I fed the squirrels in the back yard of our house in Saint Petersburg for a long time. In that time I came to know a lot of them on what I considered a personal basis, in that there was some level of basic communication, even if it was just “Hey, peanut guy. Give me a peanut”.
Names were hung on some of them, just to differentiate them from the others, but there were plenty of others whose presence we liked, but who never received a name. These squirrels were wild …

In June or so of 2010, I was outside in the back yard feeding the squirrels peanuts. It was a daily ritual at the time. Since Spartacus, the squirrel we had raised from a baby and released, had been killed, I’d taken it upon myself to honor his memory by spoiling the other squirrels. One day in June I was out there, sitting in my chair and doling out peanuts to the critters, when one of them approached me tentatively. She stared hard at me for a moment, and then …

We watched an Adam Lambert performance from VH1 Unplugged last night. I like the guy, but I have to admit that I was largely bored by a lot of the music he was doing. Then he closed the show with a song titled “Down The Rabbit Hole”. That woke me up. This is the kind of song Adam Lambert needs to start doing. If he keeps playing the pop star game and recording the kinds of songs his record label seems to be forcing down his throat, he’s going to …

I just had a bonafide blast from the past today. I don’t know what ever made this band go through my head, but for some reason I looked up a song of theirs titled “Time Bomb” on YouTube. Much to my surprise, there was something there. I cranked it up, and I was suddenly 18 years old again.
I’m not going to kid you. This album is not one of the classics. But I’ve hung on to a cassette of this album since it came out in 1984. That should tell …

My family suffered some losses this week. I should probably list them separately, but they happened so closely together that they’ll always be connected in my mind. It seems to be true that when it rains, it certainly pours.
My aunt, Edith Isabel Chaney, died on Tuesday of this week. When I think of Edith, the first thing that comes to my mind is that sweet smile she had. She was such a warm, sweet lady. I can still hear her voice in my head from back in my days of …

MY TRUCKS — MY EMPLOYERS — TRUCKING BLOGS
Mia was the last truck I drove as a professional truck driver. I don’t recall how the name came about, other than perhaps that by the point I was assigned this truck, I mostly thought of truck #27224 as “my truck” – hence, “Mia”.
By the time I was assigned this truck, there were definite problems for me in regard to staying on the road. In 2006 my wife left me and I wound up losing the family home. I drifted about our there …

MY TRUCKS — MY EMPLOYERS — TRUCKING BLOGS
When Epes retired my previous truck (after realizing that I was, in fact, driving the oldest truck in the fleet), as per Epes custom, I was given a brand new truck.
This truck was named after the video game character Bloodrayne. The engine in this truck was so powerful compared to the Mercedes-Benz engine in my pervious truck that I felt like it was attacking the road every time I accelerated. So somehow calling it “Rayne” made sense.
I didn’t drive Rayne for long. Shortly …

MY TRUCKS — MY EMPLOYERS — TRUCKING BLOGS
The was the first truck Epes gave me when I came back. It took some adjustment. I’d gone from a Volvo 770 that I’d driven since it was new to a well-used Freightliner Columbia. But I adjusted quickly. I was happy to get back to driving a manual transmission again.
This truck was named after the ship in the television series Firefly. Mostly because it made odd noises on occasion. I found myself like the captain in that series, often saying “What was that?” in …

MY TRUCKS — MY EMPLOYERS — TRUCKING BLOGS
We campaigned long and hard for this truck. We’d had some problems with our previous truck because the dock at one of the places we loaded out of in Chicago Heights , Illinois during our time on the dedicated run was set down an incline inside of a building. When we were loaded (this place always had light loads), we would often find that our drive tires weren’t even touching the ground. I developed some interesting techniques for getting out of that dock.
The …

MY TRUCKS — MY EMPLOYERS — TRUCKING BLOGS
After the demise of Isabelle, we sat around at U.S. Xpress’ terminal in Salt Lake City for a few days, hoping that they would either repair our truck or that U.S. Xpress would find us another truck. After several days, we had befriended a woman who was quitting the company. She just happened to be vacating a truck that only had about 20,000 miles on it. The guys at Salt Lake City offered it to us, so we seated this truck and got …

MY TRUCKS — MY EMPLOYERS — TRUCKING BLOGS
We named this truck after my aunt, Edith Isabelle Millwood.
This truck was supposed to be our triumphant return to U.S. Xpress. We hadn’t made much money since we had jumped over to R&K Trucking/Jade Express, and we certainly hadn’t done very well when Mara had gone home to work a local job and I had started driving solo for Epes. We expected to return to U.S. Xpress and pick up where we left off when we were making great money running team. That …

MY TRUCKS — MY EMPLOYERS — TRUCKING BLOGS
I named this truck after my aunt, Loretta, whose illness lead to me to work for Epes Transport in the first place. After Loretta died, it made sense to name a truck after her. I know. Not the honor most people would wish for. But it was well-intentioned. Besides, this truck reminded me of Loretta. I’m not sure I can tell you why, exactly. I guess I could say that it worked fine, but it tended to do things its own way.
I didn’t …