Detour: White Picket Fences

This little ditty of rhyme and meter was inspired when I was making a delivery in a small town in Kansas. I was backed into a dock at a business in the town square that was only a block or so from the courthouse. As I sat in the truck being unloaded, various townspeople passed by including well-dressed people on the way to work at the courthouse. The reaction I got from some of them opened my eyes to how some (not all) people regard the drivers sitting behind the wheel of a big rig. The result was this poem that, hopefully, prompts some to look beyond stereotypes.

White Picket Fences

As I sit in a dock, I wave and I grin

To a group, passing by, of well-dressed young men

In their suits and their ties, wielding leather brief cases

I'm offered cold looks from disparaging faces.

Does the grease on my shirt constitute a great sin?

Do you balk at the unshaven growth on my chin?

Does my road-weary face and my wind-tousled hair

Evoke, from you, unfettered looks of despair?

To you, am I copied from a crude archetype?

Aren't your preconceived notions just a bit over-ripe?

I'm an American trucker, and damned proud to be

But if you see just a trucker, then you're not seeing me.

I've laughed and I've cried, and I've loved and lost

Chased dreams without much regard to the cost

I've taken pride in the fact that I've seldom been lazy

Enjoyed life's lucid moments, but it's more often crazy.

I've left many miles, and years, far behind

But the hopes and the dreams still dance in my mind

I've pondered with Plato and mused Aristotle

And I've sailed 'round the world on a ship in a bottle.

So, take one short moment, and you just might see

A brief inner glimpse that reveals part of me

If this thought seems too sordid, or beyond comprehension

Then, take this proposal to your next convention.

Take your big office parties and your high-powered clout

Your promotion, which you simply cannot live without

Take your judgmental thinking, which is so asinine

Take it all, and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

Though our backgrounds are different, we're still quite the same

Whether pawn, knight or king, life's still just one game

I'm an American trucker, and damned proud to be

But if you see just a trucker, then you're not seeing me.

I've been shocked by Hawthorne and frightened by Poe

Uplifted by Dickens and inspired by Thoreau

I've felt angst with Hamlet and grieved with King Lear

And when Old Yeller died, I'll admit to a tear.

I've rode shotgun with Earnhardt, in my wildest dreams

Cheered for Ric Flair, Triple H and Mean Gene

I've line-danced in Texas, getting rowdy and wild

And I've laughed in the rain with the joy of a child.

So think hard, my friend, and you might discover

'Tis folly judging books by the grease on their cover

But if, in your mind, the biased fire is still stoking

Then put this advice in your pipe, and start smoking.

Take your white picket fences and overpriced house

Your cute little sports car and "arm-trophy" spouse

Take your Armani suits and imported French wine

Take it all, and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

Rick Huffman