A TWO PART HARMONY
NOTE: If you are thinking about becoming a truck driver or if you are a current CDL holder looking to move to Prime then you must read Part One before reading Part Two. All others may skip Part One and go straight to the story of “OMG” in Part Two.
WARNING: IF YOU HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO READ PART ONE BEFORE PART TWO, YOU MUST NOT SKIP PART ONE TO GET TO PART TWO. THAT IS CHEATING AND IS PUNISHABLE UNDER PENALTY OF FEDERAL LAW AND SEVERAL OTHER ANCIENT OBSCURE VOO-DOO CURSES.
PART ONE
I want to thank Prime for asking me back as a guest writer for the Prime Blog. It is to my understanding that the blog’s primary function is to help show non-drivers why they should consider professional driving. In gratitude for this opportunity, I will now “sing for my supper” as it were and tell you from personal experience why I think you should make Prime your first choice whether you are looking for CDL training or have prior or current CDL experience and are looking for a home.
So… you want to be a truck driver?
The fact that you are here reading this blog tells me that you are half way there already. Some signs or symptoms that you may have terminal truckerdieselites are: having more lights on your pickup than you had on your tree at Christmas, owning a copy of “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac and hearing the call of the wild while you read it, cravings for truck stop food and bad coffee at all hours of the night, thinking the movie “Black Dog” starring Patrick Swayze should have won best picture at the Academy Awards, or owning all the Smokey and the Bandit movies on VHS, and if your condition is really critical, you may have a velvet painting of Burt Remolds in your living room along with a music collection entirely made up of sad truck driving songs on cassette that you listen to while sitting in your pickup crying in the parking lot of the nearest truck stop instead of going home after your 9 to 5 job. If you experience any or all these symptoms, you should consult your nearest Prime Recruiter for a free consultation and diagnosis because you must possess some of the basic drives and desires that bring people of all walks of life to the thin white line.
Trucking is a balanced blend of spices so if you have a little wanderlust in you, maybe a hint of treasure hunter or in a past life you think you may have been a sailor on the high seas or a cowboy riding herd on the trail or if you love adventure programs that deal with travel and discovery, then you have the basic ingredients that can make the heartbeat of a good truck driver. Trucking is not for everyone, it can be very tough but it gives what it takes.
Eight years ago I came to Prime with no experience at all and earned my CDL and eventually became a CDL instructor and Driver trainer. I believe that Prime has the best training in the industry. My testimony to this is that I trained both my son Parras and his mother Deanna, and they earned their CDL’s here at Prime.
I want to share something here that an old boy told me a long time ago, he said, “if you’re going to be a bear, then be a Grizzly!” If Prime were a branch of the military then we would be the Marines. Like the grizzly bear, we are at the top of the food chain, and like the Marines, we are the best of the best and don’t forget Prime’s motto, “Driven by the best.” This motto should tell you something very important about this company. The last things I want to say before we get to the story I call “OMG” is this, having a good sense of humor is healthy and important out here, and you should pursue your dreams with passion and get busy living. I am a full time lease operator and driving here at Prime allows me to pursue my dreams while earning a living. I am a writer and photographer, and I do it all here at Prime, so bring your dreams and come live the adventure.
PART TWO
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
HELEN KELLER
Keeping in mind this quote by Helen Keller I will now share with you a little story, “So gather ye round the fire and draw ye near so you can hear this true tale of adventure that I call OMG”
“OMG”
I would like to be able to tell you exactly where this takes place, but the closest I can come is to tell you that I was somewhere in West Virginia on interstate 64 headed west bound from Virginia. This highway winds through some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen, but on this cool night, the scenery was narrowed to pine top silhouettes against a star sprinkled sky and the occasional deer eating grass near the pines that lined the road like silent sentry. My headlights roved back and forth trying to keep up with the curving road as the silver blue shimmer of moonlight raced ahead of us on the velvet black highway.
I had at this time been driving long enough to feel comfortable and confident enough to have invited my son’s mother on a ride along in an effort to convince her to quit her job and come to Prime and get her CDL and run team with me. So, here we were rolling down the highway warm and comfortable listening to some tasty tunes feeling the rhythm of the road and all was well and good in the universe when I decided that this would be a good time to take a short nap, it may have been a good time but definitely ended up not being a good idea.
