hurricane helene, north carolina, I-40, storm, asheville, highway

“We’re Good People” – For Asheville

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On the evening of September 25th, 2024, I parked at one of my favourite truck stops, the Hot Spot in Inman, South Carolina. I had two aims: get rest and work out. I was ten minutes from my customer in Spartanburg and wanted to get there the next morning, get loaded and get out of the Carolinas. I knew a hurricane was coming and I wanted no part of it. I understood little about the imminent storm, aside from tidbits I read on Facebook links. I figured that as with the majority of storms, the forecasts rarely match the results. So, I’d learn about any devastation soon.

My evening began with a nap, as is typical for me, to slough off the effects of a long day. After waking and eating dinner, I looked on my phone at the Weather Network’s local forecast. It showed intermittent showers coming soon. As I began to stretch and walk outside my truck, light rain began falling. I grabbed my portable pop-up lamp, opened my trailer doors and pulled myself up onto its wooden floor. I started with pushups and jumping jacks and kept an eye on the rain, as I moved to the beat on my headphones. Continue reading →

composite photo of me and my broken arm, from the trucking injury

Suddenly Wrist-less: Anatomy of a Trucking Injury

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Wounded, on the job, far from Canada

Sometime in early December, 2023

If I didn’t mention it, you wouldn’t be privy to the slow typing and the banging of the cast against my laptop. You also wouldn’t know about my constantly tapping the wrong keys on the keyboard and needing to go back every few words and correct my mistakes. You wouldn’t be aware of my need to stop every ten minutes or so because keyboarding with a new cast on is stressful on my lower arm. Persisting through the discomfort results in stress for the entire arm. These things are regular occurrences for me now, as I sloppily navigate my laptop, with my three-week-old broken wrist. Until the last few days, I wasn’t able to do much at all, on the computer or off it.

I’ve only had one very minor workplace injury before. That fingertip laceration was easily repaired by a short trip to the local hospital’s emergency department and some light bandaging. I’ve never broken a bone, even in many years of playing baseball and in about a thousand karate classes, including during some aggressive sparring.

I’ve had childhood scrapes and bruises, but less than most boys my age. I’ve had a few good bruises from being hit by baseballs on various parts of my body. I’ve jammed toes and fingers from working out on the heavy bag. I’ve had severe bursitis in my shoulder, brought on by trying to be cool on the monkey bars in the water park as a 45-year-old. I’ve also had moderate knee discomfort from many hours of driving the truck non-stop. Physiotherapy and well-placed stretching helped overcome that.

Still, no broken bones.

It’s taken a freak situation for me to finally get my first one at the ripe age of 56. It happened on the job and out of the country, more than a full day’s drive away from home. It happened suddenly, in the early morning hours that I hate so much. Continue reading →

dangerous opinions and new information

In My Utterly Useless Opinion…

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I’ve held a lot of opinions in my life, none too far-reaching nor absurd in my estimation. In recent times I’ve grown increasingly mistrustful, and often downright disdainful, of these opinions. It’s not that I don’t have the conviction of my beliefs; quite the opposite actually. I believe wholeheartedly in the things that sustain me: family, friends, and living a clean and honest life. As for most other things, which means just about everything there is to have an opinion on, I prefer to leave myself receptive to new information.

The funny thing about new information is that it often pops up at inconvenient and surprising times, like a sudden hard rain when the forecast said sunny all day. It forces us to confront previously held beliefs, norms, mores and beloved traditions. It contravenes cultures, religion, politics, and societal ebbs and flows. It simply shows up unannounced and thrusts itself upon us. And, despite our best attempts to suppress it, ignore it or challenge it, it doesn’t go away; never has. Continue reading →

latta, south carolina, truck stop, swamp, snakes, gators, bears, boars

Swampy Southern Things

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“There could be gators in there,” said the short round trucker in overalls. “Probably three footers.”

“Oh yeah?” I exclaimed.

Both him and his friend nodded their heads in agreement. The three of us were standing a few short feet from the swampy muck at the back of the truck stop. We had just met after I returned from relieving myself behind my trailer.

I rounded the corner and there they were: two short, oval, middle-aged locals who appeared every bit a stereotype of a southern hillbilly. They were standing next to their flatbed tractor-trailers on this unseasonably warm September evening.

