A college chum of mine, Jim Westbrook, recently became a licensed trucker, and we're hearing a lot more from him these days. Even if your butt can take the long hours, it's a lonely job, and he likes to call friends on his new cell phone when he's at loose ends between shipments, or before crashing at a rest stop, and I want to pass on his description of one particular hostel he went to.
Some rest stops are more than a place to empty your bladder and get food from a coin-operated dispenser; they have rooms, beds, television, even showers ? no doubt a big relief for a trucker coming off his shift. This stop had two TV rooms, and he stopped briefly in each. The first room had a bunch of guys watching The Game, joking, snarfing munchies, and generally behaving like you would expect off-duty truckers to behave. The second room had several guys intently watching the set, and they would swiftly rebuke anyone who spoke or otherwise disturbed the room. They had on the Discovery channel.
Isn't that terrific? What a gratifying commentary on human nature that, after the dull and solitary trip, the truckers who aren't too exhausted to do anything but hit the mattress find the craving for intellectual stimulus as important as the craving for social stimulus. (This is not to suggest one is more respectable than the other!)
Truckers are not, by and large, a cerebral crowd. Jim's story reaffirms my faith in the cherished but unproven beliefs that children want to learn, and that adults do, too, and will continue to do so given half a chance. If you turn on the boob tube after reading this, it better be either the Discovery channel or a show you're sharing with a lot of friends.