FIRST NIGHT IN MY NEW "FACTORY"

I slept in a bedroom above a busy factory last night. At least that's how it sounded to me, as I lay down and waited for sleep to come my way. The respiratory supply company which provided my CPAP machine and all its supplies delivered my oxygen equipment that my doctor and now the Sleep Disorders Center at a local hospital had ordered. I wore a oxygen monitor awhile back, all night long, and the results from that showed that my oxy saturation level was approaching a critically low state while I slept -- something that's not uncommon at all, I was told. That low saturation level was, in fact, what triggered that vicious attack of the gasps that sent me to an ER in West Virginia a month or so ago and ultimately led to my current state of unemployment, they now believe. Low oxygen in the blood, coupled with sleep apnea, is not a good thing at all. Trust me on that one.

So, I signed for some equipment I can't possibly pay for, with my healthcare insurance on the verge of lapsing forever. The insurance company had to pre-authorize it before they delivered it, so I'm covered for now. But when it does lapse (and it will,) I have nothing to pay for COBRA with until the check for the partial distribution of my 401K money arrives and/or I find some kind of employment that I can do without losing my breath and passing out. As is typical in these cases, the more you need that money the longer it will take to get it. Never fails!!! I'm already collecting 'past due' notices all over the place. Should I frame them?? Maybe submit this to Guinness? I may be setting some kind of record here.

A tech delivered my new gear and explained its usage to me in a long session yesterday afternoon. The equipment consists of a little green oxygen cylinder on a wheeled cart that is still sitting in a corner of my living room, where it will remain until and unless I need it. That's just for emergency use -- in case the power conks out. Only good for about three hours. The main machine is another wheeled device that looks like one of the portable A/C recharging stations that you see in car repair shops. It's called an Oxygen Concentrator and it takes up a whole corner of my bedroom.

[Now I can see carrying that thing out with me on a truck every week, can't you?? Yeah. Right. Where would I sleep? It would consume half my sleeper space. So, yet another reason why my departure from my former occupation was well-justified, even though my doctor still stubbornly clings to her belief that I can still drive a truck. Well, yeah, I could drive one, true enough. But to put up with all the other crap that the treatment of my ailment entails??!!! I think not, doc. I strongly disagree. Maybe I can physically drive, but it's the other baggage that now goes with it that screws the pooch.]

Anyway, my oxgen constipator -- uh, I mean, oxygen concentrator sucks. Literally. It sucks in air on one side, separates the oxygen from it, dumps the other stuff back into the atmosphere, then pipes the oxy through a plastic hose out the other side and into the output fitting on my CPAP. What this all means is that the air my CPAP compresses and pumps out into my mask now has pure oxygen mixed in with it. This keeps my oxygen level up during the night when I'm asleep (and unable to take a nebulizer treatment) and allows me to sleep much better, as well as preventing another attack of the gaspies. And it works quite well, if the first night was any indication, because I awoke feeling much more refreshed this morning and breathing quite easily. I went about my early morning business casually, not rushing headlong into the kitchen and grabbing for my nebulizer cup, as had been my habit since I got that machine, two weeks ago. A large improvement.

So what I now have in my bedroom amounts to a neat little oxygen factory. Ain't technology amazing?? It's also expensive -- and noisy. It puts out a steady throbbing beat that's punctuated at regular intervals by sighing noises, not unlike a low-volume version of the air 'dump valve' opening on a truck that's idling in traffic. It also makes a sort of groaning noise from time to time. In short, it's a little "symphony" on wheels, located about four feet from my bed. I chuckled to myself last night, amused by the thought that my bedroom was somewhere on an upper floor, with an operational manufacturing plant of some kind below me. I could swear I heard a metallic 'clang' down there, at one point, mixed in with the other sounds. Midnight at the foundry, and I'm the night watchman, trying to steal a little shut-eye on the job!!

But I went out like a light and slept well. I'll get used to it quickly. Heck, if I can get so used to a diesel truck engine idling all night long that I never notice it, this will be a piece of cake!! It's worth it for a good night's sleep, for the first time in nearly two months, ever since my latest personal journey began. A welcome relief.

ICE CREAM MEMORIES

I spent a quiet holiday evening at Coyote Joe's -- my favorite hangout and the only Adult Daycare Center in existence that I know of. I had a good meal, but kept my visit short, after watching the NASCAR race end early, due to (what else?) rain, of course. They had run a little more than half the race at that point, so they declared the leading car at the time to be the winner and everyone went back to the house, to get ready for the next race, next Sunday. After that, I had a little conversation, on and off, with a few friends, and then headed out, back to the Dawg House, to get ready for the busy day I'll have today. On the way home, I stopped to get some sodas and an ice cream cone and got to the place at the same time that Mom Nature decided to act bitchy again and dump a thunderstorm on our heads. 