It’s my nature to just start talking. So, I did.

I joked about the possibilities of there being snakes in the swamp, an unruly mixture of disgusting pea green liquid, long grass, garbage and mud. They seemed to be sizing me up for a few short seconds.

The talkative one then pulled out his phone and showed me snapshots of a skinned and mounted python that he’d killed with his shotgun in a town to the nearby south. He mentioned some specific detail about the gun. It meant nothing to me. I tried to look impressed.

Soon came the revelation about gators. The next photo was of a wild boar. They both assured me it was possible to see such a monstrous creature here in the dead of the night. Continue reading →

Evonik Goldschmidt, Hopewell Virginia

Rare Kindness In A World of Wrong Addresses

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Why would Evonik Goldschmidt ever stick out as a customer? It’s not like I was picking up anything of note there. As far as I knew, it was to be another faceless warehouse. This one was in a small town just south of Richmond, Virginia.

EG was my second last stop in a tightly packed four days of deliveries and pickups. So far, I had crammed a lot of driving and freight moving into about 58 hours.

I had begun the whirlwind trip with two deliveries in upper state New York. Then I headed southeast for several drop-offs in the Baltimore-Washington area. Much further south, I unloaded a single pallet in Virginia Beach before burning all the way down to Washington, North Carolina. One big pick up there and I was headed back north into Virginia.

If your head is spinning just thinking about doing all that mad scrambling in three days, you’re right on target.

By the time I hit Wednesday evening (June 15th – my daughter’s birthday, incidentally) I was feeling drained. More importantly, legal-wise, I was running out of service hours for the day and was trying feverishly to get parked, to stay ‘in compliance.’ Personally, I was anxious to get home to a weekend of outdoor concert fun.

EG shouldn’t have been tough to find because it’s a huge factory and warehouse complex with a clear sign, a long wide driveway and prominent gated entrance. It’s the kind of well-marked compound that a communications junkie like me loves.

My arrival ought to have been swift and seamless.

But this is the trucking world after all, and chaos often reigns supreme. So …

Wrong address. Continue reading →

Image of my comping shower bag

The Makeshift Shower Conundrum

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Picture the startling scene

It could be any truck stop or rest area, at about 11pm, on a warm late summer evening. A large and nearly naked man stands beneath his truck’s ajar passenger door. In his hand he holds a spout that trickles water from the droopy bag which hangs above. He moves it quickly over various parts of his head and body, trying for a decent initial soak. He turns the small lever on the plastic spout to the off position and reaches for his container of Nivea Men Shower Gel – the ‘Energy 24 Hour Fresh Effect’ kind – that sits at the edge of the open door. He squeezes a medium amount into one hand, puts the container down, pours some into the other hand, then speedily spreads it over his exposed body, legs and feet. Within a few minutes he reopens the spout and fastidiously washes away all the gel, making sure to leave no skin untreated. Once satisfied with his work, he looks around, twice, to confirm there’s no one watching. Why would they watch, he wonders. He clumsily pushes his free hand down into his quick-dry shorts and feverishly soaps then washes the parts that will forever be unknown to unfamiliar eyes. All before the water in the bag runs out. Continue reading →

Photos from Langley Hall reunion

The Pit And The Montreal Throwback

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February 13, 2021: With the Covid-inspired lockdown still in effect here in Ontario, seven weeks running with no end announced yet, I wanted to go back to a happier time. In recent weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about times when I’ve gotten together with friends to share memories and laughs. I wondered briefly which moments stick out the most and it didn’t take me long to focus on a huge university reunion from just 16 months ago. I started this piece not long after returning from Montreal. Now seemed like a great time to finish it and smile at the thought of better times, then and in the near future.

From Langley Hall To Here

In walked Joe. The ever-elusive Joe. The same wiry, soulful, curly-haired Joe who once lived on next to no money, ate his morning porridge from a borrowed dented pot with a broken-off handle, and made a giant tub of Price Club peanut butter last an entire school year.

With his arrival, on this Saturday mid-afternoon in Montreal (October 12, 2019) – on the 24th floor of Hotel le Cantlie Suites – the moment was finally real. The reunion of the original Pitsters plus friends, from Langley Hall circa 1991, was here.

