CDL School Graduation Day

CDL School Graduation Day

The spark that led me and my good friend, George, to leave New Jersey to attend truck driving school in southwestern Missouri, ended up being a random conversation we had with one of our friends, who walked up the stairs to our apartment for breakfast after loudly partying through the night at our other friends' apartment directly below.  Granik, not long before, decided to become a long-haul truck driver himself, I believe also following a random conversation he had with a driver in St. Petersburg, FL.  George and I proceeded to question a steadily sobering Granik about his new job for hours at our kitchen table. The following day, we were both thinking about nothing but becoming truck drivers. So we did.

It wasn't quite as simple and random as that.  Some background is that we both had jobs in the social work and education fields for several years at that point, which paid terribly and could be pretty emotionally taxing, though we both loved the populations we worked with.  I personally felt trapped financially at the time.  Finishing graduate school at the beginning of the Great Recession of 2008 was poor luck.  I was literally studying the collapse of Lehman Brothers as it was happening in a course I was taking on 'Corporate Governance and Financial Analysis' that very same fall.  As the story went with many of my generation in those years: I applied to a ton of jobs, didn't hear back from almost any and ended up taking a job that I was, on paper, overqualified for, related nothing to my degrees and paid less than half of the modest salary I was anticipating when exiting graduate school; but I was lucky to have a job at all.  But the high cost of living in New Jersey, even as streamlined as mine was, combined with student loans, left the idea of getting ahead looking continually bleak; in addition, feeling like I needed a serious change in geography after living in New Brunswick for pushing nine years, made long-haul driving appear to be a way to kill several birds with one tractor-trailer.

The game plan that came out of this conversation was related to long-haul companies paying a premium for "team drivers", since the truck could be potentially moving twice as much during the course of a day.  The two of us driving together would make for much higher potential earnings with the added benefit of not having to take on this daunting occupation solo. With no rent and little expenses, I theoretically could save enough to pay off my student loans almost entirely in a year to a year and a half.  Maybe also have enough money to travel a little afterwards, finance a photo project and have the luxury of time to figure out what was next.  As well as having a serious adventure and theoretically getting to photograph the country all along the way.  Convincing my special lady friend, Celeste, as well as my family that this was as great a plan as I thought it was, was a different story.

Fast forward from late winter to that fall of 2013, over many other obstacles and logistical challenges, George and I had just stopped in New Orleans to visit Celeste, who, having very similar economic prospects, also decided to make some drastic life changes, but instead made a debatably much wiser decision of going back to school to be a doctor of physical therapy in the Big Easy instead of being a long haul truck driver in the Ozarks.  After this stop, we headed north through Arkansas in George's same van that we used to tour around the country with our other bandmates just years earlier, and landed in the remote hilly town of Neosho, Missouri, where we would spend every day over the next five weeks studying to be truck drivers.  The next largest town was Joplin, Missouri, an hour away.  To our amazement and fortune, the little town still had a video rental store, but not too much else beyond the community college where our trailer-type dormitory was located, walking distance from the truck driving academy.  The company we signed on with split the cost of this schooling, as long as you passed, so the reasonable out-of-pocket costs would be theoretically recouped very quickly upon employment.    

Coincidentally, at this same time, Granik was calling it quits as a long-haul driver and taking his pot of money to go travel the world or whatever else he felt like doing.  Right before school started, George and I met up with him in Joplin before he turned in his truck at what would hopefully soon be our new employer’s headquarters.  He gave us the lay of the land and some of the un-sugar coated advice we were looking for. We ate some food and wished that jabroni good-luck on his future endeavors, as well as thanked him for helping us in getting through some of the hiring process before we headed back to Neosho to start learning to drive a truck.

