Truckers

I am so happy truckers are finally getting some recognition. My Dad was always a big fan of Mack Trucks and taught us all how to recognize the different makes and models, so that was a game we played on road trips when we were younger. We tried to see who could guess the make of an 18-wheeler in the oncoming lane first. When “The Dukes of Hazard” was as popular in the 70’s as the Fast and Furious movies are now that glamorize fast cars, I thought BJ and Bear with the Kenworth Truck and a monkey was the coolest combination of all time. I was 8 years old when that show came out, and I wanted a truck and a monkey so bad because of it! Didn’t everybody? Who didn’t spend their childhood standing alongside the road pulling an imaginary air horn with their arm to get the trucks to beep at them and scare them backwards away from the road it was so loud? Especially during parade day at the local carnivals. It’s a wonder I had any friends back then because I had matchbox trucks instead of matchbox cars or dolls, an extended cab Kenworth poster on my wall, and I was always drawing trucks in my notebooks in elementary school instead of paying attention in class of course. Any concert or Nascar Race I went to, I always had to check out the multi-million-dollar trucks lined up in the parking lot because I thought they were drop dead gorgeous. Even then trucks were the silent workers behind the scenes. It really hasn’t translated well though for practical reasons, because only paying attention to trucks and not cars has led to me not be able to recognize different car models and who drives what vehicles. No clue. My family would ask who I was waving to, and I’d say, “Wasn’t that Sue’s car?” They’d look at me like I had lost my mind and say, “No Mom. What? That wasn’t even close to her car.” Years ago we had witnessed the tail end of an attempted purse snatching in the Viewmont Mall parking lot, and the police asked my sister, Russ and me what kind of car the bandit couple was driving. I said it was white…had 4 wheels. That was the extent of my knowledge and expertise. Russ, on the other hand, was basically Marisa Tomei on the witness stand in “My Cousin Vinny” because he was able to tell them the year, make and model with the brief glance we had at the vehicle. So the police left me with my 3 kids, plus my sister’s 2, so that Russ and my sister could go with the police cruiser to identify the suspects’ vehicle a fellow officer just detained. Apparently my observational skills were hurting their case. If the purse nabbers were driving a Freightliner, I could’ve been helpful. I’d recognize my friends’ trucks too if they could just be driving around in Peterbilts or Internationals. Is that too much to ask? So to see the behind the scenes, hard working truckers hailed as heroes now just makes me so happy, it’s so well deserved. I’ve always been a fan! Thank you and keep on truckin’!