The other eight of us had already made at least one appearance each and it was a mind-blowing moment as each one joined the gathering: at the hotel, at lunch at Schwartz’s deli, at the Concordia University bookstore. It was like a dream where an important person from your distant past randomly shows up and you wake up saying to yourself “What the hell is Andy doing in my dream?” Continue reading →

Erich running photo

Not My Worst Year Ever; Not Even Close

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A Melancholy Look Back

By the time you read this it will be 2021, or on the utter verge. Finally and mercifully. There are a couple of reasons I haven’t yet written this ode to this truly shitty year. One reason is a true lament: I don’t get much time to write these days. When I do I try to make it count.
Hopefully this will count for something. But the real reason, I say with only some jest, is that there was still time for more awful stuff to happen. As it’s happened nearly every day since early March.

In Canada and the world, far too many people can honestly say that the past 365 days (from March on, specifically) have been the worst ever. I agree wholeheartedly. Excluding those that have lived through war, famine and other atrocities and personal struggles, it’s been the nastiest bugger of a year that many millions of people have lived through or are likely to ever experience.

I know a few folks who have experienced the very worst that COVID-19 has to offer. I think they know who I’m talking about and for what it’s worth, I believe they know that they have my heartfelt sympathy.

Amid all the chaos and turmoil, somehow, almost inexplicably, this hasn’t been my worst year. Far from it. In fact, so far that I can’t even draw vague parallels. In some ways, my 2020 has been a largely uninterrupted extension of my 2019, one of my best years ever. I’ve been reflecting on this paradox for weeks. Continue reading →

Erich workout image 1

Because I Can – It’s That Simple

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The inner voice has a way of motivating

Decision time. It’s 9:30pm now and you thought you’d be stopped by 7:45. It was six degrees Celsius then and now it’s two degrees. You’re a little tired and you still have paperwork to do – not much but enough to make you a little more weary.

I get it. You’ve wanted to get outside to exercise a while ago, while you still felt vibrant and weren’t yawning. Now you have a choice to make: Do I still go for it despite the fact I’m nowhere near 100 percent? Should I do what I can, for as long as I can? Or do I pack it in and hope for a better day tomorrow?

You know that tomorrow might be just as busy and tiring as today was. Meanwhile, you have two hours before you need to sleep. You won’t sleep right now anyway. And you’ll feel much better if you get out there, start slowly and build momentum. You know it’s true. It happens every single damn time.

So, take a few minutes to relax and unwind from your long day of driving. Put those pain-in-the-ass dock workers out of your mind. Forget about all the drivers that cut you off, failed to use their turn signal and drove without their lights on.

Dust your dash if it will make you feel better for tomorrow. Vacuum the floor or your seat if you like. You know you like the cab super clean, and that’s okay. But consider putting the paperwork off until morning.

Done! See how easy that was. Now get your workout clothes out of your duffel bag and put them on. In the meantime, don’t psyche yourself out by thinking. Thinking means second-guessing your choice to get outside and do it. This isn’t about thinking. It’s about preparing and doing.
Continue reading →

joe biden wins election

A Day Of Hope In A Year To Forget

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November 14, 2020

Last Saturday was a spectacular day, amid a year that’s truly sucked like few in recent history. The centrepiece was an outing to Dundas Valley Conservation Area, where we celebrated our niece’s birthday with a nice hike. We stopped several times, to take a good look at Tews Falls and then at the Town of Dundas below us. Then the five of us – including our daughter and our niece’s boyfriend – enjoyed a delicious charcuterie-based lunch. The temperature was an unseasonable 22 degrees Celsius, allowing us to go jacket-free and sit on blankets laid out on the grass.

The hike had barely started when my buddy from work texted me two messages in quick succession: “Biden wins!” and “273.” The first message is self-explanatory while the second shows three more than the number of electoral college votes required to boost Joe Biden from candidate to President-elect of the United States. Four days of highly contentious vote counting had evidently produced a winner.

I was immediately as ecstatic as he was and blurted out the news. We’re both long haul truck drivers who spend two-thirds of each week on the highways and byways of the States. We’ve talked often about our strong dislike – to put it extremely mildly – for Donald Trump. Now we got to share in the revelry of him losing the election. I checked Facebook and more than a few friends took time out of their Saturday afternoon to share their cheer at the news. Continue reading →