"Old Bat", my BUTT. I believe we are kindred spirits.
We may not have been doing the same types of things
but the levels of responsibility and adventure sound similar.
I grew up in the sticks of north eastern Conneticut, in
a town of about seventeen hundred people I started driving
my Daddy's semi, with him, in Oct. of '81, about a month
before my sixteenth birthday, after I had anounced that I was
NOT going back to school because I had taken all of the
abuse that I could stand, from my schoolmates. I wasn't privy
to the conversation, between Mama and him, but I can
imagine his side went something to the tune of, "I'll man him up".
I guess he was successful to the extent that he helped
me lay the foundation for the facade that would be blown to
bits twenty four plus years later. I'm sure he was quite
proud that night, when he paid for me to lose my virtue, to a
"Lot Lizard" in the parking lot of the Paulsboro, N.J.
76 Truckstop, which culminated in the "girl" offering him a hit
off the joint we had been sharing, as he climbed back
into the truck after the deed was done. He declined the offer
and didn't allow me to drive that night. The experience
left me feeling seedy and unfulfilled, to say the least I was
disappointed but I'm sure I won some level of approval
from my Daddy. Other ways that I gained his approval were a
lot less repulsive. I remember when he and I loaded at
Mulleirs Pasta in Jersey City, N.J. for Chicago. He told me to
drive as far as I could then wake him up and he would
take over from there, then he went to bed. I woke him up ten
hours later, in Gary, In., seven hundred and fifty miles
from where he laid down, the national speed limit at the time
was "Double Nickles". I have no idea how I avoided
getting stopped. All I know is I was having a friggin' BLAST,
there were hours at a time that I was doing over eighty.
They say "The Almighty" watches over drunks and idiots.
I wasn't a heavy drinker at the time.