My eyes had grown heavy by the time we saw an exit sign and not a moment too soon I thought as I flipped my right blinker on and began to slow, downshifting I took the exit and stopped at the end of the ramp. I looked right, and I looked left and said, “Man it’s darker than the inside of a cow out here.” There was a stillness about this place where the fog hung like Spanish moss from the trees and the wind played in the top of the pines moaning and whistling an evil tune as the clouds crept over the moon leaving only a nickels worth of moonlight to see by, and I should have right then heard an alarm sounding and a voice shouting, GO! GO! KEEP GOING FOOL! But alas I did not hear a thing as I took a left turn under the overpass.
I reached over as I rolled under interstate 64 and turned the music down. Just ahead of me were a sprinkling of lights that promised a safe place to park, but as my headlights looked up the road and to the right, I saw that the gas station was abandoned and the entrance was chained and blocked but there were more lights that twinkled through the pine branches that beckoned me forward with their evil twinkling but before I can continue I have to tell you that I have never figured out what possessed me to keep going, I ignored my own rule that says “when you’re in a hole then quit digging.”
I down shifted to fourth gear and threw my fog lights on and crept further up the road and around the first corner. Sitting next to my fear and anxiety was a little thought that said that this was not going to help Deanna decide to become a truck driver, so I put on a brave smile and turned to her and said “this must be the scenic route.” Something told me she did not believe me and looking ahead again at the little main street and small shops and street lights I said a silent prayer for a place to magically appear around the next bend where I could get turned around.
The next bend took me to a sick place in my stomach as I realized that the road was getting narrower and narrower and the lights and the little town were disappearing. We went up and up winding back and forth up the mountain and the tree branches and fog were reaching over the road like creepy zombie hands brushing the sides of the trailer, scraping and scratching and screeching and if that wasn’t scary enough the next corner brought the sound of roaring water to my ears, I could see it on the left just a few feet from the “road” the river rolling white caps as it sped along ahead of my slow fog lighted truck.
At this point I had to keep going, I had no choice, there were no way I could back down all those curves with a 53 foot fully loaded trailer, so I hoped and I prayed and my stomach churned and I imagined the call I would have to make to road assist, “yes this is truck 67076 requesting a helicopter for an emergency turn around.” I would have laughed at this but, seriously this was not funny then, but oddly enough telling you this story now it’s funny as hell.
On the way up this fog shrouded raging river mountain I saw a few houses, anyway that would be the polite term, my word at the time was shack, tin roofed with “decks” cantilevered over the river, some had lights on and some did not as I zig zaged my way further into the hole of my decision to keep going. Lost in the West Virginia Mountains I couldn’t help but imagine shades of Burt Reynolds and the sound of dueling banjos and this gave me the shivers. Deanna and I looked at each other and I said, helicopter? She failed to see the humor.
By now we must have been more than a mile up the mountain and a long curve loomed ahead, I lost sight of the road and the river for a moment but then my headlights swept from right to left cutting through the fog capturing the road again and before I could breathe a sigh of relief I brought the truck to a sudden emergency stop from 10 mph and said, “OHHH, MY GOD!” Deanna and I looked at each other in the glow of the dashboard lights and slowly we both looked back to what lay before us in the road, shrouded in fog and lit by my headlights was the river and the smallest wooden bridge you have ever seen. My heart sank like the titanic, I froze like the proverbial deer in the headlights and we just sat there staring at the bridge.
Time to stop digging I said. I had just bought a new mag light and thank God for that I thought and I asked Deanna to get out and help guide me back down the Mountain. Alone on the mountain behind the truck in the dark with the creepy fog was not where she wanted to be but bravely she accepted the light and we proceeded down the mountain in reverse. Even for an experienced driver this would have been a challenge. I was somewhere in the novice category and thought that I could do it only because of sheer determination and the desire to not have to explain how I had ended up here.
