Why did you decide to become a trucker ?

What company do you drive for?

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

 

I have some. Without them it's 80 db to 90 plus db. Essentially a rock concert. With them, depending on what model and what the capabilities are, I can get down to the 20 db in the 20hertz, 100, 250 500 and 1000 etc. It quits at 3500 to 5000 hertz at 60 db somewhere in there. DOT requires 250, 500 and 1000 hertz at 40 db or lower.

English is my second language. Old Sign Language American English was my first. American Sign Langauge from the 80's forward is my third. It is a living language and constantly changes and corrects between any two deaf anywhere in the world. Im working on International and that one is tough because what England has is not necessary what the Deaf inside the IDF uses for their commands. And Europe is different than we are.

The cost of the hearing aids approach 6000 a pair and beyond. Get about 10 to 15 years out of them. I have been with Maryland Hearing Aid Service most of my life until moved to Arkansas. Eventually the company that provided top of line aides went out of business after 30 years of my life. The resulting replacements from other makers of aids are not as quality. One needs to be rebuilt and the other is approaching it's 14th year.

When you engage in music with a pipe organ, the lower down the row you go, the easier it is to hear em pipes talk. There have been times I have heard better than ordinary people depending on how quiet it gets in a given environment.

The biggest benefit to deaf is being albe to access certain very noisy machine shops and factories in which ordinary people suffer migraines and loss of hearing. It's not a problem. Also when shooting, ear protection is not needed. It's a nice comfortable thump for me. But normal hearing have ice picks in the ears if they fire without protection then ring 6 months.

I can go on. It's a blessing, and also a curse. People think that I lost something important. I say to them... if you never were provided something by God when you were born, how would you ever miss it? With that in mind I stand against parents shoving cohlear implants into babies when signlanguage is a natural path to communication. There is and always will be a very specific debate regarding your personal freedom not to suffer this type of medical assault against you. Thankfully it is a debate to be remembered.

The best illustration to deafness would be the 80's movie Children of a Lessor God, it was filmed in Canada to bypass American laws on teacher student relationship which caused quite the scandal back in my time. Leaving that aside, there is nothing about that movie that held back.

Trucking? Eh... some ternimal managers had trouble with deaf drivers. Especially those who stand the ground and talk back to them to teach them the ways of both cultures and cause them to understand that their ideas and discrimination has no leg to stand on. However, there were very few deaf before me who handled the big rigs and not many of those were very good. I don't know of too many in my school who would do well as a trucker. It is a incredibly big time effort serving America with a freedom most have never had up until then. So they don't dare do it.

Satellite communications for me was a great savior. Telephone communications back then was not so much.

I can go on. But Ive gotten enough years in life that it does not matter anymore if I am deaf or not. Seriously Im over it.

 

I started out OTR with a local company that has a driving school. I stayed there till I worked off my CDL training and now I drive a local dedicated lane for a company that services auto assembly plants.

 

For me it was a natural progression from Bus Driving to Big Rigs.
Trucks just fascinated me.
I had no idea at the time that 13 years on the road could beat me up that severely.
Would you believe I still miss it?
There's a sort of freedom that a 9 to 5 cannot match.
No driver can explain this love-hate phenomenon.