I sat in my pick-em-up truck for maybe ten minutes, before it let up enough so that I just had to wade to make it to the door and not swim for dear life. You cannot move far, very fast, with the lung disorder I have; ten yards at top speed and you'll be gasping for breath. You quickly learn to pace yourself, so that you're not totally winded by the time you get into the place. So, it's pretty slow going and, naturally, you can get pretty wet in the process. Let's just say I got well-dampened before I made the front door of the gas station/C-store where I stopped. I got what I wanted quickly, then back outside and made my way as quickly as I could to the front door of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream store that's next door to that particular Pilot. Another day, another Pilot -- that corporation is headquartered in K-Town and they pretty much dominate the motor fuel business around here. And they have some state-of-the-art C-Stores, to boot. But enough about that -- Baskin-Robbins was calling me. 

Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream -- ah, yes. One small tidbit of my youth that I've never quite outgrown. They say everyone has an inner child that we need to indulge from time-to-time and B-R allows me to indulge mine, now and again. Simple pleasures and still the best danged ice cream money can buy, as far as I'm concerned! I waited patiently in line and treated myself to a double cone of my favorite flavor -- Nutty Coconut. Still raining outside, lightning flashing in the distance, so I sat down at a table and devoured my frozen holiday treat. One cold, creamy bite, two, three, and -- ahhhhhhhh! My taste buds were overjoyed, savoring every nibble. Crunch! went the many nuts, buried in the ice cream, as I chewed and licked my way through the two massive scoops on my cone. For the next few minutes, I was in a Heaven on earth

Ice cream melts fast, especially in summer weather, thus forcing you to focus on your treat and eat it quickly. Nothing sucks more than watching one of the scoops you paid for and savor so much melt and fall off in the floor when you lick it. So, you do what you have to do, to avoid having that aggravating experience. Anybody remember what ice cream does to you when you eat it too fast and it freezes the sinuses in your face?? Ouch!!! Hurts, don't it?? But it's kind of like getting sore when you make love for the first time ever -- it hurts good!!! 

I had that experience, still fondly remembered from childhood, all over again last night. My face ached, but I finished that double dip off, smiling with my memories of an earlier and much simpler life, and didn't feed any of my treat to the floor.  I gulped it all down and even peeled off the paper wrapper and ate the entire sugar cone. That's the best part, I've always said. What's the point of having a sugar cone, if you don't eat it too?? When I was done, the rain had slacked off to a drizzle and I smiled all the way home. I need to visit that Baskin-Robbins store more often -- I think ice cream can be very therapeutic!!! 

ANOTHER SOAKING AND THE POKER RUN THAT WASN'T

Went over to Coyote Joe's -- my favorite biker and all-around hangout -- Thursday night, for a few cold ones and some supper. I was into enjoying my "vacation" week, after quitting my job for health reasons; generally blowing money I shouldn't be blowing. But life's too short to worry about minor things like debts all the time. So, screw it -- let's ride, as we Harley-Davidson enthusiasts are so fond of saying. Maybe it's just as well that I've had no little rugrats in my life, because if I had any kids, all they would inherit would be my bills, when I finally take off down that highway into eternity. I'm kind of like Willie Nelson when it comes to that. "I raised your little ass(es), so now you can pay me back by paying off all my debts!! Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work you go!!" I call it my TANSTAAFL Principle:  There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Enough said. 

Where was I?? Oh, yeah, Coyote Joe's. Well, Thursday is Bike Night over there and there's always something interesting taking place on that particular night every week. One week they had a biker lawyer giving a talk about your legal rights when some moron in a cage runs your butt over on the street. You think bikers are intimidating?? Imagine a few of us with law degrees!!! Short of wearing one of those brilliant orange sleeveless shirts that they sell at some biker shops -- the ones that say "CAN YOU SEE ME NOW, ASSHOLE?" on the back -- a good biker attorney is your only defense against all those seemingly blind car drivers who can see everything except a person on a motorcycle. This is 2009, not 1979. Today you don't kick dents in the door of their car when they invade your space; today you swerve out of the way and if you fall off on your butt you sue them until they are blind!! Be sure to bring a fully-loaded wallet to court with you. Not seeing me is gonna cost your ass BIG! 

