I have been a truck driver for twenty-four years and am now saying goodbye to this chapter of my life. I have given my all during my career, including back surgery, surgery on both hands and sutures in my lower lip after a trailer door handle popped up and sent my lower teeth through my lower lip. That happened in Hartford, Connecticut in 1985. I am proud to say that I drove over two million miles accident-free and amassed only two speeding tickets. I hauled dry freight, fresh produce out of the fields of California, Sea Ray boats, household goods, classified government loads, x-ray machines, MRI machines, complete operating room equipment, office furniture and museum art. I participated in a Crime Stoppers commercial in Buffalo, New York and was thanked personally by the mayor of that fine city. I volunteered to haul transformers to the devastated areas of Miami after Hurricane Andrew and was again on TV. I have hauled government loads that were personally monitored by President Clinton.

I have served my nation proudly and without reservation. I have enjoyed meeting people from all walks of life and I have witnessed many miracles. I have seen many wild animals during my travels such as road-runners, mountain sheep, elk, moose, tarantulas, desert fox, armadillos, snakes, kangaroo rats, chipmunks, lizards, alligators, vultures, jack-rabbits and the biggest black birds in Arizona that I have ever seen!

I have seen some rather amazing things going on in cars as well as big trucks…I once saw a chimpanzee driving a semi-truck before the driver stuck his head out reversing my cardiac arrest…

I have driven through white-outs, blizzards, outrun hurricanes and tornadoes, shut down through two sand storms in the Mohave Desert in California. I even survived a small earthquake in Los Angeles once…and that was enough for me…

I have been told my services are no longer needed because I refuse to run illegally, to violate Federal regulations… which is fine…at least I won’t ever be locked up in a prison for running over a school bus filled with kids because I fell asleep at the wheel.

I look forward to starting college in the fall. I want to become a Dental Hygienist and be home during the evenings and every weekend. I have a family and my place is here with them, not out on a highway for a month or more at a time.

To those of you who are just starting your careers in trucking…I wish you well and I hope the industry is everything you want it to be…

Goodbye old friend…and thanks for an enjoyable ride…

This is the Michigan Kid and I’m signing off for the last time…

Keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down keep it between the ditches…

Happy trails drivers…