Movin' On.

____I read somewhere that if Phil Collins now wants to play the drums, he has to strap the sticks to his hands. I know how he feels. After tarping a load in sub-zero temperatures; the only way I can write out the log book is by taping the pen to my fingers. Arthritis is the body's way of telling me to give up the flat-deck work. Recovery time for my hands has been getting longer and I decided some time ago that it would be my last winter on decks.
____So after 59 months and 937445 kilometres, I've finished with the sewer green Kenworth T800s. Just short of five years is a lot longer than the average time I spend anywhere: either at a transport company or with a woman. BFS are one of the few companies that will send any driver, any where at any time. Vancouver Island twice, Newfoundland twice: as far north as Anchorage, Alaska, twice and as far south as Tampa in Florida.
____At times, things have been so dire that I've nearly walked off the job; minus 40, on top of a stack of steel beams, trying to unfold tarps that are stiffer than a 14 year old's bed sheets. Plus 40 C, tarping in full personal protection equipment. But there have been plenty of times when the craich has been good. My everlasting memory will be of standing on an empty trailer at 3o'clock on a Sunday morning, March 2007. Minus 25 on the Alaska Highway up in the Yukon; watching the Northern Lights. Like dark green velvet curtains rippling across the sky in the breeze from an open window.
____I could have done another summer with BFS but when you see a chance: then take it. Now it seems I will have to reconsider my long held belief that real men don't pull vans. But if I don't look after my body, then no one else will.