Mid Week News From Spadoville

It’s Wednesday. Hump day, some call it, as it gets you over-the-hump for the typical work week. Although I haven’t been employed for a while, I still can see how there is no typical work week for most folks any longer. The days of the eight to four thirty are finished in most places.

I have a friend that is in the trucking industry. He works on the docks of a major national freight hauler, Yellow Transit, which is now Yellow Freight Systems. You’d think that after being with a corporation for 30 years, and being in the Teamster’s Union, that he’d have seniority and work a good shift as he nears retirement. Not the case. He was laid off for a while through the economic plunge the past few years, and still works nights and weekends. So much for all the talk about Unions and the benefits.

Anyway, getting back to the phrase “Hump Day”, Wednesday is mid week. Many of the appointments I have at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis are scheduled on Mondays and Tuesdays. I occasionally get an appointment on other days of the week.

Mrs. Spadoman’s work schedule has her working three days one week and four days the next. Every other week, Wednesday is her Friday. The Grandkids still go to school Monday through Friday, but little else is on the “weekday” schedule.

When I worked at a large grocery chain in Chicago many years ago, the store opened at 8:00 AM and closed at 9:00 PM Monday through Friday. Saturday, they closed at 6:00 PM and they were closed all day Sunday.

Now, you’ll be hard pressed to find a grocery store that is not open 24/7. Many are even open on holidays for limited hours. Convenience stores, or gas stations, are open throughout the holidays, 24/7 365. A few bars have this schedule as well. 

Bar hours vary some, here and there, but most in Wisconsin open at eight in the morning and serve alcohol until 2:00 AM. In Chicago, it’s as early as they want to open, usually 6 AM, and they close for a couple of hours to clean at 4 AM if they have the late hours licensing issued by the city authorities.

This post is absolutely useless and is filled with random thoughts and has no redeeming value whatsoever. I just thought I should write something and started blabbering on the keyboard. 

In other news; 

Mrs. Spadoman has been in Florida since last Friday. I will get her at the airport this afternoon.

A good friend that I haven’t seen for a few years is in nearby Minnesota and will visit us this weekend. He’ll stay at our place as our guest and we’ll have a BBQ on Saturday.

Next weekend, Mrs. Spadoman and I are off to Chicago. We’ll be taking the Megabus instead of driving, and we’ll stay Downtown at the Sheraton. Megabus has express through service from Minneapolis to Chicago for about 25 bucks a person, one way. We’ll use taxis to get around Downtown Chicago and won’t have to deal with parking and driving in traffic.

We’ll see Jersey Boys with the Broadway traveling troupe on Friday night and go to Wrigley Field and watch the Cubs play Cincinnati Saturday afternoon.

On April 28th, I leave, with my motorcycle in tow, for Northern California. I’ll be away from home about two weeks and will return with my friend Hal and his motorcycle so we can continue riding the Northern reaches of Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

That ought to keep me busy for a while.

Peace

Diner Job, Number 37

Monday Mystery Tour
April 9, 2012

I originally posted this fictional story in August of 2009. Some of you that have been visiting Round Circle since then may remember it. If not, sit a spell and have a look. The original post has pictures.

She was tall. Now someone’s height is definitely relative to your own and of course whether or not you are sitting or standing when you make first contact. It’s also relative to whether you are sitting on a hard chair of a soft cushy one. In this case, the old vinyl clad booths at the diner in Glenwood Springs had been there a while and were worn to the point where the stuffin’ was almost gone from the seat part.

When you sat down, your rear end went down to something hard, and for my particular anatomy, the wooden board that made up the front edge of the seat fit neatly into the crook of the back of my knee joint.

I had been traveling from Reno, Nevada by rail. I had accompanied a good friend out west from Chicago and after a week or so of camaraderie and visiting old pals, I was headed back to the midwest and home.

The California Zephyr train route was established long ago though the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The train made the same stops it did in the 1930’s. The old depots along the way were still used in most cases and that is how it was in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

I asked the conductor  how I could manage getting off this train and onto the next one when the California Zephyr came through Glenwood Springs the next day. He allowed me to pay a small fee, and punched my ticket stub so supposedly, I could get off, and re-board 24 hours later and continue my journey.

