25 Years and Going Strong

     This week marks 25 years since I started my career driving a truck.  July 7^th, 1991 I started orientation with North American Commercial Transportation, a division of NAVL that is long gone.  I was one of over a hundred, about half of us with that same scared, “deer in the headlights” expression; the tell-tale sign of a recent driving school graduate.  Sometimes it feels like yesterday, sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago.  I guess it was a lifetime ago because both of my children were born after that event.

     Short disclaimer: while I did start 25 years ago, I do not have 25 consecutive years of driving.  Raising kids and other lifestyle changes have interrupted my career several times.  If you squash it all down, I probably have 6-7 years of actual drive time in those 25 years.

     When I think of the changes that have happened in trucking since “way back when” it boggles my mind.  Many of the changes have been good, some, well, not so much.  Technology has certainly made our jobs easier.  I remember my dad complaining when they put a Qualcomm in his truck, but he found a new appreciation for it the day it was raining cats and dogs but he didn’t have to get out of the truck and go wait in line for a pay phone.  Trucks are better, cell phones have made communication easier.  Trucking certainly has evolved.

     Sometimes I hear other drivers with as many years or more driving talk about “the good old days” when drivers helped each other, other drivers from the same company would socialize at the truck stops, the CB was always hopping.  When they complain about how these things are dead and gone I can’t help but think “well, didn’t you stop doing those things, too?”

     I love driving.  This is the life I choose.  It’s hard to believe that 25 years has passed and I can’t help but wonder what the future holds.