Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

The Big Rig breakfast was good at the T/A the other night. I need some eggs despite the 9 PM hour. There was the usual “special forces in Nam” chatter amongst the older saltier drivers. The waitress decided to chime in and said that if you have a CDL with a HAZMAT endorsement and you drive a car the law requires you to stop at all railroad crossings. Well, you’d think someone said Dale Earnhardt wore pantyhose under his racing coveralls or something. OMG. I thought there was going to be a food fight – flying sausage patties, pancakes and orange slices. Chill drivers, chill. And, somehow the question of just who runs the world was brought up. Just who is calling the plays? Interesting question.

And so, just who does run the world? Some people think the United States does. Is the President really the leader of the world? Some believe the Chinese do. The Russians thought they did. Others think Jews pull the levers. My Jewish trucker buds say laughingly they never got the memo. Some think the power is in the hands of the Vatican. I can’t imagine who Glen Beck thinks run the world. Dick Cheney and Sara Palin, I’m sure have an idea.  Is it the FBI or CIA or the maybe the Mossad?  Did you ever hear of the Trilateral Commission? Many used to think they ran the world. Some think they still do. Does big business – the Fortune 500 – call the shots? I used to work for the old Chase Manhattan Bank in NYC. We thought our chairman, David Rockefeller, ran the world. How about Wal-Mart or Halliburton or Blackwater – do they run things? What about the Bilderberg Group? I bet you never heard of them, right? Google them – do they run the world?

We all know truckers have a lot of time to think. Some say too much time. And no, I’m not smoking anything “funny” and decided to make this all up. I have nothing to do with it. As I said, out of the blue, around the counter at this T/A, this question was brought up. And I might add, one driver said something very interesting. It was that it seems one minute we’re all doing fine and the next minute, just like someone or somebody or some group pulls a switch and things go bad. And just as fast, when, let’s say six months or a year or more goes by, that same someone or group pulls that switch again and things get better. Do you follow this so far? I believe the theory has merit. Things sure went to hell in a hand basket real quick during the last Presidential election – right?

Does anyone find it interesting that when our auto industry is trying to recover, Toyota and Honda, after decades of manufacturing near flawless high quality automobiles, have massive recalls? What about some big banks near collapse one minute and the next earning billions. Investment firms almost going under and months later paying out millions in bonuses? One month, the country is going belly up, the next the economy is on the move again. Just like the clapper – clap on, clap off, clap on, clap off. Doesn’t it all seem kind of weird? Like there are “other” forces in play beyond what is being reported.

Now I’ve been through many recessions. The reasons for them are varied. For sure, the rich always seem to prosper while the poor get poorer. The middle class always suffers. But what I, and these other drivers around the buffet at the T/A find unusual is – magically and mysteriously, almost always, just as if someone, somebody or some group just flips a switch and things change. And on this cold frigid winter night at the T/A we all agree that seems to happening again. That the jobs will appear again, the economy will prosper and demand for everything will return. That the damage to whomever or whatever the powers that control the world wanted to occur, did, the required punishment was delivered and the time to fix it all has arrived. And as quickly as the recession hit, it is over and people will forget and get on with their lives. And, we’ll all be on to the next problem or debate whether its don’t ask,don’t tell, health care or immigration. Or, as one driver said, whatever “they” decide we should be thinking about.

As Bill O’Reilly likes to say, “how say you?” Were we all drinking the “kool-aid” that night at the T/A? Do we all have too much time on our hands – thinking too much? Do tell. But as far fetched as you might believe our thinking was, the mission of this Life On The Road reporter is to write about EVERYTHING that happens out there, especially what truck drivers are thinking and talking about. Don’t you think there are two pilots in the cockpit of some jetliner going somewhere that are asking themselves the same question? What about a bunch of businessmen on the golf course or soccer moms at the PTA social? I think a lot of people are asking themselves this question? Are you?