That was a good one, but last week was better, because they had karaoke night again. Amateur entertainer night, where anyone who wants to can groan, croak, or stammer his or her way through a popular song that they think they can sing. Lotta good laughs, watching drunks make fools out of themselves, and unlike the American Idol outtakes, this is live. To be fair, though, some of the guys and gals who participated actually have some talent and a few sounded pretty danged good! One gal in particular -- a chubby but cute blonde -- really belted her way through a rendition of Gretchen Wilson's Redneck Woman. She was great and got a well-deserved round of applause. 

The host, Clowny Boy, tried to get me to audition, but I was having none of it. Nope, not me and I won't ever get that drunk -- I'd pass out first. You don't want to hear me attempt to sing -- not at all. I sound like a corroded, cranky two-stroker with a terminal rod knock and a major manifold air leak. Like a cross between a rusty buzz saw and a bull moose with a bellyache. I might belch one out, but I can belt nothing except my pants, and I prefer my suspenders. One fractured note from my COPD-infected lungs and everyone would go running for the closest exit. 

So, of course, I had to try it out, being the nice guy that I am, 89.7 percent of the time. And his offer to buy me another Bud Light if I did it helped, too. I asked him if he had Kenny Rogers' Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town in his machine and he came up with it. I used to be able to do a passable imitation of ol' Kenny on that country classic, but that was before I had these gasping attacks. Plus the fact that I've never done it on a stage, in front of people!!! OhmyGod, I gotta be NUTS to do this!!! Talk about panic attacks!! "Well, I guess you're all wondering why I called you here . . ." I whispered into the microphone. A few laughs and then Clowny started the music. 

First, I got totally behind the beat from the beginning -- twice. On the third attempt, I started on cue, finally. Somehow, I got through it and to my surprise, got scattered applause, instead of the boos and fake gags that I was expecting. Clowny told me that if I practiced it more, I would be good on it, as it was right in my key. At least two people told me they enjoyed it, even if I was as rusty as an old Ford on a junk car lot. I thanked them and sat back down, my three minutes of "fame" having expired. And now I'm finding myself ripping the tracks off of my two Kenny Rogers CDs onto my computer, converting them to MP3 format. Well, it's show biz, baby --what can I say?? Where's my rhinestone jumpsuit and Elvis sunglasses?? Hey, be careful how you treat me, girls, I'm a celebrity now, y'know?? Yeah. Right. Sure. 

But all good things must end, and it did. I figured I'd run through enough cash for one night and I paid up, put a tip in the girls' jar and headed for the door. Only to find that it was raining outside, and not just rain by itself. I heard the rumble of thunder and saw lighting flashes in the sky every few minutes. Distant, but still a thunderstorm. Well, poo-poo,  I said (to sanitize my language a bit!!) That sucked. So, I sat back down at a patio table and waited for the rain to let up. 

Forty-five minutes later I came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to let up, at least in my lifetime, or so it seemed. We who are about to drown salute you; I gathered my courage up to face the inevitable and headed for Miss Velvet. I'd parked her under the awning, so the seat was dry at least and I wouldn't get my butt wet -- much. I cranked Velvet to life, buckled my helmet and rode out of there. It wasn't until I made my turn onto a deserted side street that I noticed my gloves, still lying on the gas tank, where I'd laid them after taking them off a few hours before. I stopped in a closed bank's parking lot and put them on before they fell or got blown off and lost. The light cooperated anyway, and I made my way down Merchant Drive, toward the Dawg House. I didn't even make the first intersection before I noticed that my boots were already soaked and my feet were all squishy inside. Amazing how water can penetrate boot leather when you're running 30 mph. 

By the time I got home I think my underwear shorts were even soaked. My face, hands, arms, legs and feet were dripping. I got my girl into the garage without crashing her on the slick, finished concrete floor and wheeled her around to my parking position without incident. My leather vest had kept the rain off my back and backside pretty well, but I looked like I'd dived into a swimming pool in my clothes elsewhere and I sloshed when I walked across the garage. I took one boot off and tilted it up, but no water poured out, so I guess it wasn't that bad. A few more miles in that, though . . . 

I wiped Velvet down a little and PUT MY DAMNED WINDSHIELD BACK ON!! I'd taken it off to clean part of the bike and decided that since it was hot, I'd just leave it off. Big mistake. So, I quickly corrected that one!! The danged wind noise had nearly driven me nuts without the windshield, too, so I had yet another reason for re-installing it. Without the windshield, it's either muffle the noise and boil your brain in a 3/4 open-face helmet, or wear the half-helmet I usually do and be driven nutty as a fruitcake by the constant whoosh of the wind. I chose the skid lid helmet behind the windshield as a happy solution. 

