Truck Drivers and Change

Seems like that is all you hear out here today, are these story telling truck drivers. I admit I have told some of mine own. In the past few weeks, I have been hearing some whoppers. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out when a person is telling you a big one or if it is true. I consider myself, a pretty good judge of character. I can listen to a person talk for a few minutes, and pretty much determine whether or not I am going to continue to communicate with that person or not, or so I thought.

I know you readers are probably thinking, now what the hell is he talking about. Is this going to be another “clique” bashing post? Maybe, like my dad always said, “if the shoe fits, then wear it”. I met some pretty good people over the years, online, and off. I even considered some to be a friend, not a friend that I would do anything for. But, a friend that I could talk to, laugh with, or cry with if need be. But, there is a new kind of person, that growing up here in KY, I never had to deal with.

In KY, I never had met a wannabe before. If somebody told you they did this or they did that for a living, then you pretty much could take it to be truth. Yea, everybody stretches a story a little bit. It is a fact of life, your not human if you have NOT EVER told a little white lie. There is a funny thing about lie’s, I never really thought were true. I mean, when I was a youngster growing up at home with my parents, they would always say, “if you tell one lie you have to tell ten more to cover that one you just told up”. Then if you got caught up in your story/lie, you got your ass beat with whatever was a handy for them to get a hold of.

I came on the scene around here a while back, I befriended a few fellow truck drivers. Just like in high school, you follow people around, you join the crowd so to speak. I knew my driving career was coming to a end, soon. But, I still wanted to be a part of the industry, I wanted to pass on the knowledge that I had learned, and I wanted to be a part of a change.  A change to a career that I so dearly loved. The crowd I was hanging with, picked up on that, and took me in sorta guided me in what I thought was the right direction. I have never done anything like this before, trying to change an industry that doesn’t want to change.

I consider myself a veteran truck driver, as do many. I have been out there for 15 years, I have driven, and pulled, just about any kind of regular equipment, truck or trailer, out there on the road. I have worked for a few company’s, to say the least, probably a lot more than 75% of the drivers I know, maybe more. I had some bumps, and bruises, along the way but, I have survived. My family is not the type that needed every material possession there is on earth. We have never owned a new car, closest I came to a new car, was a car with 24,000 miles on it. I don’t own a house, never will, I have rented, and lived in a lot of places. All due to the fact, I needed to survive, I had to move in order to have a job. We are fairly satisfied with what we have.

This crowd I speak of, acted like the same kind of people that I am. They also wanted change, we worked together bringing change also. I thought, man this group I am with was the greatest anywhere, I thought we could do anything together. I even backed one of them up, when they were attacked for speaking out, by another group of veteran drivers. Yes, you already know who this was, no need in giving them anymore publicity than need be. I lost a lot of following for doing this as well, I knew it, but I didn’t care. I gained a lot more following as well, but it was strange. None of the new following were truck drivers, this is also something new I have never dealt with as a truck driver. As a truck driver, I had always hung out with truck drivers, not suit wearing, proper English speaking, people. I am just a long haired ole country boy.

I started mentioning some thing’s to a couple other friends of mine, I won’t mention their names. That I thought this one person, in the crowd I was hanging with, was wanting to take all the glory for what everybody else was working their tales off for. They looked into this, and they felt the same way. Then of course, the Rivenburg dilemma started, I was a huge supporter of this bill. I would try, and write something about it, but this one person, would call up, and say, no you don’t want it to sound like that, it should be like this. So it went on for a little while, then the problems started, with Let’s get the Rivenburg’s to the Dallas Truck show, you all know the rest of that story, or you can read it here.

My other friends, and I, started seeing big problems, so I decided, it had come time for me to make a change. Well, all of the sudden I was dirt, lower than dirt. I have been called every name in the book and then some. I recently even found out, that I am a “doped up former meth freak“. I have been called a wannabe blogger, a idiot, a nitwit, a knucklehead, and the list goes on. This has spilled over to other websites, and forums. My mother – in – law, has even been drawn into this drama. All of this, just because I wanted change.

© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.