After I graduated from truck driving school and had received my commercial drivers license, I was hired on by a large national carrier named Werner Enterprises.
The first eight weeks of driving had to be done with a "trainer". Four with one and then four with another in different areas of the country. After spending several days just hanging around the driver's lounge waiting for news, I finally was assigned my first trainer. I was so excited! I was finally going to hit the highways and start my new career.
All truck drivers have what is called a handle. My first trainer was a black man called Preacher Man (for the first few weeks I was simply known as that crazy white kid until I had earned a handle :)). He was on a dedicated route for Dollar General out of a distribution center in northern Mississippi. He was a southern Baptist preacher and would drive five days and have the weekend off. It was a dedicated run and the drivers got special treatment.
After a long and horrible greyhound bus ride from Atlanta to Indianola Mississippi we were on our way. I knew on the first night we were headed out that this was going to be an interesting four weeks (my second trainer Jim aka Toad is another interesting tale as well that I will share later.)
As we were heading out for our first time, he started chatting up a lady on the CB who was in a nearby truck. No sooner than we had almost reached the gate he was turning around to go pick up this lady. It turned out to be a duo of gals and they were what is called Lot Lizards within the trade or simply prostitutes. Preacher soon dropped me back at the lounge after bartering a deal and I had to sit for several hours while he was "preoccupied". I didn't know what to think and just kinda of sat there confused watching TV in the lounge. I did know that my future as a truck driver with this company fell in this one mans hand. Shortly we were back on the road and I was off for my first ride as a Werner employee with the smell of sex permeating the cab. I thought to myself sitting in the passengers seat, my God, what have I gotten myself into?
Well, it turned out that Preacher was a good fellow and treated me well for the four weeks. He just had a few on the side "hobbys" that I didn't care for. We would spend long hours talking to each other about race and discrimination and many other things as one drove and the other sat.
About the third week, I had my first life long experience with blatant discrimination. I have lived all my life in the deep south and have experienced it but it was always of the subtle kind and hard to detect.
During the day we had a headlight go out and no where to buy a replacement as we were in the middle of no where Mississippi. Preacher was getting very worried as dusk approached. If state troopers or local police see a commercial truck with something damaged or not working they have a little light bulb that pops over their head with a dollar sign in it. Sure enough after night fell, we were soon pulled over and Preach got a hefty ticket and a stern talking down to by a state trooper. Preach was livid and mad as hell and told me if I had driven because I was white I would have just got a warning. I then told preach that I would drive and lets see what happened that next time we were pulled over.
Within about an hour, I see blue and red lights flashing in my side mirror so I pull off into the median after several miles of trying to find a big enough shoulder to hold the truck. The local cop walks up and asks me to step out of the cab. He was really nice and just wanted to inform me that my headlight was out and to get it fixed asap to comply with the law. Man, that sucked and I felt so bad for Preacher. Life sometimes is just not fair at all.
I have a bunch of pictures from truck driving on my computer and would like to post them. I am going to try and find some way of free hosting online and will get them up soon.
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