Another Place Episode 30

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Luke and Traveler

Episode Thirty

We left Toledo late Saturday afternoon, heading for an auto assembly plant in Tennessee with a load of automobile manifolds. Since we couldn’t unload until Monday morning, there was plenty of time to leave the interstates and head south on the old highways. I looked forward to seeing the country for a change.

We pulled into a Kentucky truck stop at eight, Sunday morning, ate breakfast, and slept until the middle of the afternoon. Then we went for a long run. While I showered and shaved in the truck stop, Traveler went back to sleep in the truck. It was midafternoon when I put the rig back on the road.

Traveler was still sound asleep in the sleeper box. I was listening to the latest Bob Seger CD. Traveler prefers Pavarotti, but when he’s asleep, I play Seger.

About an hour before total dark, we hit the storm. The lightning, rain, and wind were straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I began to regret my decision to leave the interstates, but there was nothing I could do at that moment except go on.

I hadn’t seen another vehicle in almost half an hour, when I pulled up at a four-way stop, fifty miles south of the Tennessee-Kentucky border. I reached for the map thinking I would look for the shortest route back to Interstate 65. Before I could unfold it, lightning split a tall pine tree about a hundred feet beyond the intersection, just off the left shoulder of the highway.

The glare of the strike blinded me temporarily. I shook my head to clear my vision, and I heard Traveler growl, low, and deep in his throat. I automatically said, “Easy, Traveler, it was just lightning.” He hushed but I could feel his tension. I began to turn in the seat to look at him. I had only swung halfway around, when I stopped. My eyes locked on the passenger door. It was opening.

In all of my years and miles of truck driving, I had never had this happen. I instantly thought, ‘Pull Off! Pull off, now!’ I almost engaged the clutch, stopped, thinking that if I began moving, whoever was opening the door would slip and fall under the drive wheels of the tractor.

For the two seconds that it took for it to open all the way, I just gazed at the door. A black, soggy, ten-gallon hat, mounted over a long brown raincoat climbed into the cab, as if it had done it a thousand times before. As I stared, the hat lifted and I saw a lean brown face built around a prominent nose, pale, intense, blue eyes and full lips under a black mustache that curled down at the ends.

My God, I thought, it's Jesse James! The hat dripped, the storm raged, lightning hit nearby again, not as close as the last strike, and ‘Jessie’ looked at me, smiled, and said, “Howdy.”

I heard Traveler whine and then begin to wag his tail so violently it beat against the side of the sleeper box.

Great, I thought, a guy breaks into my truck and my dog falls in love with him.

I smiled a little weakly and said, “Howdy.”

He grinned at me again, as if it were normal to open the door of someone’s truck at a stop sign, in the middle of a storm, and crawl in like you belonged.

“Bad night to be out ain’t it?” He asked.

That broke the spell. I said, “Look, Mister, I don’t know who you are…or even who you think you are, but you can’t just climb into my truck and start talking about the weather. You better tell me what you want, and you better be quick about it.”

His grin got even bigger. He held out his hand. I let it hang there. He made no attempt to pull it back. “My name’s Rick Parker. My brother, sister and I own a farm about half-mile down the road.”

“My name’s Luke Jenson.” I nodded my head towards the sleeper box, “That’s my partner, Traveler.”

He said, “Hello, Traveler,” which prompted more tail wagging. Deciding that he wasn’t a threat, I shook his hand. Water sprayed over the console. “Oops, sorry, I didn’t realize I was that wet,” he exclaimed.

“That’s all right. Do you need a ride home? Did you run out of gas or have a flat tire?”

He shook his head, spraying me and Traveler in the process, “No, it’s nothing like that. In fact, it’s nothing like you’ve ever heard before or can even imagine. We need you and your truck to do a job. It shouldn’t take more than few hours, and we’ll pay you.”

I was instantly back on the defensive. “Look, Rick. This isn’t the way to go about hiring a rig. I already have a load on, and you need to know that it isn’t worth high-jacking, unless you just have a market for automobile manifolds.”

This time he held up both hands to stop me, “Look, Luke, I don’t blame you for being suspicious. I would be if I were you. But, I’m going to ask you to trust me for a few minutes. What I have to tell you will be unbelievable, but it’s all true. We can’t talk about it here, in the middle of the highway. Turn right and let’s go to the house. We can talk on the way, and then I’m going to show you something that you’ve never seen before.”

I thought about what he said. Rick was right, I knew I wouldn’t believe his story, and I hadn’t even heard it yet, but I figured the best plan would be to go along with him, at least until I knew what I was up against. I engaged the clutch and turned right onto a narrow farm to market road.

I made a mental note never to begin another trip until I locked and checked both doors. I got the truck up to eighth gear and forty-five miles an hour, before I looked over at my uninvited guest. “Okay, Rick, it’s time to explain.”

Instead of explaining, he leaned towards the windshield, peered through the rain, and said, “Luke, the turn is just ahead on the right. Slow down or you’re going to miss it. It’s a wide gravel drive. There’s plenty of room coming off the highway, but it narrows quick before it goes through a cattle gap. THERE! Do you see it?”

I geared down and made the turn onto a well-kept gravel drive, lined on both sides with a gleaming white wooden fence. We passed through the cattle gap and drove about two hundred yards through heavy woods. We came out of the woods and passed through what I guessed was a hay field, probably twenty-five acres or more, though it was impossible to tell for sure in the storm and the early evening gloom. On the far edge of the field, through a stand of trees, on top of a slight rise, I saw flashes of light and guessed it was the farmhouse. When we topped the low hill, Rick said, “Go to the right at the fork and head for the barn.”

The place was impressive. A large red barn dominated the right side of the hill. Just like old, McDonald’s place, I thought. Beside the barn was a long, low, metal building. It had six bays. Equipment maintenance and storage, I guessed.

There was more than enough room to turn my rig around in front of the barn. Rick pointed toward the left side of the barn. When you make the swing you’ll see a concrete pad. Back your trailer over it and we can dolly down on the pad. That’s what it's there for.”