The station house in Glenwood Springs was one of those nice refurbished old buildings with a wide overhang all around itself. If you’ve ever seen a travel show or National Geographic pictures of say, Japan or Thailand, you might see buildings of a certain type of architecture that would depict that particular country. I like to think people in those countries are shown pictures of our old train stations and know it’s a train depot in America when they see them as well.

I got off and looked around. I had spotted this hamlet on the trip headed west some ten days before. It looked quaint and I really wanted to visit the hot spring pools and the cemetery where Doc Holliday was buried. At curbside across the street, there was a magnificent older building that was the Glenwood Springs Hotel. Convenient, looked OK, and not a chain drive dive like Super 8.

I carried my soft luggage bag across my shoulder and bypassed the taxi that waited in the event a fare would come his way. I walked across the street and went inside. A nondescript place for an old hotel, but looked like it might be fun as long as I didn’t have to go down the hall from my room for a toilet and a shower. I checked in and found a small room on the third floor. I felt like I was a real travelin’ man and my mind was making up a story about how I might have been a traveling salesman back in the olden days.

Maybe I was a salesman in a former life and had been there before. Maybe I would be planning my visits to the merchants of the local area and attempt to sell them goods, like freshly roasted coffee my employer made, so they would sell it and serve it in their stores and restaurants. Maybe I needed a cup of Joe right now. And a sandwich, too. For I was hungry as the train really didn’t have much to offer.

I put my pack in my room, freshened up, and after a quick look around, I headed outside into the sunshine on a quest for sustenance. It was about 12:30PM on a Wednesday in May.

I hadn’t wandered far from the hotel when I spotted an old building that housed the 19th Street Diner. Now the term ‘Diner’, like the tallness factor, is relative, and comes under scrutiny by folks everywhere I go. The purists out east tell me. “It ain’t a diner unless it’s out in Massachusetts or New Jersey and is housed in an actual railroad dining car that was transformed from use on rails to use on the street.” Others may call the small cafe on main street in their particular town a diner.

We’ll use my definition because it’s my story. A diner is both the descriptions above and more. It’s a place to eat, privately owned, with calendars on the walls. The calendars given to the establishment by the customers who sit around the big table in the morning and congregate over coffee, spewing forth their take on all subjects. Religion, politics, local issues, the business climate of their town, high school sporting events and, of course, the weather. The insurance man, the banker, the auto dealer, the farmer, the barber and seed company rep reign supreme. 

The more calendars that were on the walls, the better a place is because that meant folks came there and ate there and left the free calendars there about the new year. It can also mean it’s a really small town and there was just no-where else to go out for coffee and conversation. I first heard of this calendar phenomenon while reading William Least Heat Moon’s “Blue Highways” back in the 80’s.

The tall one approached the booth where I had sunken down and reached a new level. The broken down upholstery was comfy and I had completely settled in. She moved her mouth into a quick smile then quickly asked me in a straight-to-the-point forceful voice, “Coffee?”

I said “Sure”, and grabbed the menu from the stack at the window end of the table that were sandwiched between the salt and pepper shakers and the wooden holder that held the ketchup, mustard, jelly and sugar packets. This set-up is what made a booth a booth. She returned in an instant with a steaming cup in a thick tan mug. I nodded and muttered my thanks as she smiled again and asked, “So, What are we having today?”

I had a momentary lapse in judgement and before I even realized I was letting out my pat response for people who speak in the third person, “What do you mean, ‘We’? You got a mouse in your pocket or are you planning on joining me?”

She was unamused as she stood there, tall and sleek. She had chestnut brown hair, lots of it, wore a pair of jeans and a loose navy blue t-shirt. I saw no sign of breasts on her but knew she was a beautiful woman. She thrust out her pelvis as she stood and had her hands placed on her hips in a position I had not often seen from a waitress. I could see the palms of her hands. Her fingers were slender and I did detect some movement beneath her shirt as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, changing the pelvic thrust to a more leering stance. Did I mention she was tall?

