OddThinking

As a student, my father, Joe, paid his way by driving trucks. He had many stories of life as a truckie.

The trucks he got to drive weren’t modern trucks with all the mod. cons, like air-conditioning. On a hot day you wore shorts; if necessary you would unbuckle your fly!

One truck took the minimalism to the extreme. On the dashboard was a steering wheel, a piece of string and nothing else. No speedo, no tacho, no nothing. You pulled the string to start the engine, you deliberately the engine to stop it!

The trucks were often overloaded at the warehouses. Once he was forced to point out that the truck was so overweight at the back that the front wheels were no longer touching the ground! The warehouse staff grudgingly removed some of the stock – but only just enough to ensure that the wheels were touching. ON that journey, he could only turn the truck while he was braking (which pushed the weight forward).

One very hot day, he was pulled over by the police for some minor traffic infraction. He jumped down out of the cab to speak to the police officer, but forgot his fly had been undone. His shorts dropped to his ankles, right in front of the officer.

Eventually, Joe stopped driving trucks, got a PhD in Biology, and a job at a university. After a career of teaching and research he retired.

He decided to spend some of his free time volunteering with an association who helped refugees. He started to teach Biology to refugees who had just entered the country and were trying to pass high school equivalence.

He soon discovered that the biggest difficulty that the students were having with Biology was their limited English skills, and he started to help with that.

Shortly after he started with that, he found what the refugee association really needed that day was someone who could drive a truck, to pick-up and deliver donated furniture to people in need.

Once he got back into a truck, he was happy again. He ignored the suggestions that his skills might be better used in dealing with paperwork in the office, and he became one of their regular delivery drivers. He helped set up the new homes of hundreds of refugees.