The headlights picked out the pad as I swung through the turn. I backed up and stopped with the dollies centered over the pad. I shut down and turned to Rick, “Look, before I unhook, I’m going to have to know what’s going on here.”

“That’s fair. Come on up to the house and meet my family and…and a new friend. We’ll tell you what’s going on.”

I pointed to the sleeper, “What about Traveler?”

“Bring him. As long as he minds his manners and doesn’t bite anyone, he’s more than welcome.” Traveler barked.

I climbed out of the cab with Traveler hard on my heels. Rick came down the passenger side, and we started walking up the well-used path toward a white, rambling, well-maintained, two-story farmhouse.

The rain had stopped for the moment. A fine mist was blowing gently in a light breeze. It caught the light from the house and surrounded it in gold dust.

********

We walked up two steps onto a small open back porch. Rick took off his raincoat and hat, and hung them on a hook next to other hooks which already held raincoats and hats. Neat folks, I thought as Rick opened the door.

We entered a warm, homey kitchen, lined with cabinets. At the center of the large, well-used room was a massive butcher block work table. I noticed that the half-chopped ingredients, for what appeared to be a stew, were still on the block. Beyond the work table, was a huge oak dining table with an old fashioned cut-glass chandelier suspended over its center.

Two men, and the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, sat at the table. The man on the right and the damp, beauty queen, were clearly Rick’s brother and sister. The man at the head of the table, facing us, wasn’t part of the family.

He was average height with a slender build, wearing some sort of one-piece, gray overall outfit. Above the left breast pocket of the overalls were the initials, ASA and a logo that seemed vaguely familiar.

He had blond hair and a fair complexion. His blue eyes were clear and intense. He had been talking to Andy and Lois, but the conversation stopped when we came into the kitchen. Obviously, they were waiting for us to join them.

Rick touched my shoulder lightly and pointed to the table and two empty chairs that I assumed were for the two of us. Traveler whined and crossed the room in a couple of bounds, going directly to the man at the head of the table. Before I could open my mouth to stop him, he had both feet in the man’s lap and was licking his face like they were old friends.

Rick and I moved toward the table. I called to Traveler, “Sit!” He obeyed, reluctantly, sitting at the feet of the man who had been the object of his affection. The man took his gaze off Traveler, looked at me, and smiled.

Rick motioned to the man on the right. “Luke, this is my brother, Andy. Andy, this is Luke Jenson.”

Andy stood and shook my hand, “Good to meet you, Luke. Sorry it had to be like this.” I could tell Andy was older than Rick, but other than the slight age difference, they could have been identical twins.

Andy pointed to the woman sitting beside him and said, “This is our ‘little’ sister, Lois.”

Lois pushed her chair back and stood…and stood, and stood. She must be six feet tall, I thought. She reached across the table for my hand, which I had temporarily forgotten to raise. Dark hair hung in long wet curls framing her beautiful face. Her full lips, petite nose and eyes so blue and deep I would have fallen into them, had she not broken the spell with a laugh that won my heart in an instant. I almost didn’t hear her say, “I suppose to these two rednecks, I will always be a little girl.”

I took her hand awkwardly and shook it carefully to insure I didn’t break anything. I didn’t trust my voice to say anything, so I just nodded, which drew an even bigger smile from her. We turned toward the third person at the table. He stood slowly, as if he weren’t sure what to say or do.

He looked at me and grinned almost shyly. Rick said, “Luke, this is Charlie Evans. Charlie is the reason you’re here. I’ll let him tell you the story.”

Charlie took my hand in a surprisingly firm grip. I noticed that his hair was wet, but unlike the Parkers, his clothes were dry. I looked at the overalls closely. They had a metallic sheen, probably waterproof, I thought. Charlie seemed to read my mind, “Rick, Andy, and Lois could have used some of my overalls. You’re right, they are waterproof, and nearly indestructible also.”

I blurted out, “Where can I get a pair of those?”

Everyone laughed. Traveler barked. It seemed that everyone was in on a secret except me. I looked at Rick, “I think it’s time that somebody told me what’s going on.”

Rick smiled and motioned to a chair, “Have a seat, and we’ll tell you everything we know. Charlie can fill in the gaps.”

As Rick and I took our places at the table one, maybe two, jets flew low over the house. We looked toward the ceiling, and Traveler growled.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place Episode 29

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Luke and Traveler

Episode Twenty-Nine

Parkers have farmed their six hundred acres in central Tennessee for more than a hundred and fifty years. The farm has passed from generation to generation, beginning as a grant to Thaddeus Parker, signed by Andrew Jackson in 1834, down to the current crop of Parkers, Andy, Rick, and Lois.

The Parkers are a tall, lean, handsome clan. Even the women are strong and tall. Six-foot-tall women are not unusual in the Parker lineage, though they appear average beside their six-and-a-half-foot tall male relatives. Other common family traits include, black hair, blue eyes, and a gaze solidly anchored to the earth they love and tend.

Andy, Rick and Lois are clearly Parkers. Clad in period clothing, they could have had their picture taken and placed beside those of their ancestors, hanging above the mantle in the old farmhouse, and no one who saw the picture would have suspected that generations separated them.

Rick and Andy top the six-foot-five mark by a quarter of an inch. Their “little sister,” Lois, touches the mark at exactly six feet. If her height doesn’t get attention, her beauty never fails to, though she gives it no regard. She holds other personal qualities in much higher esteem, qualities such as integrity, courage, and strength; traits she has in common with her bothers and her ancestors.

“The Parker Kids” have owned and operated the farm for more than eight years. They took it over the day the commuter plane that was bringing their parents’ home from their first trip out of Tennessee, flew into a fog covered mountain just north of Knoxville. Neighbors said they would never be able to make it on their own. Distant relatives even tried legal action to gain control of the farm. However, the kids - ranging in age from twenty-one to seventeen with Andy being the oldest, Lois the “baby,” and Rick the middle child - weathered every storm. The farm became their lives, and they were totally committed to it.