The name tag said “Gretchen”. I asked her if that was her name. Her body language shifted again and made an exclamation point as she responded, “Now why would I wear this name tag if that wasn’t my name?”

I responded, “I was wondering if maybe you grabbed that one from a pile in the back room because you left yours on the edge of the bathroom sink this morning. You don’t see that name often these days.”  

Like Trudy or Delores. Gretchen, I liked it, I liked her. I wanted to get to know her and learn everything about her. I wanted to know her well enough to know what she liked to eat, what she liked to drink and what she enjoyed doing for leisure. I wanted her to know me and like me.

I already had two big strikes against me, I was on the wire, I couldn’t stand to make another blunder. It would be the difference between a good experience and a bad one. This is paramount when traveling alone and eating in a diner. Forget the food, the food means nothing if the waitress ignores you and the most telling sign is when the dreaded coffee carafe is set on the table. You know then that dining will be a lonely affair with the next and last visit to the table is when you get the check. No more chance to talk to her. If she puts the check down when she delivers the food, it will be a lonely affair to be sure.

There was no carafe and I went for it, “You been working here a long time?” I asked.

She smiled and said, “About six years.”

I ran with it, “So, you from Glenwood Springs here then?

“Yep, been here all my life. You have an accent”, she was still smiling.

Before I could say another word, a bell rang, like the kind at the front desk of a hotel, and Gretchen turned quickly and was gone. She moved her sleek frame across the floor with fluid grace and in one motion grabbed four plates of steaming hot food, lined them up her arm, balanced perfectly, and without a hint of hesitation brought them to a table of patrons waiting to eat.

She was a real waitress in a diner. Experienced. She wasn’t going to take any crap from anyone and had all the bases covered. You needn’t ask for the condiments, they were there before you needed to ask. If you ordered eggs, the tabasco was on the table. The steak sauce or the small ceramic pitcher of milk for the oatmeal was already served before the food arrived. She had this place down pat. She wasted no steps. A true to life Hash House Queen. I loved her immediately and wanted to talk to her some more.

She wore little makeup and I’d guess she was 39 or maybe a young 44. That would make her closer to my age, the latter one, and the idea that maybe we’d share some things in common. More than I’d have if the waitstaff were teenagers.

The 19th Street Diner had a couple of calendars on the wall. Insurance and bank. Not much dust accumulated on the blades of the slow moving fan at the ceiling. Not much black around the legs of the tables. Not too many crumbs on the floor. Not too busy this Wednesday. They served breakfast all day.

I ordered steak and eggs with the homestyle potatoes. Gretchen told me she didn’t make ‘em, but that they made ‘em fresh everyday. The biscuits were made from scratch and you could get toast made from homemade bread or the regular wheat, white or rye from the store bought bags.

She paused a couple of times when I was watching her work the room. I spoke to her when I thought she’d stop. Once she did, once she didn’t, or couldn’t I like to think.

The coffee was good. Not sour or tart, not colored hot water, but not freshly roasted top quality French roast Columbian either. I gave it a 7 on a scale of 10 for diner coffee. Anything between a 5 and a 10 is adequate and will not detract from a diner’s overall performance. The food was good. A small steak fried neatly on the flat top grill, eggs flipped in a pan. I opted for the homemade bread toast with jam served in a small glass crock with a little spoon knife that stuck out of a small hole on the lid.

I lingered over coffee and did get quite a few refills. The cup was thick ceramic so the volume wasn’t much. If Gretchen didn’t know I was nursing the coffee cause I didn’t want to leave, then she’s as dumb as a tack. She knew what was going on.

It was time to go for this round, and although I wanted to explore the town and experience another place for another meal at some time during my short stay, I knew I’d return for breakfast the next day.  

I asked, “You work everyday?”

She answered this question the way I answered the first one she asked me, “Why? You writin’ a book or sumthin’?”

I told her that, “Maybe I am, and how do you know I’m not a famous writer anyway?

