Another Place Episode 24

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Luke and Traveler

Episode Twenty-Four

All I’ve ever wanted to do is drive a truck, an eighteen-wheeler. I have two brothers; Tim is a doctor and Jerris is a lawyer. Both are successful professionals.

My name is Luke Jenson. Like my brothers, I’m a professional, a professional truck driver, and I don’t mind telling you, I’m a good one. I’ve logged over two million accident free miles, and before it’s done, I’ll log a whole lot more.

I could have been a doctor or a lawyer or anything else that a formal education will make you. I think my daddy was surprised, and though he didn’t say so for a longtime, I always knew he was proud that I stuck to my childhood dream of being a trucker. When we were kids, Tim wanted to be a fireman, then a pilot, then a soldier, and Jerris wanted to be a policeman, then a writer and for a while an engineer, but all I’ve ever wanted to be was a truck driver.

The Old Man did everything he could to talk me out of it. He told me about the sacrifices involved, days away from home, hours of waiting, low pay, the list was long.

I asked if it made a difference if a driver owned his own truck and that was the beginning of a new list of reasons not to be a trucker.

He said, “Ownership of your truck is a complication. Ownership gives you a large investment that produces, at best, a minimum return.” He told me all about it and made sure that I understood. He was an expert on the subject. You see, my daddy, Robert Jenson, was a professional truck driver, one of the best to ever go up and down the road.

When I finished high school and still held to my dream of being a truck driver, Daddy finally gave in. The night that I graduated from high school, he told me he would be waiting for me when I got home. I left the graduation party early and headed back to the house. He was waiting for me in the kitchen. He looked up from a cup of coffee and pointed to the chair next to his. “Have a seat, Son. We’ve got a little talking to do.”

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Daddy was a trucker when he was drafted in 1967. Within a week of getting home from Vietnam, my Aunt Elizabeth told me he was back on the road. Daddy and Mother were childhood sweethearts. Just before he had left for the Army, they married. Tim was born in 1969, ten months after Daddy got home from the war and from the Army. Jerris was born in 1970, and I followed in 1971.

Daddy was an over the road trucker, which meant he was only home two or three days a week, but in his days at home, he was more of a husband and a father than most men are in a month.

He wasn’t our friend; he was our father, our teacher, and our mentor. It wasn’t until I started to school, and met some of my friend’s fathers, that I that discovered how lucky I was. My mother was Daddy’s only love, and though they didn’t say much in front of us kids, you could feel their love anytime the two of them were together.

When Daddy was on the road, he called Mother every day, and he always sent flowers and cards. Years later, I asked him about that and he said, “Son, never take anything for granted, especially the ones you love.”

I was twelve years old when Mother got sick. Neither she nor Daddy tried to hide her illness from us. When they had exhausted every medical possibility, they told us what to expect. Mother arranged with daddy’s sister, Elizabeth, a widow, to move in the house and take care of us. Elizabeth’s husband, Gerald, had died in Vietnam, seventeen years earlier, and she hadn’t so much as looked at another man since his death. Once I asked her why she hadn’t remarried, and she told me that no one could take Gerald’s place, and that was the end of the conversation.

Mother died less than six months after the cancer was diagnosed. Though Aunt Elizabeth wasn’t Mother, and she never tried to be, having her with us sure went a long way toward making the shock of losing Mother bearable. Daddy went back on the road a couple of weeks after Mother died. He still called every night and talked to Aunt Elizabeth and each of us. When he was home, he seemed to be the same, except for the occasional moments when his eyes would go to another place, and you knew what he was thinking about.

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Daddy had never given me a reason to believe he would ever support my becoming a truck driver, so I half expected him to try once again to talk me out of it.

I sat down and looked at him. I didn’t say a word. He stared straight in my eyes for a longtime, then he asked, “Son, are you still bound and determined to be a truck driver?”

“Yes sir, driving is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“Luke, you know I’ll send you to college for as long as it takes for you to learn any profession you choose?” He watched my face closely to make sure that I understood.

I did understand, and I didn’t hesitate, “I know that, Daddy, and the only profession I want to learn is truck driving.”

I know now that he had rehearsed the next part, at least in his head. “Luke, if that’s what you want, then I’ll teach you. But, we’re going to do it my way. There are drivers, and there are professional drivers. You are going to be a professional. That means a lot of work, study, and practice. You’re going to be in an apprentice program, and I’m going to be your teacher. The basic program will take at least four years. The advanced program, which will begin immediately after you complete the basic program, will take the rest of your life. You will always do everything I say do, when I say do it, and you’ll do it without comment or question. I’m going to be the professor and you are going to be the student. When I tell you something, it will not be a suggestion and it won’t be up for a vote. That’s the only way the program can work. Can you handle that, Son?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Anything you say, Daddy. I’ll do it!”

He laughed. “That’s easy for you to say now. Just remember it when you get impatient. You won’t drive your first mile for at least a year, and then, only if you’ve done well in your training. It won’t be ‘make work’ either. There’s a lot more to driving than staying between the lines and pulling gears, and you’re going to learn to do it right. Driving professionally requires serious training and a constant state of attention that few people ever give to anything.”

He stood, and I did too. He looked in my eyes, and I held his stare. Finally, he grinned and stuck out his hand. We shook, and he looked at his watch and said, “You better get some sleep then; we pull out at 5 am. We have a load of steel to pick up in Birmingham tomorrow morning, and we have to deliver it tomorrow night in Akron, Ohio.

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