These days the farm is more prosperous than ever and the Parkers’s could have eased off some, but that never crossed their minds. Their work is their life.

Lois once told a friend, who suggested that she begin dating some of the local boys, “I can’t do that. I believe in love at first sight.”

Her frustrated friend retorted, “Lois, it doesn’t matter if you believe in love at first sight or not; you never see anyone except your brothers and the County Agent. You have to see someone, to fall in love.”

The Parkers do all the work on the farm themselves, though they could easily afford to hire farmhands. The County Agent says the Parker Farm is the best he’s ever seen, and he continually tries to persuade them to enter contests, or become the subject of this or that study or magazine article. They steadfastly refused, saying it is a waste of their time.

********

The storm swept in from the west and engulfed the farm just a few minutes before nightfall. Andy and Rick were in the kitchen beginning supper. Lois was in the equipment shed servicing the newest tractor when the storm hit. She never enjoyed cooking and refused to do more than her share of the “house stuff,” just because she was a woman. Rick and Andy understood and never thought that it should be any other way. The Parker kids considered themselves equals, Andy’s age didn’t give him an advantage any more than Lois’ gender put her at a disadvantage.

Lois poured the last quart of oil into the John Deere and replaced the oil filler cap. She closed the hood and stepped back to admire the tractor, thinking how much her Daddy would have loved it. She was standing there, daydreaming a bit, when a flash of lightning lit the equipment shed like it was high noon. The boom of thunder almost deafened her, and it instantly ended her daydream.

She stopped at the door and tucked her hair under the hood of her sweatshirt, stalling for time before making the dash across the yard to the house. Finally, she took a deep breath, held it, and jumped out into the driving rain. She took two long strides toward the house and stopped like she had run into a wall. Thoughts of the storm were gone. Sailing over the yard, just under the low, fast moving storm, was a strange looking aircraft. It seemed as big as their house, and it was only a few feet above its roof. It was wobbling and appeared on the verge of falling from the sky. It was so low; its metallic skin reflected the light from the house and yard back on to the trees and grass as it passed over.

The airplane silently fought its battle to stay in the air. Around its outermost edges was a row of multicolored lights that were flickering, from washed out yellow to bright white. Clearly, it was in big trouble.

It flew over the yard and out of sight behind a tall oak tree beside the barn. As soon as it was out of sight, Lois sprang forward. As she did so, she finally remembered to breathe. She ran to a point just short of the back porch and stopped there in the driving rain, watching as the aircraft disappeared behind a row of trees on the far side of the cornfield. She felt, more than heard, a thud, and knew the plane had gone down in their hayfield.

She took the kitchen door almost off the hinges. Andy and Rick stared at her. There was a long moment before she could talk. Time shifted into slow motion. The loudest sound in the kitchen was the sound of rainwater dripping from Lois’ soaked sweatshirt.

Time returned to normal when she screamed, “Let’s Go! NOW! A plane just went down in the hayfield!”

She didn’t wait for their response. Instead, she turned and ran back into the storm, disappearing toward their pickup truck parked beside the house.

*********

Neither Rick nor Andy considered questioning their sister. They knew her too well for that. They sprang for the door in pursuit. Despite their quick reactions, Lois had already started the pickup and moved it to the porch steps when they got outside.

The windshield wipers beat hopelessly at the storm, as the pickup slewed out of the yard, with the three Parkers wedged in the cab, all staring wild-eyed into the wall of rain that separated them from the hayfield.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place Episode 28

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Ben Cavanaugh

Episode Twenty-Eight

Having been the commander of the Greyhounds for almost thirty years I know the personnel and the installations of all military and most civilian airports in the southeast. That includes NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama and the FAA Flight Service Stations in Nashville, Atlanta, Birmingham, and New Orleans.

******

Nashville Flight Service Station is one of fifty-eight flight service stations in the contiguous forty-eight states of the United States. The heart of the Nashville Flight Service Center is a large, dark, room, in a single story, concrete block building that crouches in an obscure corner just inside the perimeter fence of Nashville International Airport. The control center is a large, featureless room, lit mainly by the green glow of many radar screens. It houses the air traffic controllers who direct air traffic over the area known as Nashville Air.

A year ago, on a quiet Sunday evening, the room was as relaxed as it could ever be. The decrease in the normal stress level was in direct proportion to Sunday’s lower number of scheduled flights. On this particular Sunday afternoon, the traffic was even lighter than usual because severe thunderstorms blanketed the area, discouraging many general aviation flights. The controllers were handling only a few scheduled airliners, which were flying above the storm cells that blanketed the area. However, in the life of air traffic controllers, relaxation is tenuous at best, and in an instant, it disappeared for them all.

*********

Jim Geeson, a senior controller, suddenly shouted, “My God! What is that?” His training and years of experience quickly overrode his panic and confusion. He keyed his radio transmitter and calmly said:

“Delta 421, turn right to heading 065, you have an unidentified aircraft descending on top of you from…from…69,000 feet. TURN NOW CAPTAIN!”

The Delta Captain complied without hesitation, and then asked, “Nashville Air, did you say from 69,000 feet?”

“That is correct, Captain. We are trying to contact the aircraft. You are clear now. Maintain your present heading and report any visual contact with the aircraft.”

Alerted by Geeson’s first exclamation, Richard Temple, Shift Supervisor, moved to the empty position next to the controller, and was calling the unidentified aircraft on every published military and civilian frequency. There was no response.

Geeson watched as the unidentified aircraft moved rapidly through 50,000 then 40,000 feet. Though it was losing altitude at an alarming rate, both Geeson and Temple knew, from its subtle heading changes, that it was an aircraft and not a meteor or satellite falling out of orbit.

