Black Ice

The snow swirled in thick torrents, falling out of the dark night sky. The headlights of the Big Mac truck were almost useless unless their only purpose was to illuminate the pretty snowflakes. The storm had started without warning that night and increased quickly in ferocity. The storm formed and built in strength over Lake Ontario. When it was at full force it blew inland dumping snow by the foot in a matter of hours. This is one of Upstate New York’s Lake effect snowstorms. The gears of the 18-wheeler whined like a creature with a mortal wound as the big truck crept its way to the top of the hill. The man at the wheel hunched forward, squinting his piercing blue eyes in a vain attempt to see through the swirling snow and darkness. The driver knows that since he has an empty trailer the slippery roads are even more dangerous to him. The older model trailer did not have any antilock brakes so the slightest touch to the brakes would cause them to lock up and the rig to jackknife. The brakes were designed to work with a full 45,000-pound load on the trailer. Without the weight the brakes did not work right. The stress of driving in this weather was taking its toll on the driver. He could feel the muscles in his shoulders and neck twist themselves into knotted bands of steel. Every so often he would grimace and grunt from the sharp pains that started in his middle shoulder area and shot up through his neck and arms. After cresting the top of the hill, the truck accelerated up to thirty-five miles per hour. This should be a safe speed the driver thought to himself.

         A yellow sign suddenly appeared within the short range of the headlights. A warning bell went off in the mind of the driver. What type of warning could it be? A curve with a speed limit or a hill ahead? The driver leaned forward over the steering wheel straining his eyes even harder to make out the sign. He realized that the sign was obscured with snow that was sticking to it. The driver already stressed to his physical limits felt a shot of adrenaline shoot through his body as panic and fear started to tighten its grip. As the truck began to pass the snow covered warning sign the driver was able to just make out the symbol beneath the snow. It was a picture of a truck going down a hill. The driver began to panic, now that he realized that he was on the brink of dropping over a steep hill. In the stormy darkness there was no way that he could see far enough to judge just how steep the hill would be. The driver jammed the clutch in, pulled the stick shift out of gear, pressed the accelerator revving the engine then pushed the stick to the next lower gear. Instead of the clunking sound of dropping into gear there was the loud shriek of grinding gears. Now the driver panicked. He had to get the truck back into gear before descending the hill or he would be in the very dangerous position of running wild down the hill with nothing holding the truck back. He pressed the stick harder trying to force the truck into gear. This only accomplished a louder grinding noise. Fear and panic began to cloud the new driver’s mind. Then the clear voice of his instructor spoke in his mind.

         “Now David, take a deep breath, relax, let the clutch out, look at the RPMs, rev the RPMs up to 1200, clutch in and shift.” Mike said.

         Remembering his former instructor’s words helped to fight off the panic, clear and focus his mind. Taking a deep breath and exhaling David thought to himself. OK here we go nice and easy. Focusing on the steps to shifting instead of the brink of the hill that was approaching rapidly. Looking at the tachometer and speedometer the driver realized that he had to slow some more before he could shift into the lower gear. The driver spoke to himself saying, “Easy, easy now.” as he gently touched the brakes and applied a slow steady pressure. “Don’t lock up come on.”

         As the speed came down the driver let off the brake, pushed the clutch in, revved the engine and listened to the clunk as the truck dropped into a lower gear. Just in time as the truck dropped off what seemed to be a cliff.

         “I‘m gonna die!” the driver thought.

    Dropping one gear was not good enough for the steepness of this hill. Within a second the truck accelerated to a dangerous speed. The tachometer pegged to its limit of twenty-two thousand revolutions per minute. The whine of the engine was now deafening and sounded like a lost, tortured soul screaming its hate and pain into the night. The driver instinctively tightened his grip on the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. The muscles in his shoulders, biceps and forearms tensed reflexively from the fear and panic that could not be held back anymore. Oh crap! Oh crap! I am dead. God, I hope there are no tight curves at the bottom of this hill. I can’t hit the brakes hard to slow down as this would cause the brakes to lock and the truck would jackknife. Ok I thought the only thing I can do is put steady gentle pressure on the brakes and watch the empty trailer behind me in the mirror while being taken for a ride to the bottom of this hill. I just hope that there is no black ice under the snow. I held onto the steering wheel while putting steady pressure on the brakes praying that I could keep the rig under control. It didn’t help that the raging snowstorm limited my vision to about 50 feet.

