Jack Bishop was the man who inspired the spark that led to my driving a truck for a living. We were both rather young at the time, he only a couple of years older than I was. He painted a picture that appealed to me of life on the road, and from that moment on, I thought of nothing else.

He had worked as a road driver for a few years, and had given it up for his new wife. We both worked at the Central Soya plant. I was a mechanic and he was the yard driver at the time.

I moved on to driving over the road, and he had left for a localized hauling position, for the money it presented. Two young children introduced into his marriage presented the need for him to move on. He was working for Leon Jones Trucking at the time he passed on at the age of 32.

He lost his life, horribly and tragically on a summer day in 1990, when a drunk driver in a Ford van crossed the center line near the intersections of Highways Georgia 369 and Georgia 372, 10 miles east of Canton, Georgia. The van contained paint thinner, and exploded when they hit head on. Amazingly the driver of the van walked away from the crash, virtually unhurt.

Jack did not die as a result of the collision. He died due to the resulting fire. People at the scene were not able to get to him in time to save him.

Some things are hard to understand, and the fact that those two boys of his had to grow up without their father, who loved them more than life itself, will forever be one of life's least understood circumstances.