Slowly foot by foot I backed up, made adjustments, backed up and made adjustments until we were about a quarter of the way down. Once again we were parallel to the river which was just a few feet from my door and I could hear something over the roar of the river, it was a man hollering, “mam! Mam” I stuck my head out the window and I saw that across the river a man was standing on his deck and he was hollering at Deanna, “mam, Mam!” I stopped the truck and set my breaks and turned the truck off so that I could hear the man over the noise of the river. In embarrassment and defeat I crossed my arms over the sill of my door and rested my head. Again he hollered “mam, Mam!” I raised my head and shouted back to him, “Obviously I am not supposed to be here!” He shouted back that there was a turnaround just a little further up the mountain to which I replied yelling, yes but there is a small, very small WOODEN bridge up there! The man paused and yelled back, “Yes, but Bill takes his steel truck over it all the time!” For the briefest moment I had hope, I had hope until the guy turned to his house and hollered, “Hey honey, doesn’t Bill drive over that bridge up there with his big truck?” My heart sank and my hope died and I did not wait to hear what “honey” said.
I hollered back to Deanna to get in the truck, she climbed in and closed the door and I told her that there was no way I could back the rest of the way down the mountain and then I made my decision, I said “no guts, no glory” and I left the man standing on his deck with the river tearing his words from his mouth as it churned and raged over the boulders laughing and spiting me for my ignorance. I geared the truck up and steeled myself and rolled back up the mountain to meet my waterloo, the small wooden bridge. I eased around the bend and eased up to the bridge, I sat looking at the bridge like a Matador to the bull and without taking my eyes off the bull I told Deanna to gather our most important gear and get my safe that held all my important documents and to get out because if the bridge failed and I went into the river we would have to hike back down the mountain and come up with an alien abduction story or something because I could not explain this to anyone in a million years.
Deanna stood back and watched as I pulled the truck steer tires onto the bridge. I got out and examined the bridge, listened for creaks and stress sounds, but because it was so close to the water I could not hear anything or even look under it. The hand railing was only as high as my thighs and I could barely fit between the truck and the railing and that is how narrow this bridge was. I got back into the truck and backed up a few feet, crossed myself and rolled onto the bridge as fast as I could with my stomach doing a swan dive from the hundredth floor. Sitting safely on the other side I thought that if there were ever an occasion for a man to be weak in the knees then this was it. Deanna and I gathered our gear and got back in the truck and then it dawned on me, oh my God, even if we do find a place to turn around then we have to cross the bridge again on the way back down.
My nerves and fears were being plucked like the strings of the dueling banjos as we continued up the mountain. It wasn’t long before I discovered where Bill must have lived because I came upon a steel Quonset building on my right with a large gravel half-moon driveway in front of it and a sign that said Bill’s Steel Hauling, thank God for Bill I said and pulled into the gravel lot. After a couple of backing maneuvers I got turned around and headed back down the mountain to face the bull again, this time I did not stop, I rolled cleanly and smoothly across what turned out to be the strongest little wooden bridge I had ever seen and I blew my air horn on the other side in gratitude. I blew the horn again for “honey” and the guy on the deck when I rolled past their shanty. High fiving and delirious with relief we rolled back onto the highway and into the night. After the adrenaline had evaporated and calm and order were restored we found a rest area and finally got some sleep.
After all was said and done Deanna, a few months later did in fact quit her job. She survived me and her CDL instruction and passed her skills test 100% earning her CDL. She then completed the training program, and we ran team here at Prime for over a year. As for me, I continued to train new students and am still here living the big adventure.
The lesson here is simple, when you are in a hole then quit digging and remember that in a crisis situation: do not panic, stop immediately, and assess your situation and evaluate your options and do not be afraid of asking for help, “unless you are lost on a dark mountain and sitting in front of the smallest wooden bridge that you have ever seen.” Remember this, I teach my students that mistakes are learning tools, and it’s not the mistake that you make but the solution you create that makes you a professional. The decision I made that night was not one of my brightest but because of my training here at Prime I was able to adapt and overcome the situation. Yes and one more thing, DO NOT I repeat DO NOT keep going down a road if you know or even think you may be in trouble. The instant you get the warning message STOP and solve the problem. I hope you had a good laugh here and gained some knowledge. The journey to the thin white line starts with the first step, so if you are gonna step to the line then brings your dreams and walk the thin white line with Prime.
By: Karl Wiggins
Proud Member of Team Kendall aka: Roland “Rollie” Kendall’s “Frozen Chosen”