On his radar screen, Geeson saw the aircraft descend through 35,000 feet when Delta 421 radioed, “Nashville Air, Delta 421, the aircraft just passed off our nose at two o’clock. We still have it in sight. I’ve never seen a plane like it. The nearest I know of would be the space shuttle, except this one has no windscreen or windows, and it has hundreds, check that, thousands of lights that are flashing erratically like it’s experiencing a power failure.”

Geeson turned to Temple, “Richard, I think it’s time to call NASA. Either we have one of their birds, and it’s in trouble; or we have a UFO. In either case, they are the investigating agency.”

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place Episode 27

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Luke and Traveler

Episode Twenty-Seven

A year later, James Wilkerson, my CPA, told me that my gross income was down almost twenty percent. Though my business was profitable, it wasn’t as profitable as it has been when Daddy and I were running together. Then he suggested that I get a new partner, or at least hire a co-driver. I ignored him. A month or so after that, he suggested it again. That time I explained to him that I had a partner, whose name was on the door of the truck, and I didn’t need another one. I also told him I did not want anyone else in my truck. As an afterthought, I suggested to him that maybe what I needed was a new CPA. He and I have been friends long enough for him to know that was the end of the conversation.

………

The day after that conversation, I picked up a load of produce just south of Chattanooga. I was late loading and concerned that I wouldn’t make my unloading time slot in Cleveland. When I started up Mount Eagle, the toughest pull east of the Mississippi River, I was working hard to stay in the moment, as well as working hard to preserve speed on the sharp incline. I was down to thirty miles an hour and struggling to hold that, when I saw him, a big, black dog, gaunt as a shadow, moving painfully up the mountain; instantly, I was totally present.

The dog, a German Shepherd by the look of him, was oblivious to the traffic that was whizzing past only a few feet away from him. He was staring straight ahead as he moved relentlessly upward. I shook my head as I passed him. I love animals, especially dogs. It tears me up to see one abused, or worse, abandoned. However, after years of driving, I had seen many of them, and I knew I couldn’t help them all. I surprised myself when I pulled the rig off on the shoulder, less than a third of the way to the top of Mount Eagle. There couldn’t be a worse place to stop a loaded tractor-trailer, and I was doing it to help a dog. I felt like two different people, one going against all logic, trying to help a dog that looked to be beyond help, and the other watching in astonishment.

The part of me watching disappeared as I locked the rig down in a swirl of dust, jumped from the cab, and ran back toward the place where I had last seen him. When I got to the end of the trailer, I saw him coming toward me. He was still fifty feet away. I stopped and stared. He was so exhausted, he was weaving slightly, and I was afraid that he might stagger over into the passing traffic. His eyes, unfocused, stared blindly ahead.

I stood in his path not knowing what to expect. He walked into my legs without seeing me. The impact staggered him. I caught him as he was falling over. I picked him up easily, amazed at how light he was. He couldn’t have weighed much more than forty pounds. I guessed that in a healthy state he would easily go over seventy, maybe even eighty pounds. He closed his eyes, as I carried him back to the tractor, and I felt him go limp. His head swung loose over my arm, and I thought he was dead.

I laid him gently on the passenger seat. When I looked at the wasted body, I saw the ribs lift once, then again, as he breathed fitfully. I thought, Boy, as long as you want to live, I’m going to see that you have the opportunity.

I cranked the truck and managed to make the top of the mountain. At the Rocky Top Truck Stop on the summit of Mount Eagle, I stopped. Standing in a phone-booth, I leafed through the small telephone directory until I found what I was looking for; a veterinarian, specifically, Rocky Top Animal Hospital. I dialed the emergency after hours number.

A woman answered on the second ring. Halfway through my story she said, “Just a minute, sir.” I heard the sound of her covering the receiver and despite that I her shout… FRANK! It's for you.”

Thirty seconds later a deep voice said, “What can I do for you?”

I told the voice, which I assumed was Frank’s, who I was and why I was calling.

“Happens all the time around here,” he said. “I’ll never understand how people can put their dogs out and just leave them, but they do. Look, meet me at the clinic, and I’ll take a look at him.” He told me how to find his office and abruptly hung up.

Thirty minutes later, after silently examining the dog, Frank shook his head and said, “Luke, I don’t know what’s keeping this one alive. It looks like it has been a month since he has eaten. I’m going to be honest with you; the odds of him making it aren’t good, and even if he does, I’m not sure he’ll ever recover emotionally. He could be a healthy basket case, if you know what I mean.”

“Doc, I had a dog like that once,” I said. “He eventually became normal, or at least almost normal. I’m willing to see that this one has a chance. You do what it takes to bring him back physically, and if that works out, I’ll see what I can do about the other.”

Frank looked at me and smiled, “It's your money. If that’s how you want to spend it, it's fine with me.”

I looked at the wasted body lying on the stainless steel examining table. Every shallow breath was a major effort, and, after every one, I held my breath until I was sure there would be another one.

Finally, I said, “I’m sure. Don’t spare anything. I’ll be back through a week from today. Here’s two hundred dollars. Will that cover your charges until then?” Too choked up to say anything else, I dropped my head and examined my boots.

Frank pretended not to notice my discomfort as he stuffed the two one hundred dollar bills into his jeans, and said, “This will be more than enough.” Then he added, “Luke, I’ll do my best…but don’t get your hopes up.”

I thought about that dog nonstop for the next three days. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, even when I tried. Finally, late on the afternoon of the third day after I’d left him with Frank, I pulled into a rest area near Lansing, Michigan and ran for the bank of public telephones like a lovesick teenager. It took a few minutes for his assistant to find Frank. I shifted from one foot to another as I waited. I was afraid to know, but more afraid not to know. Finally, I heard, “Hello, Luke. Where are you?”

In what probably sounded like one word, I blurted out, “Hi, Doc. I’m in Michigan. How’s my dog? How’s he doing, Doc?”

