2018 On the Road Again #16

As I have travelled across the country these past few years, I have noticed that it is sometimes harder to have an engaging conversation with my last driver of the year. I think sometimes it is because I am just talked out - tired of talking, tired of telling and hearing stories. Other times it is perhaps because I am anxious to get home and it becomes hard to focus on the "now". However, on this final leg of my trip - it was an interesting and unusual conversation that kept the words flowing back and forth for much of the slightly over 700 kilometres, right until the last few feet. It had been a hard trip the first 36 hours because of the wind and the rather short rides with long waits in between rides, but the trip ended in a great ride that got me exactly to where I wanted to go. One could not ask for anything better than that.

In many ways it was a deeply personal conversation where my driver shared some aspects of his life that I think he would prefer to keep private. While the odds of someone ever reading this blog and knowing whom I am writing about are exceedingly remote, I, out of respect, for this kind and generous man feel a need to be circumspect. Not that he or anyone around him had done something wrong. He was a kind man who was considerate of others and while his politics may have been more to the right than mine, nothing he said suggested that he was anything close to a racist, or a misogynist. In general he was a fairly typical young 30 something who was just trying to succeed.

Trying to succeed was the problem. Like (I think) so many other people of his age he was faced with examples of highly successful and rich people. He wanted to be like them, he was prepared to work hard to get there, to take the necessary risks, But he wanted to get there. He had one or two friends who had gotten lucky, developed an idea and done very well; he lived with his fiancé and her parents who were very well off - some perhaps would suggest obscenely so. He kept on comparing himself to those role models - forgetting that at least in the case of the parents, that they were 40 years older than him and that it had been a long slow process of wealth accumulation.

I think he had two major difficulties - one that he was worried about how his fiancé's parents perceived him and secondly he was impatient with his progress. I am always cautious about playing therapist with my drivers. I have neither the skill, nor will we ever have chance to talk again. But I could not help but point out that he was too much in a rush, that he needed to set his own goals and to not worry about what other people thought about him. While much of our conversations was fun and wide ranging - we kept on coming back to his need to succeed. I do not think it was that he simply wanted to get rich - in fact he said that he thought his fiancé's parents were foolish to be well past retirement age and still working as hard as ever - I think he just wanted to feel that he was equally as successful. Unfortunately his only definition of success was the amount of money accumulated. He clearly had a set of skills, he was prepared to work hard and he was a nice guy. He should be satisfied with that as a starting point. I think he was a competitive guy who needed to succeed - I suspect that he will.

It, for anyone who knows me, would seem just a little bit silly that I would offer business advice. It in all likelihood be even more silly for anyone to listen to that advice. But we did talk about marketing, business plans and the like.

It was a lovely day, the truck performed flawlessly, he didn't make unneeded stops and almost all too soon we were at Tsawwassen ferry terminal. My original plan had been to get out somewhere and find a bus going to Horseshoe Bay so that I could catch a ferry to Nanaimo. My driver suggested that I get on the ferry to Victoria with him and then head up island. The thought of a long city bus trip was not that appealing. Then my driver suggested that I go to Duke Point which is just south of Nanaimo. I called a friend who said she could pick me up there and drive me home.

We got to the ferry terminal just as his ferry to Victoria was loading, I jumped out, said good bye far quicker than I would have liked and he was off. I walked to the terminal, bought a ticket to Duke Point and thirty minutes later I was on my way. Perfect timing.

It had been a good trip. In spite of the fact that the VIA train had been 12 hours late, and in spite of the fact that it felt as if I had spent a lot of time along the side of the road being almost blown over by strong winds, I had done the trip (Winnipeg to the west coast) in just over 2.5 days. Not bad for an old man!