    How did I end up here? Just a year ago I used to work in a nice climate controlled office of a small Telecommunications company. A year earlier and I was married with four kids. Things were going great with my career in Telecom. I worked my way from the bottom to pretty near the top of the ladder. I had busted my butt for nine years trying to get ahead of the rat race. We had just purchased a Victorian style house in a beautiful small town village in Upstate New York. It sat near a river. It was almost picture perfect. Then, in what seemed only a moment it was all gone. One day I came home from the office to discover that my wife had taken off to go live with her Mother. From there it was a quick run downhill. The divorce followed 8 months later after I had finally sorted through all of the lies. Within that time frame the terrorist attack known as 911 happened. Telecom was already taking a beating but this just added the last straw to the camels back. With the downturn in the economy the picture was becoming clear. I watched many of my friends and colleagues fall one by one to the massive layoffs. On December 26, 2002, the day after Christmas I received my notice. Instead of the end of the year review I was expecting, I got laid off from work. I spent a frustrating year trying to find another job in my field but they just weren’t there. I made an attempt at going into Real Estate but I quickly realized that I would not be able to make a living from it before my money ran out. Finally, my unemployment ran out along with my savings and time. I had creditors screaming for money, the bank began the process of foreclosing on my house. I had the house on the market for over a year at this point but no one was buying. The Ford Credit Company was threatening to repo my car. I had to move two and a half hours from my two boys and move in with my sister because I could no longer afford to live in my house. I was definitely reaching the end of my rope.

    My father suggested that I give truck driving a try since that is what he did and his company needed drivers. He could pull some strings and get me in. They usually did not hire new inexperienced drivers. Before I knew it was over, I was graduating from the BOCES school of Truck Driving. The next day I began the hiring process at Trucking Enterprises. I began my driver training after January 8th, 2004. This had to be the worse time ever to begin driving. The Western and Finger lakes region of New York was getting hit with severe winter storms much worse than normal. On the 15-mile stretch of 490 between I90 and Rochester my trainer and I counted over 100 wrecked cars lying alongside the road. This was pure torture for me. I never thought in my life that I would be a truck driver but here I was navigating a big rig on snow and ice through some of the worst winter driving weather that I had ever seen.

    Life is like riding a Kayak down a wild river you never know where the ever-changing currents are going to drag you towards a completely new direction. Life is not a constant. The only thing predictable about life is that it will change. Friends, family, people, wives, kids, material items and jobs can come and go or be lost. If your life is centered on any of these things then when you lose them your life will be sent spiraling out of control, an Earth without a Sun to orbit. That is how I now felt.

    The screaming whine of the big truck's engine started to slowly decrease as the truck reached the bottom of the hill and I steered it into an easy left curve. Thank God, I thought as I now realized that the bottom of the hill did not hold any terrible surprises such as a sharp corner. I let the truck coast allowing the engine and gearing to gently slow the truck down. When the truck had slowed down enough I shifted down another gear reducing the truck to barely more than a crawl. I needed to calm down but there was no place to pull over. I can’t believe that I made it. My heartbeat started to slow down and I felt relief as the fear and adrenaline subsided. Right at that moment I did not know if I would be able to make it as a truck driver. My respect for what truck drivers have to go through increased dramatically. What I did realize is that life is short and even though I had gone through a great many changes recently, the real changes were only beginning. I am starting to realize that most people go through life focusing on the wrong things. I had to make God the center of my life so that center would be stable and from that point I would be able to become a better person in all aspects of my life. I would be strengthened and all aspects of my life would receive positive changes, family and work. And just maybe I would have the strength and courage to keep on trucking.