Last week, Tara and I went out to dinner with her boss, Jennifer, and Jennifer’s fiancee, Robert. When I learned that he is a long-haul truck driver, I was thrilled. I am so curious about truck drivers and their lifestyle, I could chat with them for hours!
I’ve long had a love/hate relationship with truckers. More hate than love, if I’m being honest. I didn’t have hours, plural, with Robert…but I did have one, and I decided to make the most of it by asking him the most burning question I had.
“Why is it,” I wondered, “That semis always cut me off, switching lanes to pass another vehicle, just as I’m about to pass them…even when I’m the only other car on the road?” This happens to me all the time and it’s infuriating. I asked Robert point blank whether this is something truckers do just to be assholes.
His answer? “Yeah, sometimes.”
I KNEW IT!!
To be fair, there was a lot more to it than just that. Robert talked about forward momentum and what essentially amounted to a physics lesson, how difficult it is for truckers to slow down and let somebody pass them and then having to work their way back up to highway speed while pulling a heavy load. Courtesy goes out the door in those situations, he said, and I can live with that.
I wanted to know so much more. Like whether they still use CBs and speak in that “10-4, good buddy” lingo. Whether C.W. McCall is their rock god. What truck stop food is really like. How often women flash them when they’re passing. Whether kids still pump their arms to get them to honk their horns. What kinds of loads are the best to haul and which are the worst. How fancy their sleeping cabins are. Things like that. But alas, sixty minutes goes by awfully fast. Especially when you’re busy chewing and stuff.
So, today dawned beautiful…
And only got better from there.
I know not all my readers (and worse, family members…don’t get me started) share my political views. Some are more jaded and cynical, others are just bitter. To each their own. I believe in democracy and I believe in Biden. Today, I felt like I could breathe for the first time in four years. What a beautiful feeling. I call for unity, and echo President Biden’s call to “end this uncivil war.” And I’m losing patience with those who don’t.
Politics need not be a raging fire destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war. And, we must reject a culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured. My fellow Americans, we have to be different than this. America has to be better than this. And, I believe America is better than this.
President Joe Biden
Better times are ahead. Hell, better times are already here.
Mark My Words 
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