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My dad was sort of an ambassador of truck driving. He would take his rig anywhere it would fit to tell people or kids what it was like to drive cross country. From the time I was born until somewhere in Junior High my dad was a furniture hauler. Household goods. He was the guy who would come to your house with a team of guys, pack your house, load your house, then take it to its destination. He was often gone weeks at a time.

I remember fondly, and clearly, 1978, I was finishing my second year of preschool and my dad brought his truck to my preschool. I can still see it, I remember sitting in his lap behind the big wheel barely able to reach the gear shift. He parked his truck in the parking lot, just like a sedan, and allowed all of my 4 and 5 year old friends to climb in, around and through the cab of his truck. Again in 1986, my brother and I had a BMX race in the Akron area, my dad had to work that weekend, a load of something or other had to be in Lodi on Friday night. Race day was Saturday. We dropped the load off in Lodi, picked up an empty trailer and headed to the race track on Saturday morning. Keith and I were the only racers with a 48 foot box trailer holding our two bikes, tool box, sleeping bags and cooler. One other occasion worth mentioning, 1988 or 1989 my dad drove his truck into the Cincinnati Convention Center to be a part of our Boy Scout Troops booth for a big Scout A Rama. People couldn’t believe it. Right there in the convention center was a rig for scouts to look through and learn something about the elusive Truck Transportation Merit Badge. My dad happened to be the  counselor for this badge.

So driving a 23,000 pound, 10 wheeled, diesel machine to an airport in St. Louis did not count as the strangest place my dad had driven to.

Moving across I-70 was a turning point in my life. I didn’t know it then, but looking back I can see that it is a marker in my life. Moving west toward St. Louis I had everything in front of me, my childhood and family were all behind me. My father was with me on this journey. Somewhere between my freshmen year of college and my senior year, my mom had handed me off to my father completely. She was the one who drove me to college my freshman year. She put away my laundry and helped arrange my room. But it was dad who made the drive to move me off campus into the apartment my junior year. It was dad who I called when I was over my head in debt, or car troubles, or worried about my next part time job. Today he was putting me on a plane for a place too far to run home if I got scared.

Air Ride suspension is a real misnomer in the language of semi truck riding. A highway has its own rhythm and a truck and trailer respond to that repetition in its own way. I had never driven this far bobtailed (without a trailer). The rig reacts different without a load and my seat moved up and down as we crossed I-55. As we  made our way west on I-270 the motion of the road changed and so did the tape deck. Johnny Cash was tossed to the worn plastic case and dad’s fingers flipped through and found Bill Monroe in its place and popped it in. The mandelin began to play and Bill sang these words:

I’ve been looking around
There’s a whole new world i see
And so many things that i can do
With your strength in me

I knew that this ride was coming to an end. The truck was quiet. Just Bill and his strings moving from the speakers and the familiar rattle of the truck.

My dad drove an average of 450 miles a day, 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year, for over 35 years. That’s a lot of time for a man to be alone. A lot of time for thinking. Driving is a solo sport and there isn’t much to say. Rolling across the Mississippi, still damaged from the floods just year or so before, we could spot things out of place. Your mind begins to find things to do when you ride that long in silence. As traffic on the north side of St. Louis picked up mid day, so did our conversation. “They pickin you up at the airport”. He asks. A light intro to heavier conversation. “Yes sir. Sending someone from the base to get me”.

“Got enough money to hold you”.

“Yeah, I am good.”

“Can’t believe these fields are still bare after the flood.”

“Me either, looks weird down there.”

“You’ve got my dispatchers number if you need me?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

Moving closer into the city my stomach was churning. Less about the rise and fall of the rig, more about climbing out of the truck. The exit sign for the airport was growing closer and he began to work the clutch and slowed the rig down to make the long winding exit onto I-170 south. Just a few minutes left. As we approached the I-70 interchange to move west again my dad began to pay closer to attention to signs, directions. He knew where he was going, I think he just wasn’t sure if the truck would fit. This Freightliner had a double bunk, and with the airfoil above, the truck rose almost 12 feet in the air from the highway.  As we inched closer to the airport I began to grab loose cd’s and put things into my small lumbar pack that carried traveling essentials.  It was as it Bill Monroe and his stringed partner knew this journey was coming to an end, his voice trailed off and the sound of the ejected tape broke the silence.

“We’re here” my dad proclaimed the obvious.  An airport never sneaks up on you and when you arrive at the gate in a rig you tend to be more aware of your surroundings.  Like I had done a hundred times before, I moved to the bunk, grabbed my pillow, backpack and placed my gear between my knees. Hat adjusted, Teva’s tightened, cd player stowed away, I was ready for the next leg of this adventure.

Air brakes can scare the unsuspecting auto traveler, but the Freightliner coming to a stop and setting its brakes couldn’t interrupt the stares that the massive baby blue rig was getting in the middle of the white zone.  Shy of long hair, I must of looked like a hitch hiker who found a sympathetic trucker. In actuality I was hitching a ride, I just happened to know the guy carrying my bag wearing the Lee jeans and Justin boots.  Standing with the world behind me, and the man and his rig before me,  the noise around us dissipated for that one minute. For that one minute there was only a father and a son. With little fanfare my dad hugged me.  Hugged me tight. Hugged me in a way that only men who have fought together, lived together, shared together, and know one another can hug. The smell of Camel cigarettes, cheap aftershave and diesel filled my senses.  “Be careful, call your mom when you get to Tacoma”
Then he said it.

“I love ya kid.”

With those four words he was able to communicate to me the following: I love you, I am here if you need me, I am proud of you, do good work, and I will miss you.
“I love you too dad. Thanks for the ride. See you around Labor day.”

With those three statements I was able to tell him, I know you do, thanks for being there for me, I am proud of you, I miss you already.

Men have a way of speaking the unspeakable with a motion, a wink, a nod, a hug, and few words. He spoke more to me in that instant than I was really able to contain.

You see, until that day, at that airport, standing between the terminal and the truck, I don’t remember him saying I love you. It was always inferred. It was always understood. I just don’t ever remember hearing it. Until that day, that occasion, I don’t remember hugging him. After that day, for the following 10 years until his death, I hugged him whenever I saw him.  The I love you’s came easier too.
Its funny, he watched me enter the terminal, then I watched him climb into the cab, clutch, shift to N, clutch, to 2, truck lurching, moving with the nimbleness of a small sedan, he quickly navigated his way out of the terminal, moving southward to Memphis for the next leg of his journey.  Hours later in a truck stop in West Memphis I imagine he sat drinking coffee reading a Clancy novel while I made my way to the Pike Place market. Funny how two guys had been so similar 8 hours prior, and so different that night.