Trust me, you aren't screaming into the void. You're just re-expressing what guys like myself have been saying for years.

Been in it 32 years with 26 of it straight as over-the-road. Watched my daughter grow up in pictures on the dash and then the phone or tablet. Watched it consume two marriages. Watched it take my youth, the few friends I had who were my age mostly vanished to lack of keeping up. Friends I've had who were all older are mostly dead now. Nearly all family functions, I was there in spirit but not in body. And at some point, I woke up one morning to realize that even the color in my hair was left behind in some crappy truckstop, probably a Pilot.

I tell the younger crowd now to be aware that trucking will consume your soul and crush your spirit. It will try to kill you sometimes and then sometimes it will whisper in your ear that you should kill yourself. Don't let it get to you that way.

In these years there have been jobs that were and some that weren't. There's no explanation for what they "were" or "weren't". It's something you have to experience to understand.

I've learned much in those years. It's been a great study on how the nation's economy works and how it moves. It taught me that listening to major media, no matter left or right, that much of it is crap. I've watched expansions and contractions in the economy and figured out how trucking would see them months before politicians and talking heads would bloviate over the changes. There were times I'd come home and talk about things that hadn't yet been mentioned in the media outlets and be told I was simply nuts or just shilling for a particular political agenda.

Over the years I've loved trucking then I've hated trucking. It's been fun and it hasn't. Plenty of ups and downs; plenty of being told where to go and yet never really getting there.

As a trainer, I used to tell trainees that nearly anyone including a chimpanzee can be taught to drive a truck. Taught to go down the road, taught to back into a dock, taught to tie down a load, taught to do this job. But no one can teach you how to survive this lifestyle. Not everyone can cope with the demands. And some can't cope with themselves long enough to even try the demands. Some who can cope may one day find they can't any longer. I suffered that indignity for a while as well.

If I've gone long winded and jammed random thoughts into an odd concoction of a post, I do apologize. It just seemed like maybe this would be the place to post these particular thoughts. It isn't intended as a rant. Just thinking maybe a bit too loudly.

Drive safe. And as Warren Zevon said, enjoy every sandwich...