I had pre-registered for a poker run on Sunday, but I passed on it, as it turned out. For one thing, I was all fuzzy-tongued from Saturday night at Joes, where I tried (unsuccessfully) to drink them out of Bud Light and really tied one on, listening to a kick-ass local band that I'd heard about several times. My ears were also still ringing from being parked for two hours about three feet away from one of the amplifiers. Yeah, I got pretty inebriated, but what the hell? It's the first time I've even been drunk in about twelve years! I earned it and nobody was going to deprive me of it!! So, I got wasted and had a blast!! 

Another reason for not going on the run was that I found out that they wouldn't be telling us specifically where the checkpoints were. We'd get a map and we had to follow it and find them ourselves. For the uninitiated, let me explain:  A motorcycle poker run is like a game of poker on two wheels. You follow a pre-determined route and have five stops on it. At each stop, or checkpoint, you draw, or are issued at random a standard playing card. When you get all five cards, you have your poker hand complete and then you go to the meeting place where there'll be food and drinks available. Once you're there, for an extra donation to the charity that's sponsoring the run, you can draw up to three new cards and discard your duds, trying to improve your hand. Then they draw for the best hand, the next-best, third best, and the worst hand and give away prizes. It works just like a standard poker game. If you aren't familiar with poker and the value of the hands, look it up in Wikipedia. I'm not making this entry 500 pages long explaining all that to you! 

Anyway, on some runs they tell you where the card-drawing checkpoints are specifically located and on others, they don't. This was one of the "don't" ones and I wasn't feeling like taking the chance of missing a checkpoint and getting lost. This is easier to do than you would think. MOST of the time, there'll be other bikes ahead of you and you just watch where they go and stop and that'll most likely be the checkpoint you want. BUT it all depends on how many bikes are entered in the run. The more, the merrier, but the iffy weather made a lot of the potential riders back out of this one and with fewer riders you'll often get separated, sometimes by miles, especially if you make a pit stop for a bathroom break, or to grab a quick soda. My doctor recently changed my blood pressure meds and the new diuretic she prescribed for me is peeing me to death! I don't for the life of me know why peeing is so good for your blood pressure, but they give you shit that's more powerful than coffee and beer combined. I would have to stop, maybe two or three times, and when I rolled into the checkpoint areas I was risking seeing no other bikes around at all and missing it.

Actually, I had that experience once and rode around in a circle for a half-hour before I found the danged place. A friend of mine was riding in a poker run with a pal of his once and they couldn't find one of them. It was hot, so they stopped at a local saloon and had a cold one. When they finished, they went back out and saw a group of bikers heading down the road. They followed them out to the Middle Of Nowhere before they learned that the group they were following wasn't even in the poker run at all. They had followed them home!! So, yeah, it's easier than you think to get lost in an area you aren't familiar with at all. Not me, not this time. I was still too hammered from the night before to deal with that. 

I took a rain check Sunday, but maybe next time . . . ??

THE END OF THE ROAD: A TRUCKER'S FAREWELL

There are countless miles of roads in our nation and in the past eleven years, I have seen my share of them, day-in and day-out. But roads are not without an end. They have to start somewhere and they have to end up somewhere else, ultimately. You run down a road long enough and eventually it will merge with another road, or it will reach a dead-end; a point at which you can travel no further. 

My personal road, as a commercial truck driver, reached its end on Saturday, May 9, 2009. As I write this, I am at home to stay and am no longer employed in my former occupation. I delivered my final load on Friday, then returned to my terminal, where I gathered my belongings up for the trip back home. 

The reason my career has ended is medical. I have been diagnosed with COPD, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which can take the forms of asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, as well as a couple of other nasty varieties. The symptoms are similar and often interchangeable because all of those forms amount to the same blanket disease. In my case, it is early emphysema, and although it is not yet severe enough for me to lug an oxygen bottle around, I may end up doing so in future years. COPD is described as "progressive" and "irreversible," in doctor language. Once you have it, it doesn't stop, but keeps going. It can be slowed down, but not halted completely. There is no known cure. 