She put her hands on her hips in that unique pose with her palms facing out and said, “You’re not a writer, I can tell.”

A memorable smile came on her face and she told me she worked every weekday from six to two.

I wandered in the next morning at around 9:00AM. She smiled when she saw me and asked if I had to leave today. I reiterated the fact that I had to be on the train before noon if it stayed true to schedule and on time, and that I was planning on sitting there sipping on coffee, if she didn’t mind, until then.

She said, “Sure, sit as long as you want, you’re a paying customer.” I know I saw her wink, maybe. I got a few more smiles out of her and left with coffee sloshing in my belly and that was after I emptied the bladder a couple of times besides. I was hoping for one last flash of her. Maybe she would smile at me once more. Maybe she would speak to me and not the customer.

One could only hope. I put all my eggs in one basket. This was my last chance. The question I had been saving for this extreme moment. The words that would change our meeting from a chance encounter to a lifetime memory of fantasy.

“So, why is this place called the 19th Street Diner when it’s on Second Avenue?”

She struck her patented pose, and this time tilted her head to the side and smiled a big smile as she told me, “Because it used to be on 19th Street”

She inflected her voice as if to say “Everyone knows that, silly boy”

I had a memory to last the rest of the trip as I tried to get comfy in my coach seat on the California Zephyr. I closed my eyes and fell asleep thinking of Gretchen the waitress in the 19th Street Diner in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

I wrote this many years ago. It was one of my earliest attempts at writing fiction fashioned from personal experience. There is a 19th Street Diner in Glenwood Springs, or at least there used to be. There is a Gretchen as well. She worked at the 19th Street Diner before she moved to Grand Junction and worked at the 7th Street Cafe where I was the cook in 1993. We were good friends and I admired her for her skills behind the apron in the small diner world. 

This was job number 37 on the chart from This Earlier Post. I have started to write a story about every job I have ever held and hope it will finally be, “The Book”, everyone is telling me to write. I will attempt to use the Monday Mystery Tour feature to chronicle these work and living experiences, the parade of unique individuals one might meet in a lifetime, and the stories within the stories.

Peace

Happenings, April 8, 2012

Today is Sunday, April 8, 2012. It has  a variety of significance on so many levels to so many people. It resembles Christmas to me a little because I am hearing Happy Easter a lot, but back in the crowd, I've heard a few Happy Passover's mumbled about. Of course for the Pagan's it's "There is no Easter, they found the body" Kohl's is having their biggest on line sale of the decade, but it's only for today, April 8, 2012.

Mrs. Spadoman eating a Brat at Miller Park, 2010

My significant other, my soul mate, my spousal unit, the Mother of my children, Mrs. Spadoman, my wife, Barb, celebrated her birthday a little more than a week ago. Now, she is in Florida visiting with her best friend ever who has a birthday today, April 8, 2012. Being little more than a week separating their birthdays, this is not unusual for them to celebrate together sometime in between, with bragging about who was older for a few days. I can hear the Beatle's songs being butchered as I type this!

Tomorrow, April 9th, marks the birthday of a young man that is very near and dear to our hearts, Bobby Jens. Bobby was my daughter Maggie’s boyfriend. After she was lost to us in the car accident of 1991, Bobby remained close to our family. He would certainly have become my son-in-law. He lost his life a few years later when the small single engine plane he was flying went down in the Bridger Mountains near Bozeman, Montana in a severe snowstorm.

Bobby, Maggie, (in the middle), and Adrienne on Maggie's graduation day, 1991

The most imposing event that moves my soul is closing in fast. April 12, 1968 is the day I got drafted and left home to work for Uncle Sam in the American war in Vietnam. I usually don’t remember why I am feeling like crap during the first couple of weeks in April until right on the 12th when I realize, “This is the day”.

