Heading back into work after spending Thanksgiving with my wife and boys, I received my next load assignment. Three deliveries and a pickup in the Quad Cities. First time for everything. A load heading to my home town of Moline, Illinois.
Now, I have been working out of Fulton, Missouri, for over three years and have taken many a load that goes farther than the 244 miles to Moline, but I have never pulled that load—mostly because their stores are usually serviced out of Janesville, Wisconsin. This was special.
Since my first delivery was scheduled for Saturday morning at 4 a.m., there was time to see what my siblings were up to. I called my eldest sister Reni, who was excited to call the others and see who was up for dinner.
One drawback of being an over-the-road trucker is not having a lot of family time. My normal schedule has me working 5-1/2 days for a 1-1/2 day weekend off, a 70-hour work week that doesn’t really allow for frequent visits to extended family. This was a fortuitous chance to meet up and still fulfill my appointments.
Normally, I am a huge fan of a Margarita, but being that I was going to be on duty in the morning, I had to refrain. Others were enjoying a pitcher and the conversations across the table were becoming loud and filled with laughter. A typical Strosahl gathering.
As the food was mostly cleared, conversation on my side of the table turned toward Katie, who pulled out several items from her pockets and started sharing their significance. Since several of them were rocks, I was especially interested. I have collected them since I was very young.
The first was a reminder of a moment, that one was from this place, and this one, well, “this one reminds me of you. I’ve really been missing you.”
I was deeply touched. I don’t mind admitting that I can be a very emotional guy. I can actually become a blubbering idiot under the right circumstances. This became one of those moments.
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* Note: Revised from “Highways and Byways: Pocket Rock Project” a few days after original publication.
| Copyright © 2021 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there. |
No better reason to cloud up and rain than family...
ReplyDeleteIs that anything like pet rock?
ReplyDeleteWe have rocks from all over, North Carolina, Alaska, the islands, Costa Rica. I have a fossilized razor clam from the Grand Canyon, and the depth of the area indicated it was some 50,000 years old. Just picked up a small conch on dry land in Sebring FL at a campground. History says it's some 20-50K years old. Love rocks.
ReplyDeleteI have been fascinated by rocks since I was very young. Would find them in walks along the railroad tracks, on vacations to Wisconsin and Minnesota and lots of agates from Mississippi rock piles. Good times.
ReplyDelete