One Road Not Taken

I get a lot of e-mails, and part of the lot are ones that come from the Wiser Worker, a job site dedicated to work for the Largest Demographic of all: us aging Baby Boomers. (I hope we don't start getting known as the Largest Demographic in the same way our parents' demographic is known as the Greatest Generation. What a downer!)

I don't actually know how I got onto Wiser Worker's mailing list - could it be that I'm plunk in the middle of the Largest Demographic of all and am, in fact, one of those Wiser Workers? (I know we're supposed to think "older but wiser", but why do I always channel "The sadder but wiser girl's the girl for me" from the Music Man -  a musical well known to the Largest Semographic.)

In any case, I get lots of e-mails from them, but the one the other day caught my eye: Career in Truck Driving...Is It Right for You?

Well, truck driving is one career road that I'd actually never considered taking.

But the Wiser Worker tells us that 65% of truck drivers are over 50, which implies a certain friendliness towards us gray heads. (It also makes me wonder where the truck drivers of the future are going to be coming from. Not to mention the RN's - I've been spending lots of time in the hospital these days, and the wonderful nurses who've been taking care of my brother mostly fall into the Largest Demographic. The good news appears to be that they'll all be able to work as long as they're physically (and mentally - what a stressful, demanding job) able. But where are the RN's of tomorrow coming from? The good news is that a lot of the younger doctors we've been dealing with are women, and they have been as wonderful as the nurses. But where are the RN's of tomorrow coming from?)

Well, back to truck driving.

Apparently, the profession has some appeal to the folks who would like to be driving around the country in an RV that's as long as a semi, but who want to get paid for their travels. The cab of the truck may not be quite the equivalent of an RV the size of the house I grew up in, but some of these rigs are pretty well fitted up.

But I'd never really considered it.

I haven't known many - or any, really - truck drivers in my life.

Lots of men in the neighborhood I grew up in had trucks - but they were the trucks they used in their work: moving guys, carpenters, TV repairmen, the guy around the corner who delivered for the Hostess Cupcake company. But they weren't long haul, trucker-truckers.

That was until the girl next store - who was a half dozen years older than me - started dating a truck driver. He'd park his cab right outside my bedroom window and, to get it warmed up in the morning, he started the engine at about 4:30 a.m.

Nothing like the sound of an idling Kenworth 15 feet from your head to lure you out of a sound sleep.

In my youth, I did some long-haul hitchhiking, and thus met a few truck drivers.

Once, when my friend Charlie and I were hitching from NYC to Providence, we got picked up by a driver, Lenny P, who had driven straight through from Lincoln, Nebraska.

At first, he told us that he was driving straight, but once he got to know us and realized that we really weren't truck inspectors posing as Mod Squad hippies, he opened up and revealed that he lived on Black Beauties.

But back to the Wiser Worker's provocative question: Career in Truck Driving....Is It Right for You?

On the plus side, I like to drive. Years ago, I drove cross-country - there and back - and had a great old time. And up there in a big rig I'd probably see things differently than in the low-down Karmann Ghia I drove that first time.

I like to travel.

I like meeting new people.

On the downside, while I'm an excellent parallel parker, I don't really like to spend too much time in reverse, and the thought of backing up a big tractor trailer give me agita.

I also don't like the idea of having to get in and out of the cab.

I also just saw a special on underage prostitution in truck stops, and I don't think the sorts of folks who traffic in or otherwise utilize young girls in a prostitution ring are the sorts of new people I'd like to meet.

And, while I am drawn to the truck stop diet of eggs over light with hashbrowns, meat loaf and gravy, mac and cheese, and pie - glorious pie! - that sort of diet would really be a heart attack on a plate after a few meals, and I'd certainly find myself trying to maneuver the rig into the squinchy parking lot of a Whole Foods so I could run in and by a pound of organic cherries and a $7 loaf of When Pigs Fly bread.

So, I guess the answer is: a career in truck driving is not quite right for me.

But I wonder what jobs out there for the Largest Generation might be.