The answer came quickly. “You can stop worrying, Luke. I’ve never seen anything like that dog’s recovery and I’ve been in this business for over thirty years. I stayed with him for about an hour after you left. I gave him liquids and glucose intravenously, and then I left him about like you last saw him, unconscious and attached to an IV.” He paused then said softly, “I expected to find him dead when I came in the next morning. Instead, as I opened the front door, I heard all hell breaking loose in the back. That dog of yours had pulled the IV out of his leg and was standing on the table barking as if it was the end of the world. Now he’s eating me out of house and home. You are going to need a lot of money to bail this guy out.” He laughed and hung up.

I don’t think my feet touched the ground as I walked back to the truck. I even laughed out loud a couple of times. That stopped some tourists in their tracks. They probably still tell stories about the drunken trucker they saw at a rest area in Michigan.

Even though he was totally out of it when I picked him up, I swear that dog recognized my voice as soon as I walked into the clinic and asked about him. I heard a sharp bark from the back of the clinic, and somehow I knew it was my dog. One of the aides brought him to the counter. It was difficult to tell who was walking whom, as the big dog strained against the leash. He came directly to me, and, before I could stop him, he rose on his hind legs, laid both front paws on my shoulders, looked in my eyes, and licked my mouth.

I laughed and wiped my sleeve across my face, pushing him down at the same time. I looked at him. It was hard to believe it was the same dog I’d brought in a little over a week before. He still had a lot of weight to regain, but he was well on the way. I guessed he was over well over fifty pounds, and I saw he was a lot bigger than I had originally thought. I’m a little over six feet two inches tall. Standing on his hind legs, he had looked right in my eyes.

“Now what am I going to do with a big hardheaded dog like you?” I asked him.

He looked at me and barked loud enough to rouse some of the other “patients” in the back. He started to repeat his face-licking move. I looked at him and said, “SIT!” and he immediately sat down.

Just then, Frank came out of one of the examining rooms. He looked at the dog and grinned, and then we shook hands. “We just discovered that he’s well trained. In fact, he is about the best trained dog I’ve ever seen.” The big dog stared at him while he talked. It seemed that he knew Frank was talking about him.

“You sure did a great job with him, Frank. If you’ll get my bill ready, I’ll get him out of your hair.”

Frank reached in his jeans pocket, pulled out two crumpled one hundred dollar bills and handed them to me. “There isn’t any charge, Luke. It’s been fun watching him get well. All I have invested is some time, a little medicine, and a ton of food. It was worth that and a whole lot more to me.”

I tried to refuse the money, but Frank had obviously made up his mind, and there was nothing I could do to change it. As the dog and I walked out of the door, Frank said, “There is one favor I would appreciate.”

“Name it and it’s yours,” I said.

Frank hesitated, and then asked, “Do you get through Rocky Top often?”

“Usually once a month, sometimes more,” I said. “Occasionally I haul six or seven weeks straight on the west coast, that’s the longest I’m ever away from home.”

Frank grinned like a ten-year-old, “Great, then you can bring him back for visits now and then.”

I laughed, “Frank, you’re a vet. You see a hundred dogs every day.”

“That’s right and I love them all, but this dog is one of a kind, and I would like to see him occasionally, just to remind me how special he is.”

“I’ll do better than that, Frank. How about being his vet? Whatever he needs, you take care of it?”

Before Frank could answer, the dog barked his approval.

We both laughed and Frank said, “Well, I guess that settles it.”

********

Daddy always said that I was a “riding fool,” usually adding, “Luke, you’d rather ride than eat.” He should have met the dog. I have never known a man, woman, child or animal who liked to ride any more than that dog. I guess I knew when I walked into Frank’s office, the dog was going to be my new partner; it just took a while for me to admit it. First, I had to put myself through all the arguments against having a big dog in a truck twenty-four hours a day. ‘He’ll jump out. He’ll bite somebody. He’ll tear up the truck. He may turn on you someday. If he isn’t housebroken, you will have big problem.’

I ran all of that and more through my mind for a few days. The dog quickly disproved every reason I came up with not to keep him. He obeyed every command instantly. He loved people. He had as much respect for the truck as I did, and he was every bit as housebroken as I am.

I realized early on the dog did something far more valuable than keep me company. He reminded me of the Old Man’s lessons about being in the moment, paying attention, getting in touch with my knowing, trusting it, and following it without hesitation. The dog was all of those lessons rolled up in a single 85-pound package, his full healthy weight. He was never out of the moment. Attention was what he was about. Even when I thought he was asleep, he was paying attention. He had a direct connection to knowing, and he trusted it, followed it, and never hesitated. The dog was both a teacher and an example.

I held off naming him until I knew he was going to make it as a trucker. After a week or so, he had put all of my doubts to rest, and we began the name search. We discussed it for hours. I would throw out a name and he would veto it with a bark or growl or simply by just ignoring me.

“Blackie.”

“Growl.”

“Prince.”

“Growl.”

“Big Boy.”

“Vicious bark.”

“Tiny.”

He rolled his eyes, sighed and went to sleep.

One afternoon, we were southbound out of Denver. He had his head out the passenger window, squinting into the sixty-mile-per-hour wind. I looked at him and it came to me, Traveler! I ran the name around in my mind for a minute and then I recalled that Traveler was Robert E. Lee’s horse. The General’s Traveler was a magnificent, legendary animal. Men who served with him swore that they could recognize the General at great distances because of Traveler. Unlike other horses, the big, gray gelding never turned his head from the direction in which he was traveling, no matter what was happening around him, be it noise, confusion, gunfire, or cannon roar. Traveler always looked and moved straight ahead, just like the dog the afternoon I found him going up Mount Eagle.

I turned toward the dog, and in a voice I knew he would barely hear above the wind I said, “Traveler…”

The response was instantaneous. He pulled his head back into the cab and turned toward me. I swear it looked like he was grinning, almost as if to say, “Well, it’s about time.”

He barked, wagged his tail, and licked my arm.

“Okay, Traveler it is.”