We were like aliens in the town; it was pretty funny.  On the first day of class, we felt we were sure to get our asses kicked by the glaring country folk who were our classmates.  But it seemed it was our own prejudices that led us to believe this, because everyone in the class was super friendly, accepted us weirdos from New Jersey with little hesitation and we were all tight by the end of the course.  They were also from all over, all with different backgrounds, all with different circumstances that led them to be in that academy, all with hopes of being able to make decent money on the other end of it.  Some of what also facilitated the growing comradery between the classmates was the intensity of learning to drive an 18-wheeler; it was serious shit, especially when you staked your livelihood and what little savings you had on your success in doing so.  Graduate school was kind of a breeze compared to the stress of obtaining a CDL, yet truck driving is ridiculously considered "unskilled labor." 

Our instructor and fearless leader, Brandon, was the man.  Not only was he an experienced, knowledgeable instructor, but he was also one of the greatest teachers I have had for any course I have ever taken.  He managed to whip our goon-ish outfit into competent truck drivers over those next few weeks, before we were tasked with passing our written and even more challenging CDL road exam to get our licenses to work.

From notebook:

10.22.13 [One day before the CDL road test]- End of the worst day of class yet.  All but two of us failed the 90 degree parking segment.  Though a difficult maneuver, it was a discouraging sign for testing day.  We had Mario stay over at our dorm that night to hang out, and so he did not have to drive an hour to get to testing in the morning.  We invited Josh over, who showed up in an undershirt and pajama pants and we all played poker.  They had no idea how to play, it was great.  We relaxed and tried not to stress about CDL testing day.  Nonetheless, I barely slept.  And when I did, I had a dream we were doing 90 degree parking maneuvers out on the tarmac and there was a guy who had his neck slit open laying on the pavement.  In the dream, when I notified our instructor, Brandon, he told me the man would be fine and ignore it.  I had a second dream where I was driving the truck out on the range and flipped it into a giant whole in the ground.  In the dream, I again walked back and told Brandon what happened and he said, "It's ok. You'll do fine!"  My subconscious was very direct that night.

10.23.13-The nerve racking CDL testing day was largely a success, with only a couple of reschedules for the following day.  Those of us who already tested took the trucks out on the range for some of the last practice time we would have before we all split to the various companies we signed on with.  Josh, overconfidently driving like an angry Yosemite Sam, ran over a barrel on the course.  When he got out to fix it, he mistakenly left the truck running.  James jokingly suggested we leave him. So, I jumped in the seat and drove away, leaving poor Josh on the far end of the course.  We eventually picked him up.  George was the last to take the test.  In a no man left behind mentality, everyone stayed late to make sure George had passed.  It was like the end of ‘Rudy.’

10.24.13-Graduation day was cool.  I took photos of everyone for the first time while cleaning up the trucks which we had managed to make filthy over the previous weeks.  When we went to the Neosho office to become documented CDL holders, there was a huge line.  Josh, who had gotten there early, was at the front of that line and visibly angry, holding everyone up.  He eventually stormed out and told everyone there to "Go to Joplin!"  We pretended like we didn’t know him.  George and I had fun bullshitting with Staff Sergeant Dave while waiting in line.  He was a good dude, like everyone in the program.  I’m pretty sure I also recognized what had to be the parents of some of the students at the community college, they looked just like them.  Sure is a small town, home of the world's largest flower box.

In the end, every person in the class who took the CDL test had passed it and then unfortunately, as it sometimes goes in life, we never ran into any of them again.  I hope they all did well out there on the road, it can be rough.  Our instructor, who we couldn't thank enough, after learning we were "kind-of" musicians, ended up inviting us over to his place for a meal and to jam with his friends who played various folk music before we headed up to Joplin to begin company orientation. 

From notebook:

10.25.13- We went to Brandon's for dinner and 'olde timey' jamming, with his wife and two local artist friends.  He lived out in the woods in the Ozarks.  His friends were a couple, the man painted FSA style portraits of farmer folk, stone carved and played guitar and the woman did fabric work, natural dying and played fiddle, harmonica, concertina, tin whistle and sang beautifully.  Brandon's wife played upright bass and made the best cornbread I have ever eaten.  It was great."

We then headed up to Joplin, to further the journey towards becoming truck drivers…