Being Clairvoyant

I've always thought it'd be cool to be clairvoyant. I've heard some stories that were astounding--things that people just knew. Like my friend Melinda who struggled to have her first baby and was sure she'd not have another. A coworker named Tom was in his office and as she passed by, he called her name and she backpedaled to stick her head in the door. Tom asked her if she planned to have any more children. She told him she'd love to but didn't think it was in the cards for her due to medical reasons. He just smiled and nodded. The following day she discovered she was pregnant again. When she asked him about it, he told her that as she passed by his door that day, he simply got a sense that she was with child.

Months later, the day prior to her midterm sonogram that would reveal a due date and the baby's gender, Tom told her the due date would be May 16th, that she was having a boy and that there was something extra he could sense, perhaps a twin. The following day, the doctor confirmed the due date of May 16th, told Melinda that she was carrying a son and that he also found a cyst on her ovaries that needed to be tended to. Later in the pregnancy, Tom told her that the baby would actually be born near the 16th but not on the 16th. Connor arrived--on his own terms, not induced--on the 17th of May.

Uncanny. I wish I had that sense. But I do know this: in my job field, it didn't take clairvoyance to know during the lowest of recession days, the trucking industry would eventually flourish once more. Only, we'd be in for a rude awakening because as economic bliss returned and demand for goods grew, the available pool of drivers to haul such freight wouldn't come close to what we need. After all, trucking has never had enough drivers to satisfy demand. Then during the rough times when there was little freight and trucks sat parked along carrier fences, many of the drivers we did have turned to other occupations, stepping away from the wheel.

The economy picked up steam so quickly that many companies were caught off guard. For so long, they didn't need drivers and then suddenly they needed 20, 50 or more. Like, yesterday.

So we find ourselves once more in the midst of a driver shortage--nothing new for trucking--but it's worse than it ever was. This spells good things for drivers and potential drivers as benefits increase and encompass new perks perhaps not seen before. And you can also expect to see avenues opening up to welcome men and women who would like to hit the road and get paid to see the country as professional drivers.

If you have friends and family in need of work, trucking is the answer. The unemployment rate in this country is still ridiculous. If we can connect folks needing work with a great industry needing workers, we can make a real dent in an area needing attention in the U.S. Check out trucking schools offering excellent training (there are nearly 300 around the country) and also keep your eyes open for carriers who are again ramping up their own student training--often the best way to get into the industry because recent graduates have an instant job upon completing their training. Plus, the cost of the training is usually deducted from the newly earned paycheck.

If you're already a driver who'd love to drive as a team, thought of bringing your spouse along to see the U.S. with you, want to help your brother, uncle, cousin or aunt find work, steer them to the industry now looking for all the help it can get.

Trucking keeps America functioning--drivers are needed now more than ever and the perks that come with being in demand are often second to none.

A Bum Wheel

We're on the final countdown for school--just one week and one day left to go and then we're home free and summer is upon us. And what better way to celebrate the coming of the hazy lazy days of summer packed with trips to the beach, a wedding appearance, and summer camps than with a broken toe?

Not my toe (I gave up summer camp ages ago). Chase's toe. Swollen, bruised, broken.

Yes, seasons of playing soccer--known for its heavy foot involvement--and seasons of playing lacrosse where the name of the game is to get the ball into the net while the other teams beats you with sticks, shoves you around, knocks you down and tramples right over you never resulted in a broken anything. But toss the boy into a seemingly harmless, indoor kickball game in P.E. at school and voila! an injury that will rear its ugly head at the most inopportune times to disrupt all sorts of planned fun for the next 4-12 weeks. Hell, it couldn't even have a more dialed in and specific healing time for crying out loud. Nothing positive coming out of the broken toe experience yet. Other than Chase's shortlived excitement over his "first broken bone." First?

In the overall scheme of things, a broken toe is far from the worst thing that could happen, I know. But the timing stinks for him just the same. It'll sure make hobbling down the aisle at my brother's beach wedding interesting.

Still. Better to be sleeping in mornings with a broken toe than waking for school at 6:30 a.m. with a perfectly good wheel. Come on, summer!

Sun, Surf, Sand and Strip Clubs

As the Summer season races toward us--thank the Lord, 6th grade didn't kill me--I'm reminded of my all time favorite beach story.

I've always loved to travel. Love to check out new places, but there are also tried and true trips that can't be beat and plenty of places I gladly return to time and again. The beach is easily one of those places. I say "the beach" in general terms since living in Georgia offers plenty of opportunity to hit any number of nearby beaches. So I can't even pin point one particular favorite--but just about any beach will do.

Naturally my son has been quite the traveler in his 12 years as well. He took at cruise at three--his first beach was one in the Caribbean. Not too shabby. And he, too, is a lover of sun, surf and sand.

All this is background info to keep in mind for this, my favorite beach story, which doesn't even involve sun, surf or sand.

Now for the actual story: there is a stretch of roadway that we drive along near my home pretty frequently. It's a six lane highway that leads from my house to the infamous I-285 perimeter that circles the city of Atlanta. This highway has an access road along it filled with apartments, restaurants, gas stations, corporate buildings and more. One particular exit is crowded with establishments loaded with brightly colored signs: a QT gas station, a Barnacles seafood restaurant, a shopping center with a gym and other storefronts, a Waffle House (can't throw a stone without hitting one of those around here), and more all clustered tightly together, fighting for space and passerby attention. Wedged among the hub-bub also sits one cement building painted with palm trees and beach scenes and adorned with neon lights, all designed to brighten up a windowless exterior. Hmmm, you say. Lively scenes, no windows, neon. All of that translates into one type of establishment: a gentlemen's club, nudie bar, shoe show, strip club.

So we pass this establishment along with all the others off this exit fairly regularly. And one day when Chase was about eight, we'd returned from one of our summer excursions and he pipes up from the back seat: "I know what's in that building."

"Oh really," laughed my husband. "You know what's in there? What is?"

"The beach," said my innocent son, very sure of his answer.

"You're exactly right," I jumped in, shooting my husband the evil eye. Palm trees, sunny scenes...what else could it possibly be?

From that point on, each time we drove past that exit with the cornucopia of facilities, that colorful, eye-catching building was the one Chase zeroed in on. Of course, John helped this along by pointing it out and reminding him that the "beach" was in that building--wink, wink, nudge, nudge in my direction, laughing all the while. I'd sigh and roll my eyes. Man humor.

After awhile, the novelty wore off and the infamous building ceased to be a topic of conversation every time we drove past. Fast forward a year or so and one day, when Chase was about 10, we were driving by and out of nowhere he questioned from the back seat: "What was it that was in that building, again?"

Before John could pipe up with his beach references and start another multi-month extension of the nudie club humor, I spoke up quickly, thinking to myself: You know what, he's 10 years old. I'd heard that it was an age where you should stop giving kiddie answers to important questions like "Where do babies come from" and just give the facts. Time to stop sugar coating reality and just shoot straight. So why not in this case too?

"You know what's in that building, Chase?" I said, before John got a word out of his mouth. "Women take their clothes off and dance around for men in that building. That's why there aren't any windows."

Chase's eyes were the size of golf balls and he was all ears.

"That's right. Men like to look at naked ladies so women in there take off all their clothes and dance around to music. Men like to see that and they pay them money."

Silence greeted me. You could hear a pin drop in the back seat as Chase absorbed this dose of reality.

And then I heard him: "But the sign says Barnacles Steak and Seafood."

Ah yes, plenty of good stories have stemmed from vacations to the beach but none quite so memorable as that one.