To Be Or Not To Be A CDL Driver ? - That is the Question Part 1

Well, let us see, it has been a while since I wrote, but that does not mean I was not busy. I am swamped attempting to see my way to a different path in the career area. I have found myself too often in the same position as I am now, between jobs and contracts. Always letting those that have no say in what I do for income. I did speak of doing the blog as the main thing, but I need to consider it the primary income source. It is not that I don't think I am not a good writer etc. Still, I need the knowledge and the resources to develop what I can do and leverage what I can't do to others that know what to do and how to do it to make it effective.

That said, I am looking at something that I have looked at in the past, but it was not the time nor the place to proceed further; that is what I thought of, and it could have been it was precisely the opposite. But be that as it may, I am looking into getting my CDL and then go it on the road to find out if what I wanted so many years ago, actually when I was in 6th grade, was really my life's calling or just one role then the next day I wanted to be a psychologist. Funny as it may sound.

Of course, this comes with some type of story, and now I am getting to why you are here; thank you for that two-paragraph explanation of how life events have brought me to where I am hopefully going. Okay, so with that bit of rambling, let's take you back to when I was small, around 6 to 10. We had a trailer in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, believe it or not, the lot has many blueberry bushes, so we called it Berg's Blueberry Hill.

This was our vacation spot, or getaway spot, and the place where we had the same family my parents met on their honeymoon had a trailer as well. But we lived in Toledo, and the Poconos at the time to me, being so young, felt like a world away from where we lived. But we made the trip many, many, and many times. There will be other stories of how a painting van went to a conversion van and then back to the painting van, but that will be for another time and another place.

What was I saying? Oh, we are traveling in the conversion van. We converted in all reality and used to have a great time in the back of the Truck. It was our RV, I guess you could say. The table turned into a bed for the girls and my bunk bed in the back. We entertained ourselves with Charlie browns and peanuts on the tape deck and read along with books, listened to music and coloring books, and made things with yarn. Yes, I learned how to make many a pom back then.

While traveling, we would stop at the Truck stops, well it would take the back door to open. Our bags and games would have to be excavated to find my lost shoe or one of my sister's shoes, etc. We would make our way to the restaurant and the facilities. We stopped to eat, stretch our legs, and be restocked with snacks and many things that would cause me to paint the future, but it was for fulfilling that sweet tooth now.

When I was auditing at Con-Way and working the night shift at the freight assembly centers, I relived those times as I stepped off the dock in the middle of the operation to look at the trailers that were loading and the trucks being pulled up and around. The images of the diesel trucks idling, especially at night, with the lights of all sorts and the chrome horns and antennas attached to the mirrors, left me in complete awe. I remember my mom and dad telling us to watch out for trucks coming and going when we would skip in front of them as kids do when they are restless.

That smell of diesel fuel would bring me back to when my dad would take my hand getting out of the van, awaken from slumber while traveling to get up and get something to eat. It seemed as if was always a little chill in the air as I found one sleeve for my jacket and or pullover to protect me from the now colder air.

Then we made it to the commissary; you could say and grab trays and what we wanted and then made our way to the table. The scenes from the vast large windows that showed the traffic moving to and from the rest area were very engrossing. As I write this, I hear someone utilize the Jake Brake with its hard gurgling as they slow down in the distance. That sound, along with the bustle of truckers and the sections that were truckers-only signs and questioning why they get special treatment.

My parents were like, that is what they do for a job; they drive on the road, back then it was a special section along with TVs and showers. There was always a place where those that needed the supplies to run over the road had all these things. Row after row, whatever was needed, well now even more so, but back then, it was all kinds of stuff with chrome and this and that to make your truck cooler in one way or another. My dad and I used to pick up the what-nots and show each other.

Hey Dad, did you see this? Hey, little key, did you see this. At the same time, those truckers would just look at us like we were not even there. It was all old hat to them; we were entertaining ourselves in their domain, as it were. It was all something we don't see and have not seen to us. It differs from today; it needed to be more organized, not all franchised, with stops where everything would be the same. The meals were huge because, as I found out from an s little segment on 60 minutes that Andre Agassi said when they did an expose on him, The best food is at Truck stops because truckers love to eat.

He was right, damn right, but back then, it was various places in big mom and pops stores and restaurants. This was way before the trucking stops were departmentalized with the same here and there. What you find at one, you will find at the next one, and so on, but it was a constant new discovery back then. Yes, we went to every Stuckeys but of course. Lol

So, back to that amazement, that in awareness, mixed with the BJ McKay Show, Smokey and The Bandit, and the stacks, the horn, and the lights that would be adorned the trucks entirely. Intermix that with seeing them go to and from while we made that trek so many times in the mountains, with the trucks going higher at one part of the trip and then the roads being lower. We motioned for the truckers to do their horns. The humming of the downshifting and upshifting sounds, and I was like many kids.

Now, I am on my way to making what I saw as a very cool thing to see, a Mack, Peterbilt, Kenworth, with all those wheels and all that chrome with that power in charge of running that down the road shortly. Will I have to work hard as hell? You betcha. Will it be challenging to do at first, and then make it work for me? You betcha again. Would I never want to worry about that time when someone is behind you as you are working and they say, well, Kevin, we have to let you go because the contract is ending? Absolutely.

Do I want to have the power to determine my own destiny in the sense that what I do will be what I am in control of what I potentially can make? Hell to the yeah! Can I do what I put my mind to doing, no matter the obstacles in my way? Hell to the yeah again. Keep in mind it was only not too long ago I was listening to Cement Trucks come and go as I was living in my rental unit when I had no other place to go. Could it work, not work, do a little of both, sure.

I will give it all and do it the best I can. Effing right!