*********

I talk to Traveler about everything, and he understands every word. When I talk, he looks at me. Sometimes he cocks his head to one side. Sometimes he wags his tail. Sometimes he growls. No matter what he does, it’s always right for the conversation. Next to Daddy, Traveler is the best partner I could imagine.

**********

We covered many miles in our first months together. We worked and we played. We had ordinary runs and few not so ordinary ones. Then there was the run that was the ride of a lifetime, the one that changed everything.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place Episode 26

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Luke and Traveler

Episode Twenty-Six

That was the beginning of my education as a professional driver. He taught me how to be present all the time. He said, “There are no accidents. Traffic, weather, and road conditions are your life, and, like all of life, they are never stationary; they are continuously changing. Life isn’t an event that you watch when you want to watch and leave when you’re bored. Life is like an ever flowing river. If you are in the moment, you flow with life, so you’re never surprised by it, and you aren’t bored or frightened by it either. If you allow the conversation in your head, or a daydream about the future, or something that happened in the past, to take your attention away from the moment, you’re no longer aware of traffic, weather, and road conditions, because you are no longer in the moment with them. You are out of the flow, and the flow will drown you, because you have a truck in it, but your attention isn’t present. When that happens, we call the results an accident, but it isn’t an accident.”

It was a few minutes before he said anything else. I waited. “I’m going to share one more lesson, with you and then we are going to ride a while in silence. I’m not used to all of this talking.” He laughed as he added, “Even though I’m the one doing almost all of it.” Then he said, “Write this one down, Luke, it will give you a better idea of what Don Juan meant when he said that attention was man’s greatest gift. You are your attention. You go where it goes, and you are the object of its focus.”

Though he never took his eyes off the road when he talked, he must have sensed that I was about to ask a question, because he held up his right hand and said, “No questions about that until you’ve sat with it for a while. Play with it. Watch your attention, and try to find yourself somewhere outside it…you’ll soon see that it is impossible. Then you’ll understand that you are your attention. With that understanding will come the knowledge that the most important task in life is to be in charge of your attention because it constantly defines you.”

That was the end of the conversation, until we stopped for dinner at a roadside restaurant a hundred miles south of Akron. Daddy locked the rig down, swiveled around in his seat, and reached under the mattress in the sleeper box. He pulled out a gift-wrapped package and said, “This is your textbook. Everything you need to know about driving is in this book.”

You can imagine what I expected, and I’ll bet you have an idea that it isn’t what I found in the package. You’re right on both counts. I ripped away the party wrap and found a copy of a novel called Round the Bend by Nevil Shute.

“What’s this?” I asked as we walked toward the café.

“It’s a novel,” he said.

“What’s it about?” I asked.

He grinned, “It’s about airplanes and flying, prophets and aircraft mechanics…and stuff like that.”

“But you said it was about driving.”

We stopped walking, and he said, “Luke.” I turned toward him, and he put both hands on my shoulders. Looking deep into my eyes he said, “I said that everything that you need to know about driving is in that book. I didn’t say that it was a book about driving. You said that. You said it in your head. You said it in that conversation that you are always having with yourself. Stop talking to yourself, and get in the moment, read the book, and begin to learn how to pay attention.”

I read Round the Bend, and I began to think of Daddy as a philosopher like Connie Shak Lin, one of the two principal character in the book. The only difference between the two was, Connie’s practice was aircraft mechanics and daddy’s was truck driving. That didn’t turn me off on being a driver. In fact, it just made me want it more, because I knew that when I learned to drive in the moment, then I’d also know how to live there.

For a year, I learned about being in the moment, as I began my practice of being consciously present. I learned about attention and how to use it, without fixating on a specific point or detaching from the moment. I learned about knowing, and trusting my knowing. I had never dreamed those were the subjects that I would be studying. To be honest, I never dreamed that I didn’t already know them.

I learned driving techniques too, but that was the easiest part of my education. Being in the moment, on the other hand, demands constant vigilance, which means constant work.

The day finally came when he told me I was ready to drive. He said I had learned my lessons well, and he added that he was proud of me. I’ll never forget that first mile, no matter how many more I log.

Three more years of training followed that first one. I learned everything that Daddy knew, as he held nothing back. He was the best; a philosopher and a professional driver in every sense of the word. Since the night that Daddy gave me my first copy of Round the Bend, it has been my constant companion. In the book, Connie Shak Lin is a ground engineer, an aircraft mechanic of the highest order. He teaches other mechanics to be present as they work, and he explains the power of choosing to be present. To aid them, he gives them techniques to insure that they stay present. Thousands who met Connie began to think of him as a prophet, a mystic, and even more.

Through the years I’ve come to know that Daddy, like Connie Shak Lin was a mystic; one who just happened to be a truck driver.

***********

Four years to the day after my apprenticeship began; we were going to pick up a load in Birmingham. The Old Man was driving. Without taking his eyes off the road, he said, “Luke, I’m going to go by Kenworth, before we load.”

He took care of his truck as if it were a baby. It was ten years old and looked and ran like it had just rolled off the showroom floor. It had over a million miles on it, and I had never even thought about when he would replace it.

I was studying the atlas and routing the trip when he said we were going to stop at the Kenworth dealership, otherwise I’d have reminded him that it wasn’t due for service for another five thousand miles. I didn’t look up from the atlas, “That’s fine; the load isn’t going to be ready for pickup for two hours.”

That day became another in a long list of days with the Old Man that I’ll never forget. In a few minutes, he turned into the driveway of the Kenworth dealership. There was a long, conventional cab tractor parked in front of the sales office. It was the star of the show, the most magnificent truck on the lot. It was black, with polished chrome wheels, and an extra-large, walk-in, sleeper box. I could tell from the diameter of the dual, chromed, exhaust stacks there was a 450 horsepower CAT engine resting under the massive hood. There were at least a hundred balloons tied to it, from the front bumper to the rear axle. The tractor was facing the entrance driveway, so I couldn’t tell if there was any ownership identification on the side.

