[Note: this is an old and personal story that a few of you know, and many do not. But it has a few lessons that still hold up. Enjoy. ]
By Carl Davidson
Chicago’s Heartland Journal-1986
A pretty country girl standing on the back of a flatbed trailer sings a hillbilly song at an Indiana truckstop. In front of me is my display of chrome truck parts - bumpers, light bars, horns, fancy heel covers. The air is heavy with the sweet smell of free barbecued chicken for the hundreds of big rig truckers relaxing at "Driver Appreciation Day" before moving on down the road.
I've worked these affairs a dozen times A moment always comes when I wonder how I got here and what lies ahead. It's a long way from studying philosophy in Nebraska. It's even farther from freedom marches in Mississippi, from SDS and student strikes against war and racism at Columbia and Berkeley, from 12 years of revolutionary left journalism that took me twice around the world through Cuba, China and Europe.
Now I'm what's known in the trade as a "bumper man." I work for a small company that makes replacement, decorative bumpers and other parts for the big 18-wheelers. I'm the on-the-road salesman and I can tell you more than you ever thought there was to know about the different makes of trucks and types of bumpers that fit them.
My territory is America's heartland, the states of the Great Lakes and Great Plains, plus the Ozarks and the northwest slope of Appalachia. At times I go further, to California and Texas, but over the past six years I've driven every interstate and many back roads in this region, getting to know my customers in the hundreds of truck stops, truck dealers, truck salvage yards and body shops that thrive there.
At first the job was frustrating. It was not quite what I had ever seen myself doing. But in time I've learned that all ways of making a living have their limitations and this one had some unseen and unusual advantages. Plus it paid relatively well, which helped with child support and other obligations I had.
The key was openness to seeking truth and quality in the experience at hand, to shaping one's future by making new things happen in the present. A traveling salesman, for example, can pass the evening in front of TV at the motel bar, dulling his senses along with the nine other salesmen eyeing the one hooker on the end stool. Or he can try to learn something new from the different people and cultures around him. After some bad times with the first approach, I decided on the second path.
My basic approach to this problem is selling bumpers by day while doing political journalism at night. The rural areas I drive through are being devastated by the farm crisis. I took up the issue by looking up Merle Hansen from the North American Farm Alliance. I first met Merle organizing against the war at the University of Nebraska in 1966. Through him I learn about the polarization in white rural communities, with some people going over to the far right while others seek out Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow.
"Our people go every which way," Merle told me one night. "Organizing farmers is like trying to organize a wheelbarrow full of frogs."
In time I got a few articles published, and made my way to the Farmer and Rancher Congress in Saint Louis. After shaking hands with Willie Nelson at a reception, I hook up with Merle in the bar, and spend a few minutes talking with Jesse Jackson, who was warmly received by the nearly 2000 mostly white delegates.
There is a richness to people's lives beneath the stereotypes. I'm eating chili one night at Shoemaker's Truck Stop outside Lincoln, Nebraska. I like the place for its collection of old-time gas pumps from the 1930s, reminding me of my father's garage back home. I ask the farmer next to me how he's weathering the crisis. He's doing OK because he stays out or banks. Deals strictly is cash, no loans or credit. Luckily he, got two crops ahead so now he's able to wait for the right price before selling.
What does he do when the crops are in? He goes to Haiti once a year and digs wells for free "I figure poor people need clean water before they can do anything else," he says. "Hell, one woman was so excited to get one dug she named her baby after me. If we want to die happy, we've got to leave some good behind us in this world. "
Truckstops are always good places for talking politics. At the Shenandoah Inn between Wheeling, West Virginia and Zanesville, Ohio, I get into a wild session with six guys. Weird conspiracy theories abound, mixed with firm opposition to intervention in Central America. "The rich always want our boys to fight their wars," says one. "Let those little countries pick their own governments." Everyone nods agreement. I talk about Jesse -- one trucker agrees with me. four or five are against.
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