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It had been eight years since I'd set foot in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but I remembered how to get to that little trucking terminal where I had started my career. Well, with only one wrong turn anyway. Things had changed since I'd been there. The little terminal wasn't little anymore. In fact they had bought up all of the property along one side of a city block. Much had stayed the same, though, including the atmosphere of the place.
This is a company that puts drivers through their own company sponsored trucking school. The students have to sign a contract to drive for the company for 8 months at a lower rate to pay for the school. It's good for people who don't have a lot of money. I think it's a great opportunity for poor folks. It's how I'd managed to go from being poor to working class anyway. It's how I'm going to make a new life for myself. Again.
Most of the people going through the school are young. I'm 33 now so I guess I can call them kids. They look like they are barely old enough to drive a truck. There is optimism and positive energy coming from them. I bunked with one of them at a local hotel while we were going through orientation. He had all sorts of questions to ask me. When I told him how much money he was going to be making he became very excited. He'd been living on $800 a month from a landscaping job before he chose to be a trucker. When I told him he'd be making that much a WEEK before taxes after he'd completed his student position with the company I thought he was going to give me a big old bear hug. It was like telling someone they'd won the lottery.
But there are all sorts of people who try to make a better life for themselves through trucking. There was a 41 year old former cab driver from Detroit who had a wife and nine kids at home. There was a single woman about my age who didn't own much more than the clothes on her back. Her sister was the only thing between her and homelessness before she signed on to drive a truck. There was the tiny 50 something woman who was looking for adventure. I bet she had to sit on a couple of pillows to see out of the windshield she was so small. Then there was the 51 year old guy who had just retired from a union job, but couldn't sit still long enough to be retired.
Most of them are kids, though. Poor kids. I'm going to be responsible for them in my new position- a big shot trainer. I've already run through the things I'm going to tell them. I'm going to tell them there is just one rule when out on the road with me. They have to listen to me. I'm going to listen to them, too.
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