Spadoman, arriving in Vietnam, 1969

April showers bring May flowers, the saying used to be. It’s like that March Lion/Lamb thing. It don’t mean a heap of you-know-what with the way the weather has been the past few years. No Lion, no Lamb, no Rain. The flowers are here already and if we’re lucky, they won’t be frozen after the last two nights of heavy frost we’ve experienced.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. I’m still alive. At least I think I am. I am alone in my home and there is not a sound. My ears are buzzing and ringing loudly. The silence is deafening. I can hear the pacemaker clicking. This is what happens when you buy a new Energy Star rated refrigerator that seems to never cycle and have an efficient furnace that runs silently automatically. No back ground noise to refer to.

No phones ring. The cell phone is on vibrate only. No radio or TV is on and the volume is turned off on the computer. I do that because the signal to alert me that I have an e-mail is so damn loud and obnoxious I can hear it from out in the yard. Then again, I have no e-mail today. So, that alarm would be silent anyway.

I could turn on some music. Maybe that’s what I’ll do, eventually. But for now, I’ll sit and listen to this ear ringing. It’s getting intense and kind of interesting.

Let’s see. I’ve got Andrew Lloyd Weber’s classic rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar I could play. Apropos enough for today. Maybe some Pink Floyd or Albert King.

Might ride the Triumph a little. Ass post ta be (supposed to be), sunny. Then again, only 59 degrees for a high and real windy again. That’s not so much fun on the scooter. What’s with all this wind lately? I wonder what the waves look like on the Great Lake Superior on such a windy day.

I am happy that my friend Mel is home safe and sound from helping her sister het through a rough surgical procedure, and that Rebecca is enjoying her trip to San Miguel de Allende. Sure hope the others might stop by and have a read despite the fact that I’m not linking today’s post to Shadow Shot II or other meme specifically, at least I didn't post the logo.

Sad that anyone, whether I know them or not, is having a bad day or stresses in their lives. Although I lean in the direction of a Pagan, I do pray and will continue to do so for those in need of any.

Well, I’ll round this one off and look for a couple of suitable photos to post along with it and call it good. Maybe if I get real lucky, someone will be having an Easter dinner and realize I am alone and will E-mail or give me a jingle.

Note to self: Turn ringer back on LOUD on the cell phone.

If you want my number so you can call me and invite me for dinner, or even leftovers, not to be confused with Passover, but that would be okay too, I like Matzoh, e-mail and I’ll send it. You Pagan folks, I’ll eat just about anything. Even the diabetes won’t stop me. It’s not what I do once in a while that will kill me. It’s that 90 percent of the time stuff. Damn chocolate doughnuts and malted milk balls.

No matter what you’re celebrating today, or if you aren’t celebrating at all, keep it peaceful.

Three Smiling Children

Haiku My Heart

April 6, 2012

 Wander on over the recuerda mi corazón where Rebecca has gathered us for more Haiku MY Heart offerings.

My three daughters, 1978

Joyful smiles of glee

Memories of my children

Swinging, loving life

We moved from Chicago to Minnesota in 1974. Maggie had just turned one at the end of July. Moving day was August 3rd. In four short years, our family grew, we bought a house in St. Paul and put a swing set in the back yard. Left to Right in the photo were Alyssa, just about three, Maggie, the oldest, at five, and Jayne closing in on two years old.

This old photo was shot in black and white and I found it in a folder of black and white shots I had done for a school project as I was taking a photography course at Lakewood Junior College back then.

It has always been a favorite of mine. Those smiles are of a different era, a different time in space completely. A time when I don't remember having health problems or sadness from the loss of our oldest child. That happened years later in 1991. A lot of water flowed under the bridge since then, but I am filled with precious memories of my children as little kids and I am reminded daily when I see my Grandchildren and their smiling faces. It does my heart good to stand by and remember.

Peace

10-4 Good Buddy

Monday Mystery Tour
April 2, 2012

I was looking through an archive of stories I have written over the years. This one was dated August of 2008. Not sure if I ever posted it before. But what the heck, here it is, either for the first time or as a repeat.

My Zen and Meditation studio

It was late in the 1970’s and we were living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. We had bought a house on Laurel Avenue and I was in the infinite stages of remodeling. We had three daughters by that time ranging from one to four. As Greg Brown the folk singer would say, I was rich in Daughters.

