I have stood a few times at the top of the hill just outside
of Dryden. There is a little park across the road and on my side a very nice
looking motel. I remember the last time I stood in this spot, a young man was
washing his older black Trans-Am. This time a slightly older young man was
washing a black Trans-Am. I was tempted to leave my pack and ask him if he was
the same guy I had seen two years earlier. I didn't. It was getting towards
dusk and I still had hopes that I would make it to Thunder Bay. It was after
all, only four hours away.
An older car eventually stopped, the driver said that he
going to Upsala - a small town, two hours down the road that had two large
truck stops. I got in. Maybe this time I would get lucky at a truck stop. My driver was originally from Newfoundland but
had lived in Northern Ontario for a long time. He stuttered. That is not that
unusual - I stutter - but what struck me as unusual was his absolute comfort
with his speech difficulties. Not once in our two hours together did he
demonstrate any embarrassment or attempt to find another, easier to say word. I
can usually recognize others who stutter. We all have a common technique in talking
in more complex sentences as we work around words that we know or anticipate
that we will have a hard time over. He didn't.
We stopped once for a few minutes at a small mobile home
park so that he could drop off a tenancy agreement. His partner and her
children were moving into town so that the kids could go to a better school. He
was going to stay in Upsala as it was more convenient for his work. I don't
think the couple were separating - she was just doing something that the kids
needed. Although the kids were not his biologically - he was okay with paying
the extra housing costs. He had other children from another relationship and
seems to have been as equally as caring and as generous. I think he was the type
of guy who is so open and honest that he cannot conceive of the possibility
that there were other people in the world who might take advantage of him. Like
one of my other drivers, he imagined that he would be working until he died to
make enough money to support those who he cared about.
He worked as a truck driver for a road construction crew.
There is always some highway work during the road building season. He was busy
during that time and I suspect that he made pretty good living. Of course,
during the colder months he was unemployed although I think he occasionally drove
road plough. We spent a fair amount of time talking about how big companies
that are run by people who need to watch the bottom line, may know nothing
about what it takes to get the job done. It felt as if he was under some
pressure to either break trucking rules in terms of number of hours worked or
else get yelled at by his bosses when he didn't make as many trips as they
expected.
We also talked about his visit with his mother before her
death in Newfoundland and the fact that his dad, whom he had never gotten along
with, was not well. He really did not want to go home, but he had promised his
mother that he would. I am always surprised that there are so many people who seem
to have chosen to have at best, minimal contact with their families. While it was none of my business, I as I was
getting out of the car encouraged him to go home to see his Dad.
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