One of the symptoms is coughing, sometimes in fits, and expellling excess mucus from the lungs. Another symptom is shortness of breath, sometimes quite severe, taking the form of an asthma-like attack, where you can't fill your lungs with sufficient air to give your body the oxygen it needs. It's like someone has placed a fifty-pound dead weight on your chest and your lungs can't expand enough to suck in the air you require. Quite alarming. It's downright scary, in fact, and the panic reaction sets in automatically, as your body goes into survival mode. The panic reaction makes everything much worse and you begin to wheeze loudly and gasp for air. That's what happened to me early last Monday, on the fourth, when I ended up in an ER in Parkersburg, West Virginia, for several hours, undergoing outpatient treatment. The pure oxygen I was breathing and the inhalation therapy got me unstopped and breathing normally again, but at that point, the writing was on the wall for me. I had already had a couple of very bad attacks prior to that. But this latest one was the worst one so far and they certainly weren't going to be getting any better. 

So, it came as no surprise to me when the ER doctor at the hospital advised me to seek a different occupation. The two EMTs who had treated me at the rest area where I was parked, and transported me to the hospital had already advised me thusly, but the doc was the clincher. What if? What if I had a coughing fit while driving, lost my breath and passed out from lack of oxygen while at the wheel of my truck?? Are you okay with the idea of an 80,000 pound truck roaring down the highway, out of control, with an unconscious driver at the wheel? Of course not! Who would be, in their right mind? Too much to risk. Way too much. I didn't feel safe and when a driver doesn't feel safe, there's only one thing that can be said -- GAME OVER. 

So be it. Exit, stage left. I'm outta here for good. 

Eleven years of my life. A ton of memories, some good and some not so good. A few just plain bad ones. I will always be grateful for the opportunity I had to go places and see things that I otherwise would never have seen at all. I've seen the sun come up over the skyscrapers of New York and I've seen it set over Tampa Bay. I've seen the majestic purple mountains in the early light and I've seen them frosted with snow in the winter. I've watched the wind ripple in the wheatfields of Kansas, and the vast cornfields of Illinois and Iowa. I've watched shooting stars over Lake Erie and seen a rainbow over the St. Louis Arch. I've weathered a tropical storm in Fort Pierce, Florida, outran one hurricane and drove through the aftermath of Katrina. I've been close enough to one tornado to feel those powerful winds. 

I've been lost and found and then lost again. Driven roads so narrow that I was only an inch or two from trading mirrors with the passing trucks. I've been stuck in sand, stuck in mud, stuck in gravel, and stuck on ice and in snow. Sometimes I got my own ass out, sometimes I needed a little help. I've blown every tire there is at least once and one time blew out four all at once. I've broken down, torn up, dropped valves, torn up one clutch and watched helplessly once as a busted turbocharger sucked all the oil out of my pan and burned it in the engine. I've torn off more than one trailer door. Even ran the hell over one of them. I never claimed to be perfect, even once. But I learned from my mistakes. Failure is the Mother Of All Teachers. 

It's all called "experience" and there has been plenty of that in my time at the wheel. I wouldn't trade it for anything else I've ever done in my entire life. Take the good along with the bad and it all adds up to one incredible eleven year ride and it's been an unforgettable one. 

This blog isn't going anywhere, my readers. I'll still be right here, maybe a little more frequently now. It's still a Dawg's Life, after all. That life has just changed now, that's all. One chapter has closed and another has opened up. Not an end at all, but a new beginning. 

FIRST GROUP RIDE AND BIKER BASH OF THE YEAR

I actually got to participate in a motorcycle group ride yesterday -- one of the few I have been able to take part in. These group rides are held at various times, year-round, but I haven't been able to ride in many of them, because my occupation doesn't allow me the time to do so very often. But I've had nothing but time the past week, being laid off from work while I treated the Virus That Ate Me and started breathing normally again at last. And so, I was primed to go.

I didn't think I was going to go at all, for awhile there, as my mom wanted to do some of her laundry at my house, and how could I say no?? She got 'er done in time for me to ride west, to the staging area for the ride, where I barely arrived in time to lay down my $10 registration fee and get signed up, etc., etc. The ride was a memorial to Steve "Bo" Goins, a locally well-known member of our little biker community here, who was killed in a traffic accident a few years ago. He was stopped at a traffic light, around midnight, when a small pickup truck failed to stop in time and slammed into the rear of Bo's bike, ending his life at age 37. That incident shook our entire community, as it was so tragic, yet completely senseless at the same time.  

The Motorcycle Awareness Foundation of Tennessee (MAFT) stepped in and has hosted this memorial ride ever since Bo's death, in an effort to raise awareness of motorcycles that share the road with all other vehicles. It is a cause that concerns all bikers everywhere, no matter what they ride, because we all share the same streets, roads, and highways and we're all subject to the same traffic conditions. We all share the same common fear -- that some 4-wheel motorist won't notice us and will endanger our lives by doing something foolish. It's a very rational fear when you're up on two wheels, believe me. 