The remodeling was huge project for a number of reasons. First of all, I am not a skilled craftsman, secondly I didn’t have a lot of the right kinds of tools. After that, the list is simply the problems associated with not having enough money and working so many hours to earn some there was no time to work on the project.

We had the regular bills to pay as well as remodeling material to buy. I started looking for another job so I could make more money. My bride had a paper route in the early morning, but didn’t work away from home. She toiled there, raising children, and doing all the other duties necessary to run a household. By the way, she did and still does a fine job at this despite now working a full time job at Macalester College, and I still help out, a little.

One of the places where I applied for work was with the State of Minnesota. I applied for many jobs with the State. Back in those days. I was chasing a living wage and the inclusion of benefits. The State had a good program. I know some of these benefit programs have changed recently, but back then, it was a plan that was desired for anyone who works. 

I had worked for the Highway Department, MnDOT, in the mid 1970’s, only to quit and move again for what was deemed the good of the family. My current applications were for work near Minneapolis/Saint Paul. I applied for a job as a Grain Inspector, a Truck Driver, an Distribution Manager and a Warehouse Worker. I applied, then waited and waited and never heard from the State. I ended up keeping the job I had which was local truck driving in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN.

It was a long time later, over a year, that I got a phone call from the State. They mailed me a letter, then called about an opening as a truck driver, with other duties. It included travel opportunities with expenses paid and some other duties involved. I went for the interview, a year and a half after I applied for the job.

I had been attending college classes for a long time. I started at a Junior College called Triton near Chicago. Kirby Puckett went to Triton. I didn’t know him. After I moved to Minnesota in 1974, I continued at Lakewood Community College and got an Associate Degree in Liberal Arts.

I moved onward to Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul and was due to graduate in December of 1979. The State truck driving job interview was in early December of that same year. I was offered the job. I told the supervisor that I was literally a week away from getting a Bachelors Degree and that I’d love to take the job, but I couldn’t start until after I graduated.

My Alma Mater

He agreed to this plan and I started a new job, driving truck with other duties for the State of Minnesota in early January of 1980. Now, I needed a little more info about these “other” duties. I thought at first I would be working in the warehouse when I wasn’t driving. I still had questions about what I’d be hauling as well. At first I thought it would be office furniture because the arm of the State I was being hired by was the Administration Department.

I graduated, got my diploma and skipped the ceremony. I was anxious to start my newest job. The truck I would be driving was a new lease Peterbuilt with a sleeper. It had a bigger motor than the usual company truck, but not so big and powerful I could run with the owner/operator guys at 80 and 90 miles per hour in the wee hours of the morning as they roar over the tarmac to make it to their next destination.

The job consisted of hauling one of three trailers that this department had. A regular flatbed, a dry van, and a three axle gooseneck for hauling heavy machinery. Obviously what I was going to haul dictated what trailer I’d use to make the trip. But where was I going? I didn’t know if I was taking State equipment TO somewhere, or going to get it and bring it back FROM somewhere else. And it had to be a goodly distance, hence the cab-over with the sleeper. I found out soon enough.

3 axle gooseneck trailer

On my first two or three runs, I went with the other driver in the fleet of two trucks. His name was Gene. I can tell you that long after I left this job, the department where we worked broke up and dissolved, he stayed with the State and after many years in an office, he is now a manager of the department that auctions off all the old vehicles and equipment. 

Anyway, I went with Gene and here is what we did. We were called the Federal Surplus Property Division of the State of Minnesota. You see, the Federal government, in all their glory, has so much stuff sitting in warehouses all over the country, they don’t have room to store it all. These warehouses are on military bases, in government complexes and in ammunition dumps. They have them in Corps of Engineers projects at dams and along ocean and lake fronts. They even have a storage warehouse at the Smithsonian!

