Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

CougFan, Since you have a good rapport with your DM... Have you ever tried 'negotiating' to go one place or another with your DM? The Trainer sat down with the Intimidator and I think they planned out his loads until he got back through Indy and sat down with her again to do it again. She had the loads, of course, and with his depth he knew what he could pull off... ran really, really hard. Your DM would have to 'stack' the loads before a Mythical Planner QCd you a PP (PrePlan).

 

Trip and pay details of my first 3 weeks....................page 2, message 17.
Trip and pay details of my second 3 weeks................page 9, message 81.
Summary of loads..................................................page 14, message 139.

The big, 2000-truck company from Pacific, Washington stranded me in, of all places, a small town in Missouri also called Pacific--Pacific, Missouri on I-44. At least, that's how I saw it. I had gotten here by a 'stolen' load off the Indy yard to Mount Pleasant, Iowa. From Mt. Pleasant, Gordon might have routed me east towards home, but didn't.

Instead, Gordon routed me on a long empty run up to Wisconsin and then loaded down to Kansas City, then from Kansas City over to Topeka for a load that took me down I-70 to the shop in Pontoon Beach for service and repair, then west on I-44 to St. James, MO.

From St. James, Favorite DM told me to 'travel this way' (east)... as far as I could.

At every moment of the day the QualComm recorded my every move, my every location and speed. And that's all there was to it. The only time I put myself 'off-duty' was when I was actually, well, off-duty, not responsible for the truck. Which is not the 'Gordon way'. The unofficial Gordon way is that you correct your logs as you go. Your clock goes on no sooner than it has to, for example, when fueling. A half hour or hour to drop-and-hook, the rest as off- duty--even if you're signing bills--so you preserve your 70.

Not me. I was logging it as I'd run it. Period.

As much time as possible, I think most Gordon drivers will correct the QC to show 'off-duty' even when not. More on this later. But to my mind in Pacific, MO, I was out of hours. I needed to shut down for a 34-hour reset parked high up on a rocky, sandstone hillside. This Pilot truck stop has it's truck parking and truck diesel fueling islands at a level at least three (3) stories above the level of the main building which, as a driver, you reach by way of a long, steepish stairs with cover from rain, if not weather in general.

It's just my nature to make do, to do the best with what I've got, even take advantage of it if at all possible. Find the silver lining, if you will. Unlike joseph1135 ('My new adventure with Gordon Trucking' under favorite companies) who declares at the bottom of each post he makes that, "There is no god... " there's just enough Native American in me to feel part of a larger Universe that knows me, knows I'm here and I feel somehow connected to everything. Everything. Every thing.

I'm not a religious man, however; I have little regard for all flavors of organized religion. But I'm not stupid, either. Every particle in my body, every atom and subparticle, was here in whatever beginning. I was there--somehow, in some energetic form. I don't need to go any further than to encounter an almost not visible gnat, so small I can hardly see it until it lands on my lit up iPad screen at night. I can 'turn him off' with a quick push of my finger on top of him and down onto the screen. Lights out, little guy.

The complexity of that little guy, that tiny, tiny gnat, technologically puts our most advanced 'science' to shame. At our best, we are primitives in comparison in our techno-scientific development. Primitives. Primitives in what we know about the world around us. About life itself.

No, I probably don't have enough Native American blood in me for a full pint donation to the Red Cross. What I do have is a really light beard where my beard is not, so my shaving chore each day is trivial. And wide, short feet. Stand up, straight-ish hair. And a sense that even my worst day may have a larger, unknown, possibly discoverable purpose.


Written July 24, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. All rights reserved by author.

 

Reset in Pacific, Missouri

There was still a lot of Sunday left (St. James, my delivery is less than two hours west from Pontoon) when I shut down at Pacific, MO. Pacific lies east of St. James on the way to St. Louis on I-44.

Nothing exciting about a 34-hour reset at a Pilot truck stop, right? Now riddle me this: why is it most of us (including me, I admit) just sit back while a guy or gal struggles to get into an awkward spot? Especially when all it would take is one person who got out to do a little spotting for that driver? What would it do for the industry at-large if we simply expected to help each other out?

I'm trying to remember--Pilot was out of something and a slim, blonde manager helped me. I recall asking her about the town and her answer echoed almost everyone I would speak to, "Oh, I don't live here. I don't know anything about Pacific." I didn't find much online either. A large conservation area east of town, a Civil War skirmish and a couple sandstone caves. Red Cedar Inn. That was about it.

On went my new, New Balance tennis shoes (about the only kind I can buy for my 6E feet)--I'd find out. From the underpass in front of the Pilot, the national fast food joints are to the right on the frontage road along with some commercial strips as you leave going west. I crossed the frontage road that becomes Pacific's main drag and started hoofing it east towards town. The sandstone cliffs and two caves in town don't much impress. One still has what's left of a small bandstand from a summer concert a while back. Access to both is open...

