A small logging contractor in upstate New York had a truck empty and needed someone with experience, and I needed a job. At that point I'd been trucking for nearly 20 years in four different countries and had done a fair bit of logging. It seemed like a natural pairing, and when I went to meet the man behind this small outfit—we'll call him Travis—he expressed optimism.
"I think you'll like this old Kenworth we've got here," said Travis. "My uncle was driving it until he got sick, and we've been having a hell of a time finding a decent driver for it. The last two clowns we had didn't work out: One guy wouldn't show up for work every day—I think he might have been a meth-head—and the other guy kept running into shit and breaking things."