Daddy drove straight for that awesome truck instead of driving to the shop entrance located on the backside of the lot. I looked at him and said, “Hey, where are you going? Were you blinded by the chrome or hypnotized by the balloons?”

He just grinned. In a couple of seconds, he had stopped alongside the balloon-draped, truck. I glanced out of my window toward it and did a double take. I couldn’t talk. Painted on the side of the gleaming new tractor, in gold script, I read:

Robert & Luke Jenson
All States Trucking Company

Clinton, Alabama

I don’t know how long I sat there with my mouth open, and I probably had some tears in my eyes. I was so choked up I couldn’t have talked if I had known what to say.

Finally, Daddy said, “Son, you just graduated. Come on; let’s take a look at our new office.”

*********

We drove that tractor for more than eight years, over a million and a half miles of trucking. I learned more in those eight years, than I’d dreamed of in the previous twenty.

We were heading east, running empty, just outside Albuquerque, one morning. I pulled into a truck stop, fueled and parked the rig before waking Daddy. With the engine shut off and the rig locked down, I turned toward the closed sleeper compartment and shouted, “Hey! Are you going to sleep all day? Roll out and I’ll buy your breakfast. Then if you play your cards right, I may even let you drive.” I waited for his gruff response. There wasn’t a sound from the sleeper, and suddenly I knew in my gut there wasn’t going to be.

I pulled the curtain back. He looked to be sound asleep. There wasn’t a single worry line on his forehead. He looked like a baby taking a nap. Only he wasn’t asleep, and I knew it. I sat there and looked at him for a long time. I cried a little. Not much though, because I knew that would have ticked him off.

He had known the end was close, and he had tried to tell me, but I refused to hear it. One of the last things he said to me was, “Son, one day I won’t answer the call. When that happens, you may feel sad. That’s only natural. But, Son, don’t feel sad for long. There’s no reason for it. It happens to all of us and when it happens to me, I won’t have a single regret. So there’s no reason for you to be sad.”

A month earlier, as we were traveling west, just outside Oklahoma City, he added something that will be with me until the day I don’t answer the call. He said, “Son, I love you. These years we have driven together have been the best years of my life, since your mother passed. I think the worst thing that can happen to a man is to live his life the best way he knows how, then up and die without having the chance to tell anyone what he has learned. Luke, you wanted to know what I knew, and I have been able to share it with you. That is enough for me. That’s enough for any man. I hope you have the opportunity to pass it on to someone before you’re done.”

I thought he was going to add something, but he didn’t. He put his gaze on the horizon ahead, squinted into the sunset and easily guided eighty thousand pounds of steel, diesel fuel, cargo and the two of us toward the on-coming night. I stared toward the sunset too, letting his words burn into my mind.

**********

I wiped away my tears, pulled the blanket up to his chin, fired up the big, turbocharged CAT engine and pointed our “office” toward Alabama. I didn’t shut it down again, until I parked outside our house on Lookout Mountain.

It was a simple service, held in the old rock church on the mountain, just down the road from our house. The preacher didn’t have much to say, neither did Tim nor Jerris. None of them knew Daddy the way I did, and I kept what I knew inside. Besides, I knew that nobody else would understand it anyway, except Mama who was waiting for Daddy in the old cemetery behind the church.

*********

Two years later, I replaced our “office.” The new one is identical to the original. It’s black, and the gold script on the door says:

Robert & Luke Jenson
All States Trucking Company

Clinton, Alabama

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

Another Place Episode 25

Another Place Another Time

Book Two

Luke and Traveler

Episode Twenty-Five

My training program was nothing like I’d imagined. The next morning, as when I opened the passenger door and began climbing into the cab, Daddy said, “Luke, did you bring a notebook?”

“No Sir.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Do you remember what I told you last night?”

I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, so I said, “Yes sir, I think so.”

He grinned, “Luke, I said I would teach you, and then I said this is school and I’m the professor. Luke, that means notes and notebooks. Now go back in the house and find some empty notebooks and pens, and then get back out here.”

I climbed back in the truck a few minutes later. This time I had my school backpack, the one I thought I’d retired at graduation the night before. I said, “Okay, Daddy, I’m ready.”

“Good,” he said, “Write this down and memorize it.”

I pulled a notebook from my pack and turned to an empty page. Daddy said, “You thought this would be about technique, and it will be, but driving techniques will be the smallest part of what I’m going to teach you. Driving isn’t about shifting, steering, or backing. Driving, like everything else in life, is about something else. It’s about attention, knowing, and trust. Write those three points down and memorize them.”

He checked both rearview mirrors, then slid the tractor into first gear. As he engaged the clutch he said, “I won’t talk anymore for a while and you won’t either. Don’t ask any questions or say anything at all, just watch everything. Listen to everything. Feel the traffic; get in touch with its mood and its flow. When you can do that, you’ll be able to be become one with it, and Luke, you aren’t driving until you are one with the traffic. There isn’t a technique that will make you one with traffic; oneness is the result of knowing how to pay attention and then doing it. Now, pay attention like you’ve never paid attention before, because in an hour you’re going to have your first pop quiz.”

Exactly an hour later we were fifty miles east of Birmingham. Daddy, who hadn’t spoken a word in the past sixty minutes, said, “It’s time for the test to begin.” I looked at my watch. It had been exactly an hour since he had last spoken. There isn’t a clock in the truck and I knew that he hadn’t looked at his watch. I wondered how he did that. I forgot those thoughts when he started asking questions.

“Have you been paying attention since we left the house?”

“Yes sir,” I said. I’d watched everything he had done since he pulled away from the house, and I thought that I was ready for a pop quiz. I was wrong.

He didn’t ask a single question about anything that he had done. Instead he asked about the vehicles we’d seen, road conditions at specific points, the weather fifty miles back, and even what was on the road at mile marker seventy-two. I couldn’t answer a single question.

In my only act of defiance during my training program I said, “All right, do you know what was on the road at mile marker seventy-two?”