Although you get to the 'other' side of town (population 7,000) fairly quickly, I could feel I needed the exercise. That little bit of walking already felt like a push. I wanted to see this Pacific Palisades Conservation Area east of town, so kept going.

Just outside of town US Silica loads 30-ton rail cars with 100 tons of pulverized sandstone (silica) in an hour. Union Pacific pushes the rail cars up a slight grade to US Silica; when loaded, a guy releases the brakes on the loaded (now 130-ton) car as other coworkers stop traffic; on its own the rail car starts moving and quickly gathers speed until it barrels across the highway. As it slows and comes to a stop, he sets the brakes, jumps off and walks back to the plant in his safety straps. Very cool.

I asked this guy (and others) about Pacific and got the same answer I got at the Pilot, "Pacific? I don't live here. Can't tell you anything about Pacific."

By now my feet were hurting; I kept going because I wanted to see the Pacific Palisades Conservation Area. I probably had 3-4 miles or more behind me, which meant I had the same in front of me if I turned around and headed back to the Pilot. I didn't want to think about it. There's a beach town in California called Pacific Palisades. Much more interesting. Baywatch lifeguard tower scenes filmed there (although I never saw an episode) at Will Rogers State Park, which is comprised of 200 acres Rogers bought in the 1920's.

Finally I got to the Red Cedar Inn. Closed. Forget the conservation area, I decided.


Written July 25, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. All rights reserved by author.

Little Steven's Underground Garage coming up in a few (at 10:00 pm) on WTTS, Indianapolis-Bloomington. I agree, Blu. Increasing driving skills and confidence was a big Gordon plus. Gordon deserves that credit. What's more, there is life after Gordon and Gordon helps springboard you to it...

 

Riddle Me This?

So riddle me this: Why aren't there a few inexpensive rental cars at every truck stop, to use for a couple hours for $15-$30 bucks. Is it because the big trucking companies won't fuel there if their drivers can get into a rental and drive off for a few hours? We are 'professional' drivers, aren't we? I mean, really.

So Gordon, the wealthy trucking company from Pacific, Washington, stranded me in Pacific, Missouri and I traipsed to the far, far side of that little town (population 7,000 and 5.5 square miles) to see the sites until my feet hurt and I started to feel decidedly hungry. The only eating places I knew of were on the other side of the Pilot, where I had hiked from.

I also passed some chiropractic offices on the way, a couple with signs for therapeutic massage. I've done Swedish, Rolfing, accupressure, reflexology, shiatsu and with my sore feet and out-of-shape shape a good, therapeutic massage would be the ticket; or so I thought. More than that, though, I was hungry and the idea of walking all the way to the other side of the Pilot did not cheer me.

When ever I got near someone, I would ask if there wasn't a cafe or sandwich shop downtown. No, I was told again and again. (It was only folks who were working who lived elsewhere and knew nothing about Pacific. The locals, however, didn't seem to know a whole lot more!) I learned about the bar and sandwich shop across the railroad tracks that closed a year or so back. But no, there's nothing downtown.

I wouldn't have it. There ought to be a coffee shop or something downtown so I kept asking and walking. I didn't have much choice, you know. On Sunday, many places were closed, too. I found a combo gift and pawn shop open with two 'local color' types inside. They both reeked of 'I'm special'--but not in a particularly good way. Nope, no coffee shop downtown. The Italian restaurant is a block down and a block over, though. Hey! That'll do! A block down and a block over, eh?

As I turned the corner I saw a sandwich board on the sidewalk advertising 'Junk and Java' with an arrow pointing across the street to a cute courtyard with a sailing flag just past the sidewalk. I crossed the street, walked past a beauty salon on my right and into the courtyard. There was another shop behind the salon, a--coffee shop! The special was a sandwich and endless bowl of soup--mushroom with wild rice, a grass harvested by Indians in Minnesota, where I grew up, for centuries before the white man arrived. I flat love wild rice, which is really a type of grass, not rice at all.

I felt like I'd been rescued off a treadmill stuck in the on position. I needed to shift my weight from my feet to my butt and here I could. And it was cute. Open three months. Very small. Four tables and if all four had customers, they'd be as close together as if in a movie theater. Very cozy. Unlimited bowl of soup... they don't know I'm a buffet-a-holic? I finished off their soup and they claimed not to mind.

By the way, I was told, a masseuse works out of the salon next door.


Written July 27, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. All rights reserved by author.

 

The Healer in Pacific, MO

I met the masseuse and her husband, a retired UPS driver, a little later in the afternoon when the young guy who took care of Junk and Java for his aunt heard someone next door at the salon. Turns out she's a Registered Nurse and had an opening for the next day, Monday, at 3:00 p.m. Well, how cool, I thought.

