I don't know why I get up early. I almost never get a ride
first thing in the morning. I know myself well enough that if I didn't start to
hitch until 10:00 in the morning I would spend the rest of the day wondering if
I had missed that perfect ride while I was sleeping. So there I was standing on
the road with my thumb stuck out at 7:15. I did not bother with breakfast as I
had eaten well the day before.
My goal for the day was to get to Winnipeg although I knew
that it would be far more likely that getting to Brandon was the best I could
do. As the hours dragged on, my travel goals for the day became less and less
ambitious. Finally just after 10:00 AM Jay stopped and picked me up. He was
driving a large truck type vehicle. (It is tempting to figure out how much fuel
I was party to consuming as I travelled across Canada- it would be a lot). Jay
was off to a new job somewhere north of Regina and he was glad of the company
He was in his young 30s, had colourful tattoos from the first knuckle of his
hands up to his shoulders on both arms and
he was by profession both a welder and an electrician. He worked on the
pipelines and loved his job. He was proud of what he did and how well he did
it. It seemed as if he was in demand and frequently got calls to work on this
rig or that project for a three month stint. While he had left it at home, he
even had his own truck with all of the welding stuff. He said it was worth over
$80-90,000. He obviously made good money.
He had worked just about everywhere in Alberta on almost
every conceivable project. But there had been a price to pay. Jay told me a
fair amount about his life and some of the troubles he had gotten into. He made
it quite clear that what he was telling me was private. It was not something
that he normally told people and it clearly was not for public consumption. I
will respect his wishes. But it was interesting that Jay was able to identify
that the reason why he felt as if he could talk was that he knew he would not
see me again. While I have always known that that is why some of my drivers tell
me things that they generally don’t tell their closest friends, Jay may have
been my first driver who recognized the situation and articulated it.
Jay’s wife and his young son had also paid a high price for
his chosen career and life style. He was frequently gone for months at a time
and that makes it difficult to be in a relationship. His former wife was, by
his account, just a farm girl who wanted a normal stable life. He had not been
able to provide that. It had only been a
few weeks since the divorce proceeding had been finalized. And just that morning
Jay had said good bye to his young son.
He was clearly attached to his son and to his wife. He, in spite of all of his
comments about it being all over, still was attempting to make rules (for
example about dating others) for both of them so that perhaps some reconciliation
might be possible.
I liked Jay. He was
rough around the edges, far more interested in himself than anyone else and he
had perhaps a slightly glorified vision of his past and his skills. He talked
about his mentor who taught him how to weld pipe, about the guys that he had
worked with, the complexities of balancing out safety with keeping up with
production goals and the people that he had met along his journey. I learnt a
lot from him.
As we passed Swift Current he mentioned that he had a female
friend who was also a welder and who had just started a job somewhere near
Swift Current. When we got to Moose Jaw he wanted to stop and take a picture of
the huge moose in a tourist information park. I took a picture of him with the
moose so he could send it to his son. Jay got a text from his female friend who
was actually working somewhere east of Swift Current; then they called each
other; then they decided that they had to see each other. She would drive from
Swift Current to see him. She said it would take about an hour and half to get
there. Jay said I was welcome to hang around and he would be glad to drive me
to Regina when he had finished visiting.
But I didn’t think that would happen anytime soon and I had fears that I
would be stuck spending my time under this three-four storey high moose while
they did what ever. I was not completely convinced that it was or at least it
was going to remain a purely platonic relationship. I did not feel comfortable
being a third wheel in this potential Trans-Canada Highway liaison. So I grab
my pack, shook Jay’s hand and headed back up to the highway. It was the middle of
the afternoon, it was really hot and while I was only an hour away from Regina,
I was still seven hours away from Winnipeg.
I don’t want to suggest that I was angry at Jay, because I
wasn’t, but at that moment it did feel as if a deal we had negotiated had
fallen through. Of course we didn’t really have a deal and I certainly nothing
to offer him. All I could ever offer my drivers were my stories and my
thoughts. Jay didn’t really need or want either.
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