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On December 2, 1996 I waved goodbye to ma and pa, hopped in my rusty little pick-up, and pointed it north and west toward New Buffalo, Michigan near Chicago, Illinois. I had been promised free CDL training and, if I completed it successfully, a job driving a truck. I was 24 years old and it was the beginning of my trucking career.
I was a mess at the time. My whole life was wrecked. That worn out little pick-up and the clothes on my back were just about all I had to my name. If it hadn't have been for my folks I would have been living in that truck. An illness originally thought to be depression, and later correctly diagnosed as something much worse, was taking hold and blooming in my brain like a mutant, soul-sucking flower. I was becoming anti-social and the idea of being able to make a living while not having to deal with people really appealed to me. But there was enough of the pre-crazy Tobin still left in me, the idealist, who was looking forward to seeing the country for the first time.
I made it through trucking school, one of ten to graduate from an original class of nineteen. I headed back home on the 23rd to spend Christmas with my family and then out to Iowa on the first of the year to report for duty at my first trucking job. I only worked for that company until 1998, but I can still tell you exactly how to get to their trucking terminal. I was so caught up in a combination of elation, curiosity, and wonder that my illness seemed to fade at the time. I had to wait a couple of days for a trainer to pick me up, but I was absorbed in all of the workings of the trucking terminal so I really didn't mind.
My first dispatcher's name was Ethan and he put me and my trainer under a two stop load going to Edmonton, Alberta and then over to Vancouver, British Columbia. Central Canada is very much like our Great Plains and I'd never seen country so flat and desolate before. But what would now be a boring ride for me held my attention as I attempted to grok the incredible expanse of flatness. The mountains of British Columbia, with the snow and the evergreens, appeared wondrous to me. I'd never seen land so beautiful.
We made it out to Vancouver and delivered the second half of our load of garage doors. Then we headed back down to America. I still have pictures of that first trip as well as one of my trucking school comrades. It's something I'll never forget.
I completed my end of the deal with the trucking company and worked for them for a year. Then I bought my own truck. That's probably not advisable for someone so inexperienced in trucking and with no training in business at all, but I actually did quite well. I sold the truck in 2000 when the first wave of fuel price spikes hit us. Then I was debt free and had money in the bank. I took a local job and bought my first house. I managed to do all of that while living with an untreated mental illness, but it would eventually get the best of me. I had a particularly bad episode and ended up in the hospital. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. With the introduction of the right medication I began to see reality clearly for the first time in ten years. I think I was the only person on that psychiatric ward who actually smiled while I was there. I couldn't help but smile. The analogy that comes to mind to describe the experience is like what the Buddhists call enlightenment. All of my troubles were gone.
It's been six years since that hospitalization. I still see a psychiatrist and I still take medication. When I take a D.O.T. physical for my job I take a letter with me from my psychiatrist stating that in his professional opinion I can do my job safely. Now days I have a nice home, a nice car, nice things, a good job, and I'm in perfect health.
Ah, yes. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness- the American Dream. The idea that if we work hard and play by the rules we can have a good life, and our children can have even better lives than our own. I think it's still a possibility, but getting harder to attain. How about you?
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