My daddy and his daddy were truck drivers.

I stopped in a truck stop in Georgia a few years ago and found this on the back of the menu. I was so touched by it, I offered to buy the menu. The waitress graciously gave me the menu. I'm a third generation gear jammer and this is a story worth repeating.

My Daddy is a Truck Driver, By Dan Baker
It was sharing time in Sunday School Class, what does your daddy do? One boy’s dad was a Doctor and another one’s was a CPA. The teacher said “Their daily bread was bought with their daddy’s pay.” Then the teacher looked at the little boy and could tell he was about to cry, so the teacher figured something must be wrong. He quickly asked him why? The little boy replied with tear filled eyes, ya’ll have all the luck. All your daddies are rich; they drive big cars and have important jobs. My daddy just drives a truck! The teacher spun his chair around and grimly faced that class. He said yes I’ve taught you well, but I will burn in hell, before I’ll let that statement pass. You kids see me as a Sunday school teacher, just a cripple with a lesson plan, but down inside these twisted legs are the bones of a Truckin Man. I was a high Rollin, hammer stompin, Dude till the ice on Interstate 10 took the finest old rig that a bank ever bought to the bottom of the Rio Grande. There isn’t much to tell about what came next, except the ole wheel chair I ride, and now and then I teach this class so the Good Lord will know I tried. And I tried young fellows, I tried real hard just to pay for all I done, but I’m going to close this Good Book now and I’m going to talk to this truckin man’s son. He’s a trucking man, boy do hear me? Don’t give me that hang dog look, your daddy is a gear jamming king of the road. He’s a winner in any man’s book. Who feeds you kid? Does a grocery store or the fast food joint down the street, or does some eighteen wheeler running all night long bring home every bite you eat? There ain’t a thing you’ll use today that some ole trucker didn’t bring. Somebody’s daddy rode all night long so you can do your thing, this country’s thing, this whole thing rolls on wheels. We are kept alive by these men that drive, these men that God made out of steel. You just can’t jam gears for thirty years without learning a thing or two. If a country don’t move, then a country don’t eat, and son that brings me back to you. The next time you talk about your daddy, you understand son, you’re talking about the Man. You’re the son of a hard headed, proud thinking, Hoss who just doesn’t fit in most folk’s plans. So don’t tell me your daddy is just a trucker. He is the man that takes this country where it goes, and I just hope that somewhere down inside, that someday you will feel that pride that I used to feel pushin that ole road. The teacher seemed to lose his concentration. You could see the memories flooding through his brain, his eyes were fixed a million miles from where he sat there, as the driver inside slowly spoke his inner pain. He said, “I don’t know what they will ever say about me. Let them call me whatever they want to but more than anything write the truth upon my gravestone, I was a Trucker Man.” I ‘ll never know what happened to that teacher – just a wounded Angel grounded from the road. A trucker man that taught me daddy was the finest man that this truckin man will ever, ever know. Amen