Friday, August 29, 2008

National Truck Driver Appreciation Week

Am I kidding? Turns out I'm not, but I am a little late. Truck Driver Appreciation Week started on Monday, but you can bet those guys are working all weekend long, so there's still time to say thanks.

Okay, I know. Why does someone like me who cares about local food and clean air want to talk about truckers? A few reasons.

* You think you're depressed when you have to stop by the gas station?

* Tell me this isn't pretty cool:



* Apart from milk and tv's and dirt, which are hard to get excited about but necessary, a lot of these truckers move the military. Like my brother who's spending a lot of time away from his family, one day out from a really nasty oral surgery, making sure the armed forces have what they need when they need it. So yeah I like shopping at farmers markets and I spend a fair amount of time worrying if my dollars are better spent there or at one CSA farm, but there's no better way to do a lot of the stuff they do. There's not one single person I know who's life hasn't been made better by a truck driver or two. Did you buy a completely green pre-fab home? Done, truckers are how it got to your lot. Do you shop at Target? Done.

* Because truckers only make the news when they burn down giant overpasses. A lot of these guys are amazing drivers, with skills you've never heard of, who have an amazing work ethic. Let's take my brother, again, for an example. Apart from his sad mouth, he's been living with a bad back injury. Give me half of that pain and I'd be taking my prescribed pain medication, but he won't because he could be tested at any time - even if he doesn't intend to work for days.

* You know you love it.

So how do you show your appreciation? I'm guessing not a lot of you spend time at truck stops or have cb radios in your cars (although you'd love to say, "Breaker One Niner"). So here's my number one tip: Let them merge.

Ten Four.

3 comments:

Sunny Day Tag Girl said...

You are cracking me up!!!! I think he might be the only person I know that always 'knew" what he was going to be when he grew up, when I think of him I see trucks and cowboy boots. Is that a picture of his truck? I can't remember if I have ever seen it. Sad I know.
Take care, Ko

Lindsay said...

As the mother of a future truck driver (at least for this week...) - I just want to say we do our part and wave and hi-five every truck driver we see within a 20 mile radius! Well said - I'm going to have to read Dylan this post :P

Steve and Kelley said...

You're blog inspired me. I was having one of the worst driving days in recent memory (one of those where I could have ran the 12 miles home faster than my car was taking me, not even kidding and that's not because I'm an exceptionally fast runner). Anyway, I was sitting bumper to bumper almost blowing a gasket. I see in my rearview a big rig needing to merge on the 15 several cars back. No one was letting him in so I stopped until he caught up with me and I let him in. I hope I would have done that anyway, but the truck driver apprecation reminder was completely on my mind for this one. It's good to get reminders every now and again.