The surplus goods are stored in these places. Some are new items, have never been unwrapped and used in any way, others are used, but still in good repair. Anything and everything is included. Office furniture, tools, construction material, clothing, tents, blankets and sleeping bags,  heavy machinery like fork lifts and cranes, bull dozers, and vehicles of all kinds like trucks, cars, trailers. There is kitchen stuff from mess halls, electronics gear from Navy ships and Aircraft, generators from 10KW to 1000KW and bin upon bin of hardware. There’s more, I just can’t remember it all.

It was my job, then, to go to these places where this stuff was stored, peruse through large piles of documents that listed every item, fill out the paperwork so the State could take these items and reutilize them by selling the stuff to municipalities and non-profits at the tune of ten cants on the dollar. Then I’d load them up on the truck and haul them home to Minnesota.

Minnesota would then have a warehouse called the Federal Surplus Property Warehouse and only non profit organizations and other municipalities could buy the Federal Surplus property and use it . No personal use of this stuff was authorized. The Department of Defense had first crack at it. If they didn’t want it, then the other government departments like GSA or the NSA for example would take the surplus. After that, the States, in programs like the one I worked for, and lastly, auctioned to the general public. This process took years. Some of the stuff I remember was a box of tools from WWII still sitting around, crated and protected, until I finally took the box back to the State of Minnesota to open it and find out it was a box of 30” long phillips screw drivers marked simply as “Tools”.

My travels with that State job took me all over the country. I was a regular at Fort Riley Kansas and at the Aircraft factories in Southern Kansas, Boeing and McDonald Douglas. I did Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, S.I. Kaiser Air Base in Michigan, A plethora of Army and air bases in the Washington DC area, The GSA warehouses in Columbus Ohio, Rantool, Illinois, Wright Patterson in Dayton, Mechanicsburg, Harrisburg and Chambersburg in Pennsylvania, About every Corps of Engineers dam on the Ohio River. The list goes on and on. Ammo dumps in Indiana, Texas, Oklahoma and Wyoming. I worked at this job for a couple of years.

The travel was good. No pressure on time. I got paid by the hour. I rushed to get home because I wanted to be with my family, but the State Administration department never put a rush on me. And unlike other truckers that had to do log books and have markings on their trucks, I was exempt from that sort of thing. Just a tiny State of Minnesota plate on the truck and another on the trailer and I was waved by through the truck scales and inspection stations no matter how heavy my truck was loaded.

The only law I had to abide by was the speed limit. I didn’t fare so well there. The truck did get up and go when I didn’t have a heavy load. I got a lot of speeding tickets. Most didn’t have a reciprocity with Minnesota so my license only got suspended once in the two years I worked there.

With no log books, I ran day and night. I’d get my work done and go home and sit there until Friday, then I’d drive the truck in like I was just returning from out east somewhere. They never knew I had been home since Wednesday afternoon. I once did the 246 miles of the Ohio Turnpike in 230 minutes. That’s a pretty good average for an eighteen wheeler in that traffic jam packed stretch of Interstate.

On the DC trips, I’d leave DC and head through Maryland to Breezewood Pennsylvania. At Breezewood there was a truck stop where I’d get a shower, fill with fuel, eat and head out. I’d do a nonstop to Minnesota from there. The Fort Riley Kansas trips were also one day affairs for me. I did take my time when I was sent south to Fort Polk Louisiana or the Florida Everglades.

Can’t tell you about all the beautiful scenery on those trips. I didn’t see it the way I look at it now. I was driving hard to make a living. But I do know it was a better scene in my minds eye to look out the windshield and see the changing landscape rather than a stale TV rerun.

I talked on the CB radio ala C.W. McCall and his hit single “Convoy”. I made it a point, though, to talk like I did all the time, not fake a Southern accent like I had a mouth full of marbles. I did say the mantra of trucker’s lingo though. That was, “Don’t worry ‘bout it!”, when other drivers would fret about the weigh station, smoky the bear or the price of diesel fuel. How the hell are those truck drivers doin’ it with todays prices? I can’t imagine.

I am sorry I didn’t take more time to stop and see more, experience the new surroundings. I have gone back to some of these places later in life, not the military bases or the government warehouses, but the different parts of the country where they were located. 

