before taxes.

The very next day, I made it to Ohio and sat for four hours to get a twenty minute fuel filter change. Things are looking up! It’ll cost you a case a beer to hear that story.

Tags: I swear, On The Road

It was an old mill town in Ohio. Ancient brick factories groaning, leaning against each other on a river; like Samoan Grandmothers beating their laundry on the rocks. I’d been through here before. The main corner in town is the junction of two state highways. Its an old main street with restaurants and boutiques struggling in old storefronts; bleeding on the unfinished hardwood floors. All these old little towns striving to become an antiquing destination; with few succeeding.

There is barely enough room for a semi to make the turn in town. I stopped traffic in all four directions and still would be sitting there if it wasn’t the help of the driver behind me on the CB.

On the north side of town, one of the old brick factories still spews steam as activity buzzes around her skirts. Its a paperboard recycling plant. My trailer is loaded with bales of cardboard boxes from the back of a store. The downside of most of these old places, despite their tragic beauty, is that they were designed in the age of 48′ trailers; sometimes horse wagons. Today we pull 53 footers. You’d be amazed at the heartache caused by another five feet.

I danced my way on to their scale with my big trailer; amusing the other drivers. Most were here for pickups, I had a delivery. Receiving is three outdoor docks in a pit, littered with scrap cardboard and various paper. Trailers jammed with bales of cardboard regurgitate misshapen empty cases from laundry soap or cat food or Italian Tomato Sauce. Swirling about the bales is other trash; store circulars, newspaper, paper towels, etc. The dock looks like the aftermath of a tornado without the scattered mobile homes.

The truck ahead of me backs in but not quite far enough. The receiver honks and waves him further in. These old docks have some plunger thing. I watch as his trailer pushes the plunger like cocking a gun. I can’t see what that does. Litter has cascaded down into the pit making it hard to see the dock. It must have been hard to ‘feel’ it too.

The other truck leaves and I back in. I’ve got a roll door trailer, so I don’t open the door I just back in. After chocking my wheels, I walk around to the hut-like office. It is hard to tell if the office trailer was set on top of a pile of debris or it just collected there. Forklifts buzz around grabbing bales and hustling them around a corner at the base of a huge brick smokestack. While I’m waiting for someone to check my paperwork and unload me, I happened to glance at the trailer. The dock plate is akimbo, halfway up the door trying to slice its way into the trailer! What the hell is that?!?!

Just then a forklift pulls up.

“Hey, I’ve got to fix that obviously,” I say pointing at my trailer door straining against the dockplate. “Hopefully it will open again. Is there something we need to coordinate?” I ask sheepishly never having seen anything like this dock.

The driver on the forklift is midwestern farmer stock; drawn, gaunt and grizzled. Generations of dirt farmers stare back at me from his watery bulging eyes. Impossibly long fingers squirm and slither around the steering wheel. Veins crawl around his arm like ivy on a fallen branch. A tattered work shirt holds the fallen branch arm like the loam of the forest.

“Well,” he starts, in a more back holler drawl than Tom Bodett’s. “You’ll have to pull back out . . . open that door . . . and then back back in,” he states flatly.

Ahhhh . . . it was all me.

Tags: I swear, On The Road