"But officer, I didn't see the motorcycle." 

That's what they all say, after the accident has happened and it's too late to save the fallen biker's limbs, skin, or even life. And it's the lamest excuse ever concocted by the human mind. There is no excuse -- repeat -- NO EXCUSE, WHATSOEVER, FOR FAILING TO SEE A MOTORCYCLE. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. It holds water like a seive. If you fail to see what is obviously there,  sharing the road with you, it's because YOU AREN'T LOOKING! And if you don't look for ALL vehicles in your path before pulling out, you aren't a competent driver and should have your license suspended until you learn to do so. 

If that makes some readers mad, then so be it. I won't apologize because that's honestly how I feel about it. YOU aren't the one sitting on that bike, watching everything around you like a hawk and thinking "what if?" every time you approach an intersection where there's a car sitting, waiting to turn onto the road you're on. You aren't the one having to wear hot leather clothing in the summer heat, in order to protect your skin when you end up riding the pavement because some apparently blind car driver pulled out in front of you, or cut you off, forcing you to lay your bike down hard. Most of us do everything we can to make ourselves visible and noticeable -- bright-colored clothes, hard-wired headlamps that burn all the time, flashing our brake lights, reflective patches and decals, loud exhaust pipes -- you name it and we've done it or do it, but some car drivers still say they didn't see us. 

Some states, including my own, aren't just taking that old, lame excuse for granted anymore. They are cracking down, pulling drivers over when their actions endanger motorcyclists and ticketing them. Some, including Tennessee, are imposing mandatory jail sentences for motorists whose poor driving habits result in the death of a biker. They are going all-out with advertising and educational campaigns, designed to raise motorists' awareness of motorcycles that are on the road with them. All I can say is that it's about time!!! It will make riding that much more enjoyable, if everyone in a cage is aware that we're out there and they watch out for us, like they do for other cars. 

There is no one as blind as someone who refuses to see. Open your eyes, motorists. Watch for motorcycles all the time, when you're on the road,   and especially in the warm weather months. 

The ride was a short one -- just through town, from our Kingston Pike starting point,  and out onto highway 25W (Clinton Highway). It went uneventfully. I was near the back of the pack, with the anchor riders, because I'm relatively inexperienced at group riding. This is something you need to tell the ride organizers when you go in the front door, so they won't mix you in with the more eperienced riders in the group. They keep you toward the rear, so that the anchor riders, who are often the most experienced in the group, can keep an eye on your riding and help you when you need it. I was helped several times with interpreting the common hand signals that are used in biker groups. I know most of the basic ones, but there are some specialty signals that I'm still learning about. One anchor rider gave me a complete run-down on it after the ride was over and gave me the address of a website, where they show all the commonly used signals.

We ended up at Coyote Joe's, for the post-ride bash. They had Bubba's (Coyote Joe's owner) famous Road Kill Grill in operation and I inhaled two loaded charcoal-broiled burgers, along with some great potato salad and Bubba's world-famous baked beans. Topped off with a Bud Light, it was a great meal. Only charge was a minimum five-buck donation to MAFT. I threw $10 in the bucket and got two burgers, four raffle tickets, and a bottle "sock" to put over my beer and keep it cold longer. Bubba finally opened up the outdoor patio bar and had the first live band on their outdoor stage that I've seen this year. It was a good day for it; sunny, with the temp in the upper 80's. The band was good, but the sound was a little bit bass-heavy; you couldn't half-hear the guitar. They played well, but need to work on their equalization a little bit, methinks. But what the hey -- live music is just that. Live. Sometimes, things get screwed-up. Like Jimi Hendrix was famous for saying:  "Only cowboys play in tune." I still enjoyed the music and hung out in the sun until they ended their gig and started packing up. 

By then, I had reached my four-beers-with-food personal limit when I'm on Velvet and sat in the sun, sweating it off until it was time to head back home again. I hated to see it end, but I know there will be more to come, later on this summer. 

HALF-SICK ALL WEEK, BUT NOT THIS WEEK!

