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Zen and the Art of Truck Driving
Apr. 14th, 2018 09:00 pmI make no bones about it, I miss being a truck driver. Not just because it paid the bills, but for deeper reasons. Humans define themselves by their roles. Be it a job, a family standing, or awards garnered. We can't simply be, we need that confirming identity to offer up to others. There are many family names drawn from professions; Miller, Carpenter, Wright, Mason . . . my last name of Berry refers to an old province of France where William of Normandy gathered many followers from. Those knights were granted lands in England's South, which is why you find a lot of Barrys, Berrys, Duberry, and other such names in Devonshire today.
So I was a Driver. I found I loved driving commercially when I got a job with SuperShuttle in 1994. Getting behind the wheel of a seven-passenger van and learning every detail of San Francisco so I could ferry people to and from SFO pushed me hard. I had to learn where every street in our service area was and how to read a map book really fast for the ones I didn't recognize. I had to learn traffic patterns for both freeways and surface streets. And I had to do it all while keeping a professional smile for my passengers.
I loved it. The challenge of keeping up on busy days, handling sudden changes or issues, and working hard enough to get tips motivated me. I even learned to be a tour guide of sorts, letting the visitors coming in for a vacation know what they were seeing as we rolled to their hotels clustered around Fisherman's Wharf. Of course, there were the odd and honestly stupid questions, like the woman who asked: "Do people really live in these buildings?" as we rolled up Larkin St. Yes, she was from a flat state and had never seen a hill before.
Eventually, my health failed me, and I moved into dispatch before leaving the company to heal. It took close to four years, part of that time spent working in the sheer living hell that is retail before I could get behind the wheel again. First with PODS, delivering storage units using a frankly amazing lift system named PODzillia that looked like part of the truck until I fired up its engine and began expanding it like a robot in a bad science-fiction movie. When I was forced to leave that job, I got hired by Lord & Sons, a supplier of construction supplies.
This was the job of my dreams. I had the longest route in terms of mileage. I would start at our warehouse in San Jose and pass through the Livermore Valley, Contra Costa, the Delta, into San Joaquin County, go as far south as Modesto before coming back through Livermore on my way home. Eleven hour days were not uncommon, as were days when I put enough miles on the truck to reach the Mexican border. Most days I came back to the warehouse exhausted, sore, bruised and bleeding from scrapes on my hands, and needing to carry a few . . . um . . . repurposed Gatorade bottles to the restroom for emptying and rinsing.
I thrived on this. Because as much as I might have bitched about changes that forced me to do 50-mile backtracks and clueless salesmen who made impossible promises, I took pride in handling everything in stride. I came to know every state secondary road and bypass in the San Joaquin Valley. On those days when I couldn't make it into work, my replacements were hopelessly lost and missed deliveries and pick-ups. When I had to cover a different route, I made sure I had a plan and executed it.
But aside from the pride of a good day's hard work, and I can drive you up and down Highway 680 and show you the buildings that "my stuff is in" - including the new northbound span of the Benicia Bridge - there's something deeper I miss. When you spend ten hours a day behind the wheel, you get to a point of Zen-like oneness with your truck and the road. I knew truck L1114 like the back of my hand. I got it with 14 miles on the odometer. When I was forced to retire due to health, I had driven the Bitch to the Moon and a quarter of the way back, about 300,000 miles. I knew each sound and reaction. I knew how she turned and braked like no other truck, and we were on the road together, the hours flew by.
I'll probably never feel that connection with a vehicle again, and most people won't understand what I'm talking about, but I get that. Because unlike them, I'm a Driver.
So I was a Driver. I found I loved driving commercially when I got a job with SuperShuttle in 1994. Getting behind the wheel of a seven-passenger van and learning every detail of San Francisco so I could ferry people to and from SFO pushed me hard. I had to learn where every street in our service area was and how to read a map book really fast for the ones I didn't recognize. I had to learn traffic patterns for both freeways and surface streets. And I had to do it all while keeping a professional smile for my passengers.
I loved it. The challenge of keeping up on busy days, handling sudden changes or issues, and working hard enough to get tips motivated me. I even learned to be a tour guide of sorts, letting the visitors coming in for a vacation know what they were seeing as we rolled to their hotels clustered around Fisherman's Wharf. Of course, there were the odd and honestly stupid questions, like the woman who asked: "Do people really live in these buildings?" as we rolled up Larkin St. Yes, she was from a flat state and had never seen a hill before.
Eventually, my health failed me, and I moved into dispatch before leaving the company to heal. It took close to four years, part of that time spent working in the sheer living hell that is retail before I could get behind the wheel again. First with PODS, delivering storage units using a frankly amazing lift system named PODzillia that looked like part of the truck until I fired up its engine and began expanding it like a robot in a bad science-fiction movie. When I was forced to leave that job, I got hired by Lord & Sons, a supplier of construction supplies.
This was the job of my dreams. I had the longest route in terms of mileage. I would start at our warehouse in San Jose and pass through the Livermore Valley, Contra Costa, the Delta, into San Joaquin County, go as far south as Modesto before coming back through Livermore on my way home. Eleven hour days were not uncommon, as were days when I put enough miles on the truck to reach the Mexican border. Most days I came back to the warehouse exhausted, sore, bruised and bleeding from scrapes on my hands, and needing to carry a few . . . um . . . repurposed Gatorade bottles to the restroom for emptying and rinsing.
I thrived on this. Because as much as I might have bitched about changes that forced me to do 50-mile backtracks and clueless salesmen who made impossible promises, I took pride in handling everything in stride. I came to know every state secondary road and bypass in the San Joaquin Valley. On those days when I couldn't make it into work, my replacements were hopelessly lost and missed deliveries and pick-ups. When I had to cover a different route, I made sure I had a plan and executed it.
But aside from the pride of a good day's hard work, and I can drive you up and down Highway 680 and show you the buildings that "my stuff is in" - including the new northbound span of the Benicia Bridge - there's something deeper I miss. When you spend ten hours a day behind the wheel, you get to a point of Zen-like oneness with your truck and the road. I knew truck L1114 like the back of my hand. I got it with 14 miles on the odometer. When I was forced to retire due to health, I had driven the Bitch to the Moon and a quarter of the way back, about 300,000 miles. I knew each sound and reaction. I knew how she turned and braked like no other truck, and we were on the road together, the hours flew by.
I'll probably never feel that connection with a vehicle again, and most people won't understand what I'm talking about, but I get that. Because unlike them, I'm a Driver.
