Say what you will, but there's nothing like a once-in-a-generation blizzard to put you right back on the cutting edge. Just about the time your life seems to have lost its meaning and purpose, you wake up one morning, it's 14 below, and you've got to be in Salt Lake City by 3:30 a.m. tomorrow. Throw in some 50 mph wind gusts, a few whiteouts west of Ogallala, a veritable boneyard of jack-knifed trucks in the median and -- voila! -- It's 1978 all over again. Your life has acquired new mission: Don't die today.
Yes, I will cop to the old trucker's tendency to revel in one's tribulations. But seriously -- man, the Christmas week was a doozy.
I make my living today as a part time trucker, a singer-songwriter and a freelance writer... Lately, though, can I just level with you? I've kind of hit a slump on the creative side. Call it burnout, call it just being "dumbed down and numbed by time and age," as the Avett Brothers put it; but I've honestly been wondering whether there's really anything left in me that's fresh and interesting. If not, why not just reboot as a full-time company driver? I have coworkers right here where I'm employed who are earning north of six figures.
And yet here I am, galavanting about, all semi-retired, playing shows and writing 800-1,200-word essays. There's a voice in my head that sounds a lot like Dave Ramsey screaming "Dude! You've got well over a million miles without a moving violation or a chargeable accident involving a police call-out! Run for the money while there's still time!"
These were some of the things I was contemplating on Christmas Eve while heading back home after weathering the aforementioned blizzard. I had picked up my return load in greater Salt Lake and was making a beeline for Brooklyn.
Iowa, that is. Good coffee, $2 sandwiches, and no ATM fees.
With any luck, if I made it to the Brooklyn Kwik Star for the night and if the roads held up, by my best-laid plans I'd be home for Christmas dinner the next day.
