Long Hauling

Dan loved sunshine. He loved to sit at the end of the road in Pismo, overlooking the beach and the ocean and soak in the sunshine. I had given him one of those outdoor, reclining, gravity chairs so that he could relax out there and let the ocean winds cool him off on a warm, sunshiny day.

The problem was that once he started working full time at a trucking job, he had no time to sit in the sunshine. He was always in the cab of his truck going somewhere. He use to love trucking. He loved driving alone with his thoughts, his music and , god forbid, his cell phone. He would blow that thing up talking to people everywhere. Even me. But that was when he had a route that took him from Missoula to Seattle and back. One way on one day. One way on the next. He would spend the night in a motel that the company had reservations at for its drivers.

But this job was a long haul gig. Leave San Luis Obispo for Orange County, then to Los Angeles, then to Orange County again, then to Nevada, over to Sacramento, up to Washington, down to Portland, up to Washington, etc, etc, etc. He slept in his truck and ate at truck stops. He didn't have a chance to make friends or have a social life. The company would push him. He had to argue with the dispatcher to get his mandatory 10 hours of rest. He had to argue for days off.

It made him angry and irritable. All he wanted was a job that would pay the bills, let him go to Camp Nelson and let him lay in the sun. What he was doing wasn't it.

 The last night that I saw him he was eating dinner at my place. Just beans and hotdogs. But he really liked it because it wasn't a truck stop. He had driven the truck to a turn out on the street below ours. I had picked him up there and after he ate, I drove him back to the truck.

He started to get out of the car and he turned to me and said, "Here I go again." I told him to be careful. He just smiled.

He always smiled.