I got hit by a nasty bug back in March. A virus/cold/creeping crud condition which settles in your chest, making you cough in fits and making your lungs very congested. It was going around, as I knew several people who got smacked by it, including my mom and my special friend up in Kentucky. It sucks, it's miserable, and I still have it, a month later. Still congested and short of breath from being so stopped-up. That is my particular misery and I was plagued by it all of last week. Tomorrow, I will go to my doc and let her examine me and perhaps prescribe some antibiotics to knock this thing out for good, as well as some industrial-strength medication to relieve my congestion. To hell with my load. My health is too important. Let my company deal with that. I want to breathe normally again.

Trucking is a lousy occupation to be in when you get hammered by something like this. The problem is that you don't stay in one place for very long, like normal folks do. You're constantly on the move. For me, it's a typical south-to-north-to-south routing that has you running your heater one day, your air conditioner the next, and then back to the heater again. Constant abrupt changes in temperature means that your body never becomes acclimated to the steady climate in one region and it confuses your system. 

Add to that the unpredictable and often changeable weather in early spring and you're almost assured of being stuck with the crud for months, until it turns warm to stay everywhere you go.  You think you're getting over it, then you move again and the weather turns cool; you get chilled and you relapse -- it hits you all over again with a vengeance. Keeps your resistance low and allows the original virus to mutate to an even nastier form. It did that to me last week, hitting me with chest congestion and I was so short of breath from that at times that I couldn't walk across a parking lot without panting and gasping by the time I reached my destination. I also ran out of my allergy pills, couldn't find any at a truckstop, and so added nasal congestion and stopped-up sinuses to my misery. To say that it was a tough week is the understatement of the year. And I AM NOT going to repeat it, load or no load!!! 

At least I did have warm weather to be thankful for. I stayed south, where the temperature was in the 70's until the end of the week, when Mom Nature decided I needed to be cooled off again, and turned her thermostat down a few notches. I was in Florida and southern Alabama at the first of the week and ended up taking a tour of the Sunshine State that was  more like a forced march than anything. No vacation for me yet, it seemed. From Jacksonville, where I had unloaded on Tuesday, I traveled almost 300 miles down to the Tampa area to pick up my next load, then, after a break, I boogied almost 200 miles back north to I-10, then close to 400 miles across the panhandle and into Alabama, through Mobile, and 85 more miles up I-65 before I stopped for another break. By the time I reached my destination in northern Mississippi Thursday morning, the temperature had plunged back down into the 40s, forcing me to turn up the heat and bundle up in my hoodie jacket when I ventured outside. My allergies were going nuts and though my breathing seemed a little better that day, I was still puffing more than I do normally whenever I had to exert myself much. 

I was assigned a load which didn't deliver in North Carolina until Monday, taking me home and giving me some quality downtime at last. Our "mileage ticker" in the Qualcomm unit goes back to zero again around midnight on Friday of each week and I looked at mine before it clicked over that morning. It showed I had gone almost 2500 miles in just four days, since the last reset. Makes for a fat, healthy paycheck, so I was happy about that, anyway. But misery still loomed ahead, one last time, before I got back home. 

My congestion and breathing issues resurfaced stronger than ever Friday morning. I had to go inside the truckstop to use the bathroom and look for some more OTC medication for my ailment. I had parked as close to the building as I could get the afternoon before; it probably wasn't much more than 100 yards to the door. I started walking, slowly. By the time I reached the building, I was virtually gasping for breath. Sit down before you fall down and thank you, God, for making them put this bench right here! I plopped down on it and sat there until I was breathing halfway normally again, then made my way inside. Using the bathroom helped a lot. I found an allergy pill, like I normally take!! A single 24-hour dose. I bought it and some decongestant cough syrup, with an expectorant, to help me cough up the mucus in my viral-plagued lungs. Made it back to the truck much better than I had  going into the building, and dosed myself up all around. Self-medicating, without the alcohol. As it started to kick in, I nodded out and napped. Allergies can make it hard to sleep well, when they flare up. 

I made it home Friday afternoon, feeling some better, but still with the same problem. It has improved some while at home, but not enough to where I feel comfortable going back out, without seeing my doctor and getting some professional treatment for this bugaboo. I am a large, economy-sized person and that doesn't help me a bit. But you can't lose weight overnight and I'm not in an occupation which aids in weight loss to begin with. Sitting behind a steering wheel is lousy exercise, to say the least. I'm also a smoker, which also doesn't help things, but believe you me, something like this will strictly curb your appetite for cigarettes. I've probably smoked less in the past week than I have in months. I'm still trying to/wanting to quit, but that's something else that I can't do overnight, as cold-turkeying doesn't work for me at all. And even when you quit, it takes months to get rid of all the effects of smoking. 