He laughed, “I sure do. There was a tire carcass in the inside lane, a chunk of rubber about four feet long. If we’d run over it, there’s a good chance it would have flown out from under our drive wheels and taken out a trailer landing gear, or a brake hose, or possibly a passing car.”

I said, “Well, you could have memorized that.” Then I recalled a 1954 Chevy pickup I’d seen at an exit thirty miles back. I remembered it; because I love 1954 Chevy’s and hope to have one someday. I asked, “What was on the side of the road just west of the Argo exit?” I should have known better.

He laughed, “That’s too easy, Son. It was a restored, but not stock, yellow 1954 Chevy pickup. It was a good restoration, but it wasn’t complete. I noticed the engine had been smoking because there was soot on the tailgate just above the exhaust pipe. I’d guess the engine needs some attention. I also noticed the spare tire carrier was empty and hanging down on the road, which probably accounts for it being on the side of the interstate. It had low profile tires, which means that one on the side away from us could have been flat, and we wouldn’t have noticed. And I remember…”

I interrupted, “Okay, okay, I get it. You’re smarter than I am.”

He laughed for a few seconds, then a serious expression took the place of the jovial one, “That’s not true, Luke. Let me tell you what happened to you when you saw that pickup truck, and then I’ll tell you what happened to me, and you’ll see the difference. It has nothing to do with intelligence.”

I felt better when he said that he wasn’t smarter than I was. I laughed and asked, “Are you psychic? Are you going to read my mind?”

He smiled and said, “Let’s see if I can.” Then he told me that as soon as I’d seen that truck, I’d started dreaming about owning one just like it. He said that I began to plan for it, figuring how much it would cost, and how much I’d have to save, and when I would have enough to buy it. I couldn’t believe it. It was as if he had been inside my head.

I guess he knew that he was right, because he didn’t ask me to confirm it. Instead, he told me what he had done when he saw the yellow pickup. “Luke, because I was in the moment, and didn’t start daydreaming, I saw the pickup. I mean I really saw the pickup. You didn’t.”

I protested, “But I did see it, Daddy.”

“Luke, it’s important that you understand this. You saw the truck for a split second, and then you went into your head, and you saw the truck you want to own. The shift from the truck on the side of the road to the truck in your head was so quick and smooth, you didn’t even realize that it had happened, and I’m going to prove it to you.”

I just stared at him and waited.

He said, “You didn’t see the soot on the tailgate did you?”

I tried to recall what I had seen, finally I said, “No sir, I don’t think I did.”

He said, “How many exhaust pipes did it have?”

“I don’t know?”

“What color where the letters in the word Chevrolet on the tailgate outlined in?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you notice the spare tire carrier?”

“No sir.”

He asked, “Shall I go on.”

I looked at him and thought, he is going to be the professor. “No sir, that won’t be necessary.”

“Good,” he said, smiling, though still looking straight ahead. “Here’s the point. The truck exists in this moment. It doesn’t exist in your thoughts about the future or the past. It is only in this moment. You saw it in the moment only for a few seconds, and then, you left the moment. You shifted your attention to the future. The most important driving practice for you to learn is the practice of attention.”

“Practice?”

“Think of it this way Luke, attention has to become your practice just like medicine will be Tim’s practice and law Jerris’s practice.” As soon as he said it, I knew that he had given me the key to driving. Over the next couple of years, I came to realize that what he told me that morning was the key to more than driving; it was the key to living.

He paused, then asked, “Do you understand what I’m saying, Luke?”

I considered the question and said, “I think so, Daddy. However, I have an idea that it’s going a take some time to get it. I mean, first I have to understand that I can control my attention, and then I have to learn how to do it.”

He said, “Luke, I’m proud of you. In an hour, you’ve seen what driving is really about. Frankly, I’d have been happy if you’d gotten that in a month. To do it in an hour is impressive.”

He let me sit with that for a couple of minutes, then he said, “All of your lessons will center on the practice of attention. You cannot be present until you’ve mastered your attention, and there’s no technique that will compensate for not being present.”

He didn’t say anything else for a while. We picked up the load of steel and drove forty or fifty miles, before he spoke to me again. Then, out of the blue he said, “Luke, your attention is the most valuable asset you have. Years ago, I read a series of books about a shaman named Don Juan Matus. Carlos Castaneda, the man who wrote the books, said that Don Juan claimed that ‘Attention was man’s greatest gift.’ After a lifetime of studying and practicing attention, I agree with Don Juan. Attention is the faculty that allows you to place your awareness where you want it to be. And where you want it to be is in this moment, not shifting from the past, to the future, with occasional pauses in the moment to see if anything is happening that you need to know about. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir, I do. But I’ve never thought that I could control my attention, at least not for more than a few minutes. I’ve used it to be present when I felt that something important was happening, or if someone told me to pay attention. But within seconds my attention wandered again.”

He laughed and said, “That’s the way almost everyone uses their attention, Luke. They do it because they don’t know there is another way. Now you know, and now you can begin learning how to use and direct your attention all the time. Are your ready to hear some more?”

I nodded, and he continued, “Remember, the primary use of attention is to get in and stay in the moment. When you are in the moment, you are one with the traffic. In other words, it’s not you, the truck, and the traffic. There is only the traffic, and you are one with it. Everything is simple when you understand that you are one with everything, and not somehow separate from it like a spectator sitting in the grandstands.” He paused, and then said, “Excuse me, don’t you think you should be taking some notes?”

I found my notebook and pen and asked him to repeat what he had just said. As near as I can recall, he repeated it word for word, and I wrote it down just the way he said it.

*********

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.

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.”

**********

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.

**********

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.

I post two episodes of Another Place Another Time every week

For info on receiving each episode directly on your Kindle click here
Or, if you don’t want to wait, click here to purchase the complete Kindle version of the book.

Currently I’m working on The Mystic Trilogy – the first volume – The Sages – it is posted weekly – click here to read the first and all subsequent episodes.