Father, Where Are You

That is me in 1983 at the age of 27 with my then 4 year old daughter. The truck # was 8195. It had been worked on at the Cummins shop in Houston and would run 67MPH. That happened before I got the truck and like the previous driver, I kept my mouth shut.

I drove for J&M Transportation in Milledgeville GA when BT bought us out in 1982. They announced they were closing our terminal and offered a bonus and moving expenses to anyone wanting to transfer to new yard in Cuba AL. At the time, it was considered their western headquarters.

It was gravy for the first couple of years. Ran a lot of Texas out and back, home every weekend, with a $75 bonus weekend pay(sitting or running) if you didn't make it home.

Was making over 30k a year at .215 cpm. Strange how thirty years later I don't seem to making that much more.

Anyway, I left them in 1985 and moved back home to the Augusta GA area. I suppose it was good timing, since it wasn't too much longer that they were bought out by Schneider.

I'm sorry about your friend. I can see how eerie the similarities must be.

 

Thank-you. Fixing to add some now.

 

Smiths Grove
Steve finally took his eyes away from the picture long enough to turn it over and see the writing on back, which appeared to be recent. The name Doreen was neatly printed, along with a telephone number, whose area code seemed vaguely familiar.

"She wrote that on there in the room. Is that the right name?" Jeanie said.

Steve nodded somberly. "Tell me something, did you see a resemblance?"

The answer was in her eyes even before she spoke. She saw it the instant the motel room door opened, but for some undecipherable reason had been unwilling to admit it, even to herself. The reason was surfacing now, showing it's face in the clear light of day. She had fallen in love with Steve and felt threatened by the presence of this strange woman attempting to intervene in his life. This admission brought with it a certain amount of guilt. It was illogical to resent a man's daughter wanting to find her estranged father. It was also illogical, and downright selfish, for her to be possessive and jealous over a man she has never declared her feelings for.

"Yes, I did. Not at first, but as we talked, I could see it in her eyes. I should have called you then. I'm so sorry I didn't." Jeanie admitted, feeling somewhat relieved at her confession, and fearful of his possible reaction.
Steve seemed to weigh her words before responding, wondering, not for the first time, if she were holding back the same feelings he was. He now regretted more than ever his reluctance, or fear, to be open with her much earlier. He had planned to do so today, but now definitely didn't seem to be the time, or did it?

Not giving him a chance to answer, Jeanie told him "I have got to catch up on some tables." when she saw her manager motioning to the group of patrons who had just seated themselves in the corner of the diner. The freezing rain that accompanied the snowstorm had downed many power lines in the area and thousands of residents were still without electricity, bringing an above average number of local folks to the truckstop for meals.

Steve nodded noncommittally as he continued to stare at the inscription on the back of the photo, absently taking his cell phone from his pocket. He tried the number ten times, each attempt going straight to voicemail. Each time he had planned to leave a message his voice failed him. Perhaps there was a fear of leaving a personal message to someone who was still potentially a total stranger, or maybe he simply couldn't find the right words, which seemed to be an ongoing problem lately. In the end he sent a text, which read "This is Steve Reid. Call me".

Jeanie returned to his table fifteen minutes later, looking worn from the extra workload, or was it something else? He knew her shift would be over in about ninety minutes, and now was as good a time as ever. Better, actually, since he had a whole day to spare. The warehouse he was delivering to in Michigan had asked him to deliver a day later than previously arranged. They were hurting for storage space since all of their outbound Saturday shipments had been cancelled due to the severity of the storm. Better yet, they were paying him generous detention pay for his time.

"Jeanie, can we go somewhere after your shift? Just get away from here? I'd like to talk." He just blurted it out without thinking about it too much. "I know this is short notice and if you have plans I understand."

"Oh, no. I mean, no, I don't have any plans. That would be great." She answered, trying to keep the excitement from her voice.

"If you need to go home first and come back, that's fine, I have plenty of time."

"Oh, no, I keep extra clothes here for emergencies. You never know when something gets spilled around here."

With that settled, Steve told her he would be waiting in his truck, catching up on paperwork and the novel he was currently reading. In reality, he just sat out there anxiously, rehearsing what he wanted say to her when they were truly alone together for the first time.

Elizabethtown
Father? For some undefined reason, the word seemed out of context with her situation, as if having a father was an alien concept. Her rational mind wrote off the confusion as a side effect of her head injury, unaware, as of yet, of her previous days' activities. Another part of her couldn't understand why her mother wasn't here yet.

"Hello, Love. I apologize for the delay. I couldn't get a flight out of Milwaukee and the roads were horrendous, with the storm and all." the distinguished looking gentleman said. He looked every bit the part of the professor he was, with his plaid, wool jacket, wire rim glasses and a white, neatly trimmed beard.

Her confusion turned to elation at the sight of Glenn Lebalt. She would have been delighted to see him under any circumstances. Since the divorce a decade and a half ago and his move to teach in Milwaukee shortly thereafter, Doreen had rarely seen the man she considered her father. He had been her mentor, her advisor and she still thought of him as the kindest, wisest man in the world.

"I just spoke with your doctor in the hall. He informed me you were progressing nicely. I was so worried for you, Love." Glenn said, in his ever formal manner of speech. Doreen was touched at his use of his old endearment for her, twice even.