She and her husband, the UPS driver, married out of high school right there in Pacific (I think, I wouldn't bet the proverbial farm on my recollection). After confirming the appointment the young guy and I headed back to Junk and Java. I more or less made an afternoon of it there. Seems like every time someone came in, and there weren't a lot of customers, a new conversation lit up and carried on for a while.

In my experience, the smaller the community, the more likely people are to look at you as the person you are, not as a cardboard person, a mere customer or a transaction. Corpus Christi was an exception, a larger town with friendly folks who wanted to talk. Just going into a laundromat there I would get into a 'real' conversation that might never happen in Southern California.

With millions of people passing by every day in California, more cars on a couple miles of freeway than in the entire Owen County here in Indiana, or in the small city of Pacific (which straddles two counties, Franklin and St. Louis--so on my walk I crossed into two counties!), it just isn't possible to engage other people except superficially. Pacific was my kind of town, like the town I grew up in (Grand Rapids, MN, population 5000).

The next day I hoofed it back to the salon and it was busy with a few hair cuts despite it being a Monday. After the massage had begun for a while I said, "So you're using some kind of heat." "Sort of," she replied." She later told me that one of her customers told her that 'the little hair dryer' was just wonderful. And, yes, there was a definite feeling of flow although not blowing like with a small hair dryer. "And you're causing some kind of flow," I said. "Sort of," she said.

"You're gonna hafta tell me what's going on." A little reluctantly she explained that the heat came right off her hands and that flow was her energy pulling, pulling, pulling pain and tension and discomfort out that she encountered. I could feel that. We all have pain, psychic pain, built-up as tenseness from this or that and we store it, physically. It cramps us up and therapeutic body work strives to release it.

But I'd never felt anything like this. When she finished, she gave me her brochure in which she described herself as a healer. Yup, the real McCoy. A healer. First healer I ever met--at least that I believed.

I headed over to the Italian restaurant afterwards for a beer and a sandwich and time to think about what I had just experienced. She found pain and tension in areas I recognized as painful and tense after she found them; that I had been unaware of. And I could feel it drawing out. Some of this healing part she did without touching; she held her hands an inch or so out from where she 'sensed' pain and drew it out with her own energy, which felt distinctly warm with a light feeling of flow between me and her hands.

I was gonna hafta talk to Gordon and change my home time, split it between Indiana and Missouri.



Written July 28, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. All rights reserved by author.

 

Most Memorable Neely's Landing


Dispatch #32--St. James, MO L Sikeston, MO
219 miles....................................... $67.89

On Tuesday, I put in my '8' (Macro 8, check call where you declare yourself ready and update and confirm available hours, also called 'ready call') at 8:00 a.m., which is usual for me, from the Pilot in Pacific, MO and promptly got a PP (Pre-Plan) to load in St. James, MO. I had left St. James per Favorite DM, with instruction to "head east" as I thought my hours were fast running out. They probably weren't had I known how to preserve my hours. But I didn't. (See double yellow page 15, message #145 , my response message #146 and #147.)

Despite that I followed a specific DM directive to leave St. James, Gordon did not pay me for St. James, MO to Pacific or Pacific, MO back to St. James! So as far as Gordon was concerned, my reset in Pacific, MO never happened pay-wise! How convenient, eh? That way Gordon shaved 125 empty miles off my pay.

The Sikeston was a Service Watch live unload with a 2:00 p.m. (1400 hours) appointment. So hurry, hurry, hurry over to St. James, drop and hook, hurry to Sikeston at 2:00 p.m., live unload and then shut down for the day! What an insult of sending me back to St. James and not paying me for it, then forcing me to hurry to Sikeston; but my next dispatch illustrates Gordon's lack of concern for my pay.

I was instructed to proceed to Jackson, MO and shut down at approximately 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday and wait until the next morning to drag a trailer what ended up as a single, one (1) mile trailer move to an international soap maker for an 8:00 a.m. appointment.

Dispatch #33--Sikeston, MO E Jackson MO L Neely's Landing MO
54 miles.................................................................... $16.74
Short Haul Pay........................................................... $20.00

"Are you serious, you want 3579 to shut down now for a load 43 miles away tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m.?" I QCd (QualCommed--that is, messaged) the Intimidator. "THAT'S RIGHT," shouted the Intimidator back on the QC. Welcome to Gordon Trucking where Gordon is an all-for-profit for Gordon and you're regarded as a non-profit, doesn't-matter-whether-you-make-a-dime-or-not-company, I thought.

I found a small and bleak, independent truck stop outside of Jackson and parked on the bare dirt next to a Gordon truck parked there. How cool! Someone I could gripe with, perhaps. I didn't see a driver and went inside to buy something, anything, to justify being there and just for GP (general purposes) make sure I was okay there for the afternoon and night. It was fine.

When I got back to 3579, the other Gordon was gone.


Written July 30, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. All rights reserved by author.