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I take pride in having an open mind. I also take pride in being honest. In a society totally free of racism I wouldn't make the distinctions that I'm about to make. When I write a story about people who are not white and make that distinction it feels a little dirty. It points out to me that we have a long way to go regarding racial issues. There may never be no such thing as racial issues. Racism will probably always be with us. I'm open enough to consider the idea that I might have a little ways to go, too, but I try to treat everyone the same.
My little story starts out after I went through the orientation with the company that I failed in training with. I wrote a post about that and I will direct you in the right direction if you haven't seen that and want to read it.
There were nine of us in the orientation that I went through for the new company. Six white guys and three black guys. After the orientation we all hopped in a couple of rental cars for a little trip down to Toledo, Ohio where some of the guys would get their trucks. I rode with the three black guys and had to endure rap music on the two hour ride. I didn't complain, though. Music selection was made through a democratic process. The guy in the passenger seat looked around at me at one point and asked me if I liked rap. I said no. He just laughed and teased me about my musical tastes.
The real story comes in with the guy who drove the rental car in our group. He was a little younger than me. I think he said he was 28 years old. I'll call him Mike. He was really hammering down in the rental car while grooving to the music. I looked over his shoulder to see the speedometer up there at 90 a few times. He seemed to me to be wanting to impress the rest of the guys in the car and I think that turned out to be true considering what happened later.
When we got to Toledo I was supposed to hop a ride with Mike down to South Carolina in his truck. I would get my truck when we got down there. We are both from around Dayton, Ohio and we had a couple of days to get to South Carolina so we decided we would spend a day at the house and then proceed the next day.
Have you ever driven with a stranger on a long trip? With me the first thing I like to do when I'm in that situation is get to know the person. In my experience you get to see the personal side of people that way a lot of the time. That was the case with Mike. I drove the truck from Toledo to Dayton and he just opened up to me. He was kind of the clown of the class in orientation. He was a totally different person in the confines of the truck. He would joke around about prostitutes and women in the class at one point asking the instructor what the chick situation was like down in South Carolina. In the truck I found out that there was a girl already in his life and he told me all about her.
She was in college at Rutgers in New Jersey and about 20 years old. The age difference concerned him a little, but none the less she was his "shorty." For all you culturally impaired people out there such as myself "shorty" is slang for your main girl. The new job required a lot of east coast running and they had two big terminals in New Jersey not far from where Mike's girlfriend was staying. He already had it planned out in his head. He would take his off time in New Jersey and spend it with her.
He showed me a picture of her that he had on his cell phone. She was very pretty. He had a conversation with her while we were rolling down the road. It was clear that he was in love. He later confessed that he wanted to marry the woman and had a plan in his head about what he wanted their lives to be like.
When it was Mike's turn to drive he was very safe in the big rig and didn't take the truck over 60 mph. He was real and he no longer felt the need to impress anyone.
I didn't make it through training and neither did Mike. Good luck man and I wish you well.
Epilogue:
The guy who teased me about my musical tastes gave me a great compliment one day down in South Carolina. Him and his partner's truck had broken down and I had to go get them and bring them back to where we were staying in South Carolina. They were 70 miles away in Asheville, North Carolina. After I picked them up and got them on the road the music guy said to me, "You know, man, you are one straight white guy."
Later after I had to quit due to technical difficulty I called him up to see how things were going. He was doing alright but he said he was sorry to see me go. "You were my motherfucker, man," said with all the feeling of a guy losing a friend. You're alright, too, man.
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