What Got Me In To Trucking
What is the only difference between a trucker driver story and a fairytale?
A fairytale begins with ‘Once upon a time’ and a truck drivers story starts with ‘You aint gonna believe this shit!’
Yea, I know that is a VERY old joke. I remember it being told to me 20 years ago when I first started driving. But there is a reason I tell the joke now. The other day a driver friend and I were talking and swapping truck driver stories, more like remembering the “good ole’ days”, and he suggested that I should write all these great stories down some place, before I get to old and can’t remember them any more! I thought it was a great idea. Since much time has passed and I can’t be thrown under the jail any more for some of the things I did back then, I thought it might be cool to share the stories with ya’ll. The thing is where do I start! Do I start with going to truck driver school back in 1990, or the first driving job I held, or maybe I should start with how I decided that I wanted to drive a truck. Yes, I think starting at the beginning is best.
It was 1990 and I was confused about many things that was going on in my life at the time. In debt, living in the “system” with my 3 boys, I was a basket case. Looking back I wonder if I should not have been locked up in a little rubber room some place. On the edge of being suicidal and feeling that my boys would be better off without me, I sent them to their Dad. I had just started dating a truck driver that went by the handle ‘Bruiser’. He had been driving about 5 years at the time I met him. I went on the road with him for several months and during that time I got the idea, “Hey, I can do this!” The thought was that I would learn to drive a truck, get out of debt, get my head straightened out, and then get my boys back. As many of you know, that last part didn’t happen. I wont go into all the whys of that, other than to say, that learning to be a truck driver the way I did, the diesel smoke gets in your blood and you can never get it out! It wasn’t that I didn’t want them, I felt they really were better off with me at that time. If you can’t take care of yourself, how can you take care of your kids? By the time I had my head on my shoulders better, I had fallen in love with driving. To come off the road would have meant a massive drop in pay and I felt I would have been right back where I started, living in the welfare system. I didn’t want that for my boys. So I kept on trucking and did my best to see them as much as I could.
I bugged Bruiser to teach me to be a truck driver. He made a comment that sticks with me to this day, “It’s a living, but it’s not a life!” I didn’t understand that in the beginning. It took many years for me to really get what he was saying, but by that time, I was hooked! I remember sitting in the jump seat one day as we were headed south on I75 in Florida. Bruiser was having a hard time getting a bear report (cop report) so he handed the mic to me. “They will come back to a woman before they answer a man.” he said. So I asked for the bear report and got it…..and I got a whole lot more.
Now remember this is 1990, there were not that many women on the road and many men back then thought that women did not belong in a truck as a driver. So along with the bear report, I was treated to a few crude comments. One even called me a bitch and a lot lizard (prostitute). I looked at Bruiser, started handing him the mic and asked him if he was going to take care of that. He looked at me and told me that if I wanted to drive a truck, I should learn to deal with that kind of stuff or take my ass back home. So I keyed up the mic and let that driver have it! Bruiser was a great inspiration and a great teacher, even thought he never put me under the wheel. His pushing me to make sure that driving was what I really wanted to do and teaching me that because I am a woman, I am going to have to work harder than any man out there, is probably why I became as good a driver as I was and lasted as long as I did.
I have had many drivers ask me how I got into truck driving. I tell them that I dated a truck driver once upon a time, went with on the road and got hooked. They ask me if I want to kick his ass now? I always respond with the same answer. “NO! It was a very tough time for me back then. Truck driving saved my life and in that, the guy that got me into driving, saved my life. I owe him!”
I know it hasn’t been perfect, I have made some mistakes along the way and done some things that I am not very proud of, but I would not be who I am today, or where I am today, if not for becoming a truck driver. With your indulgence, I will relate some of the stories I have in my head from 20 years on the road as a female truck driver. I hope that it will help those outside of the industry better understand the people behind the wheel of those big rigs they see going up and down the road. For those that want to get in to trucking, maybe they will have a more informed view of what it really takes to be a truck driver. And for those that have been there and done that, maybe we can swap some stories of the “good ole’ days” before we forget them in our old age!