"I suppose he also told you not to be alarmed when you see me, that despite my appearance, I haven't actually been sparring with Mike Tyson." She answered with a grin.

"Whatever do you mean?" Glenn deadpanned, his sense of humor so subtle as not always be noticed.

"You are too kind, Glenn. You have no idea how delighted I am to see you, especially now. Have you spoken with my mother?"

"She telephoned me Saturday night from Las Vegas, off on one her trips. She said her cell phone had been turned off during the flight, which is understandable. She also said it would be impossible to return on such short notice, with the weather and all. So of course I didn't mind coming down. I would have done so anyway."

Doreen was silent as she absorbed the information. Was her own mother so self-absorbed that she couldn't find a way to get here, while calling on the man she treated like a door mat to risk the icy roads from Wisconsin driving down here? She had a feeling something crucial was missing from her short term memory. "That's all she said, that it would be inconvenient to return?"

"Not in so many words, but something to that effect. It seems the spat you two had played into her decision." Doreen had figured out as a child that Glenn was incapable of lying to her.

"And did she say what this 'spat' was about? I can't imagine something so serious as to cause this reaction. After all, little squabbles are nothing new between us."

"Apparently, this was more intense than a little squabble, Love." The way he ended the sentence made it sound as if there was more to say and he was uncomfortable about continuing. Doreen sensed this and was glad to see Glenn hadn't changed a bit. He was incapable of dishonesty, but that quality was often overridden by the desire to spare the feelings of those he cared for.

"I know you want to be kind, and I love you for it, but please tell me what happened. I'm all grown up now." Doreen pleaded.

As he recited her mother's version of the previous days' events, Doreen could hear her mother's voice in her mind, knowing there had to be a spin put on the actual events, one that made her seem foolish and made her mother seem to be the sensible one. Hearing this only served to reinforce what she had always believed, that her father wasn't some faceless, unknown man. He really existed in the flesh and now she had somehow uncovered some proof of her mother's deception. The story made absolute sense, but didn't fill in the blanks from the time she was last seen by her mother and when she woke up in this hospital.

Several possibilities flashed in her mind. Did she locate this man she saw and it was a case of mistaken identity? Did she fail to find anybody at all? Even worse, was it him and he denied it, not wanting to see her at? She hoped that wasn't the case. She could retrace her steps and hope she recognized somewhere she stopped. No, she knew that was foolish as she thought it. The only feasible hope was for her memory to return. Glenn suggested she search her handbag for receipts, but most of the contents had dumped out in the crash. Hopefully she would be able to visit her car, once she was released from here.

Doreen was silent for so long, Glenn was worried he may have upset her. "I'm sorry, Love. Perhaps I told you too much, too soon."

"No, I'm glad you did. Something else though, while we are being so brutally honest, I would like to know why you really left. I understand most of it, but I can't help but feeling there is something else, something dark you have never spoke of." Doreen hated pushing him into a corner, but she was searching for anything that might trigger a forgotten memory, anything to explain her mother's cruelty.

"Yes, there is something I have never spoke of, to anybody. I'm not avoiding the question, but I would prefer to wait. I have already overstayed visiting hours and you need your rest. Perhaps you will be released tomorrow and I can take you out for a nice meal. I have never understood how the medical community can develop these wonderful healing procedures and serve the most horrid food known to mankind."
This made Doreen laugh out loud. "A brilliant observation, Professor Glenn. That sounds good, and I would never pressure you. I just feel I must know."

"And you will indeed. We will also visit a phone store. It looks like you are due for an upgrade."

Published by Richard Reese

 

It's not a writing group per se, or at least what I think of as a writing group.
This is Yahoo Voices, which generates news, sports, travel, business, tech, and entertainment articles. It was once called Associated Content.
The sports and news stuff obviously has a short shelf life and those writers recieve a flat rate, or upfront pay for approved articles.
Except for a couple lifestyle articles, I am doing creative writing exclusively, which never makes the front page.
I get paid on a per view basis, and believe me when I say it isn't much.
On the plus side, they don't claim rights to the material and I am free to publish it elsewhere, which I do here for the exposure.
I also post it here because this is the firat place I ever publicly displayed anything and got alot of support from the members here and don't mind giving back.

My next planned step is to self publish on Amazon. It's a straight forward deal. No fee, no agent, no overhead.
Just download your material in Kindle friendly format(Microsoft word works) and set your own price. Amazon takes 30% off the top.
There are some authors who have been doing well on .99 cent views, with looks in the hundreds of thousands.
I still love real books, but times they are a changing.

I also am about 150 pages into a crime novel which I want to shop around in the traditional print market one day.
I keep getting distracted with this other stuff, plus I have a full time job, so it keeps getting shoved to the back burner.

I am really wanting to get away from trucking based stories and write what I like to read, which is crime fiction.
Some of my favorites are John Sandford, Karin Slaughter and James Lee Burke.
The trucking stuff comes easy to me since I don't have to fake it or look up(or make up) facts as I write.
I am still skeptical about how well a trucker based novel will be accepted by the general public, but I plan on finding out with this one.
I refuse to do hack Smokey & The Bandit stuff or that crap I used to read in Truckers News way back when.

If you go to the bottom of a Yahoo home page, look for voices. Or you can click on my name on the bottom of above post.