Since I travel a lot, I invariably go somewhere that I have been before. Sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. It’s always a puzzle to remember when I was there, what was I driving, why, what, who, where did I eat and “was it good?”.

I chose to stay away from these "Supersized" truck stops

I have eaten in many places and found that the large supersize truck stops were the hardest to get in and out of and the food wasn’t nearly as good as the home cookin’ at a small diner along the highway.

The eats seemed much better at a small truck stop like this one

I was alone in the cab of a truck for hours and miles, and when the AM/FM radio and the CB weren’t my cup of tea, I found other things to do while I thought of getting home to my family. Once, in a Cincinnati Ohio truckstop, I bought a harmonica at a truck stop. I blew and sucked on that thing in the cab of my truck for mile after mile. I still can’t play much, but I can jam a little to an eight bar blues progression in either key, G or A. I even wrote a Country Western trucker song. Here are the words:

Load Limit Bridge

Joe Spado(man)

Album: “Live at Dux”

1980

I pulled out in the morning, headed East, the sun was shining in my eyes

The weather’s good the road is clear and I don’t see a cloud up in the sky

I drive all day and half the night, just to see that town up on the ridge

And then ahead I see a sign, it warns NO TRUCKS, it says Load Limit Bridge

I could detour another way , head north, but that would take another night

The better half done told me son, “Now don’t be late”, or there would be a fight 

On top of that the load I got is due up in this town up on the ridge

I gotta find another way to get across that damn Load Limit Bridge

Chorus

Load Limit Bridge

Comin’ up ahead

Gotta turn around

This is what it said

Load Limit Bridge

Gotta go another way

If I try to drive across

I better be prepared to pay

I heard once on the radio that water flows no more, this driver said

I had the crazy notion then, to drive my rig across that river bed

While going down that river bank I bumped my head and yelled “OH what a ride”

I crossed the dried up river bed, put the hammer down, went up the other side

Four hundred horses pulled me up that river bank and put me on the road

I went in to that little town, I had some lunch and then I dropped my load

I’m empty now, I’m headed home, I’m gonna go see Mama and the kids

I’ll never go back to that town , I’m never gonna cross that old Load Limit Bridge

Chorus

When I got home the boss man said He’s got another load for the Eastern mills

I didn’t want to leave so soon, but me and Mama got to pay the bills

But when he told me that the load was going to the town up on the ridge

I told him he could stick his job, I’m never gonna go back to Load Limit Bridge

Chorus

The thing about truck driving, and I guess about every day in a persons life, is that there is a new experience. On the road, the scenery changes. Each delivery, motel and meal in a diner is a chance to meet another stranger. Different regions offer a change of pace from the routine conventional cuisine of where you might be from. And depending on whether or not you like driving,  each day brings a new adventure. You might learn something. You might meet a new friend. You might see a sight that you have never been seen before. You might save a persons life or have your own life be saved.

For me, there is nothing quite like getting going in the morning, heading towards your destination, hot coffee in the travel mug, a bag of greasy donuts, a cigar to smoke for an appetizer, the road in front of you, and no-one around to tell you what to do. You see, I like it when you get to work and as soon as you arrive, you get into a truck and drive away from it.

Sorry, no pictures from the early 1980’s on the road. You’ll just have to take my word for it. The scenery is beautiful all over this country. I will take my camera on the next trip. I’ll be leaving soon enough.

Peace

Rail Long Shots

Shadow Shot Sunday 2
April 1, 2012

Shadow Shot Sunday 2 is a fun weekly display of shadowy brilliance from all over the world. You can check it out and see it come alive HERE

A painted barrier rail at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Building circa 1978. The building has since been torn down.

These photos were taken over a span of 35 years. The first, above, was a black painted rail at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve building in 1976. The second and third, below, are of the top rail of a barrier along a US Highway 2 parking area in Ashland, WI,. and a Railroad track along the Rio Grande in Southern New Mexico last year.

Along US Highway 2, Ashland, WI

Railroad track rail, near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

Hope you enjoy these shots. I'm still wondering why I am drawn to photograph them.

Peace to all