But I'm confident that my doc will find some relief for me and I'll be back 100% very soon. I only hope I don't lose too much time off from work. 

FIFTH WHEEL HANGUP

If a reader asked me why that little round slotted thingie mounted between the frame rails of my tractor is callled the "fifth wheel" they'd most likely get a blank stare from me and a shrug of the shoulders. If they pressed the issue, they'd get an answer suitable for the average three-year-old:  "Because!" Uh -- it really don't make sense at all. If you count the wheels on my tractor you'd get two steer wheels and one, two, three, four, five . . .  eight wheels on the two drive axles, adding up to ten wheels, total. So, that round slotted thingie which couples my tractor to my trailer is really the eleventh wheel. 

I think they named it that illogical name way back in trucking's stone age, in the early days of the 20th Century, when Big Trucks weren't all that big and they only had four wheels, like a car. It would've really been a fifth wheel in that case. That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it. 

Fifth wheels have been around for quite some time and they've pretty well ironed all the gremlins and goblins out of them nowadays. They function quite well and are a part of the truck that is taken for granted by most drivers. What the hell can go wrong with a fifth wheel? Usually nothing, unless, of course, it's the one on MY truck. I would have the one-in-ten-zillionth fifth wheel that gives trouble and acts crazy. At least mine did on Thursday of last week, and for the second time in three weeks. 

First off, the trailer's dollies were set a little low, meaning, probably, that the previous driver had set the box down in a pothole, or some other low spot in the ground. I got under it without dumping my rear air bags, but it was a tight squeeze. The dollies were then lifted off the ground slightly by my tractor's higher ride height and the full weight of the trailer and load were on my wheels as I backed under it. It was not as smooth as usual. It was more like a scrape-jerk-jerk-jerk, and as hard as I tried to ease the slot into the trailer's kingpin, it went jerk-jerk-K-BANG in spite of all my efforts to be gentle. 

After my head stopped bobbing to and fro and my eyeballs stabilized in my skull again, I put it in low gear and did the standard "tug" test to make sure I was hooked. I wasn't. The tractor shot out from under it and I tromped the brake pedal hard, to keep it from coming all the way out. Another jerk that left my head bobbing like one of those figurines you've seen on the rear parcel shelves of umpteen cars. I threw it in reverse and dumped the clutch. The impact with the trailer this time almost gave me a case of severe whiplash as my head was tossed around. When my vision cleared, I tugged again. STILL not hooked, as I eased out from under the box a second time. 

I shook my head to clear it and got out for a look-see. "What's WRONG with this [CENSORED] thing?" I asked, rhetorically. Was the kingpin missing off the trailer? Looked underneath. No, it was right there, where it belonged. By the process of elimination, that left the fifth wheel as the culprit. I scoped it out. Release handle still pulled out in the "released" position. Hmmmmm. Yanked and pushed around on it. Didn't budge. Leaned over the frame rails, trying to eyeball the locking jaw mechanism that secures the fifth wheel to the kingpin. Poked around on the locking jaw clamp. Got all greasy in the process. Pulled and pushed on the release handle again, to no avail. Meanwhile, another driver had noticed my difficulty and walked over. He was looking at the locking mechanism.

"It's released right now," he informed me.

"Coulda fooled me," I responded. "Damn thing does NOT want to lock on the kingpin!"

"Give it another try and hit it harder this time. Looks like there's some rust down in there." 

"Harder?!" I asked, looking at him like he was insane. "Heck, I hit it hard the last time. Any harder and I might end up in traction, in the hospital!!" 

"Sock it to it," he told me. 

"Okay." 

I climbed back in the cab amidst visions of myself in a hospital bed, wearing a neck brace, and poking a cute nurse, when she was all bent over . . . well, let's not go there. Anyway, I sat back down in my seat and eased as far out from the box as I could. Then I closed my overhead cabinet doors, put the cap on my bottle of soda in the cupholder and generally battened down the hatches. "Brace for collision!" I yelled, as I pressed the accelerator and let out the clutch. "Ramming speed!!!" KA-WHAM! It was a collision this time, nothing less, and I think I pushed the trailer back a foot, even with the spring brakes fully applied.  I whacked myself up'side my head, then shook it briskly, to jar my brain back in place. I put the tranny in low again and eased out the clutch. Tractor no move. I did the same thing again, letting the clutch out a little harder this time. Tractor no move and I was thrown up against the steering wheel. Hooked at last!!! I thanked the other driver for his help, got my bills, and boogied out of there a few minutes later. 

I gotta get that thing looked at, next time I'm at the yard!