Over the Road: 37 Years of True Truckin' Adventures

by Robert E. Redding

The Craziness of Trucking The life of a trucker is a profoundly random business. Of all the workers who make their living as professional travelers the trucker’s life is the least predictable. This book shares stories of weird driving partners, speeding truckers and the cops that chased them, heroin addicts, prostitutes and bad breakdowns. There are stories of mountain crashes when truckers lost their brakes, their loads, and sometimes their lives. There are plenty of stories about snow and ice. There is a story about getting my truck stuck under a bridge in Chicago. There are stories of outlaw truckers, grossly overweight, who had to ‘run the scales.’ And I will never forget the day I rolled a load of cedar roofing shakes. Yes, it is all here, everything you could imagine and even more than that. Here is just a sample. Scott almost killed a townie in a bar fight. Larry always ran the truck out of diesel. Craig gambled away the entire $600 trip advance that was supposed to pay for fuel and tolls. Then there was Marty. I called him “never touch ground” because he was a huge speed freak who drove cross-country without stopping. He started cheating the boss with fraudulent repair bills There was Ed who rolled up three joints before he began every shift. Then there was Granddad’s truck that was buried in a snow drift for 6 days. An Oklahoma driver told me one day that his house disappeared in a tornado. “Tennessee” found God in the middle of a jail house fight. There was also an old timer named “Gabbie” who lost control of his pee bottle in the truck one bad day. Truckers don’t have to create fantasies to keep themselves entertained on the road. All they have to do is look out the front window of their rig and they will see it all. Maybe I haven’t seen it all, but believe me, I’ve seen enough. These stories are what this book is all about - my life as a trucker.

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 3, 2015

About the author

Robert E. Redding is a Maryland born writer and former cross-country truck driver. The son of a Washington attorney, he obtained an Economics Degree from Lafayette College where he was captain of the fencing team.

After two years of Army service with the 1st Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas he moved to Colorado. At the University in Boulder he attained a Masters of Economics specializing in Labor-Management Relations. At the time the whole counter-culture revolt was in full swing. He was drastically affected by the flow of New Age speakers that came through town. He soon realized that the corporate world was not for him.

He moved to Alaska for two years. There he continued his studies in metaphysics. Metaphysics is the study of existence and reality. It is the foundation of all philosophy. To make money he worked on the docks for Sea/Land Corporation. He then moved to Maui for a year. There he began his first professional driving job…delivering Texaco gasoline all over the island.

After Maui, he moved to San Francisco to actively study astrology. A student of the doctrine since his days at Boulder he reasoned that if it was everything they said it was, then everyone should study it.

It was during this time that he obtained his Commercial Drivers License and began a career as a cross-country driver. He enjoyed trucking because they paid him to travel. His adventures generated all the stories that make up his current book Over the Road 37 Years of True Trucking Adventures. His last trucking job was a weekly trip from Los Angeles to Atlanta for FedEx Ground.

An avid sportsman, he enjoyed skiing and backpacking throughout the West. He did a lot of white water kayaking in Idaho, California and Colorado. His greatest adventure was an 18 day trip down the Grand Canyon. He did a lot of scuba diving overseas and particularly enjoyed shark dives in Tahiti. He has two parachute jumps and thirteen hours of solo flying in a Cessna to his credit. His favorite sport was rock climbing with ascents in Yosemite and the Tetons. He also enjoyed ice climbing with technical routes on Mt Shasta and Mt Adams some of the highest Cascade peaks. Later on he enjoyed seniors’ tennis.

An avid overseas traveler he visited Africa six times and India three times. He traveled
through Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He is familiar with Pacific Rim countries with multiple visits to Bali, Thailand, Australia and the Philippines. Other visits were to Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and New Zealand. He also completed a 2 month sailing trip, on a 36 foot sloop, from Panama to California.

He retired to Anaheim California where he began his writing career. He decided to do some serious detective work about the stock market and started with library books about investing. This led to his first eBook on Amazon, Mutual Funds Are Cheating You! It cuts through all the crap the financial industry throws at investors and explains exactly how they are being cheated. He also has a blog at http://trucknrob.blogspot.com. The latest entry is a list of his favorite bumper stickers.

He continued in his fascination with paranormal subjects as a member of the UFO Society of Orange County and the Near Death Experience community. In 2011 he flew to England to take a tour of the crop circles that form near Stonehenge. He never married nor had children. Recently he moved to Prescott, Arizona.

Currently, he has a number of manuscripts under development: The Mystical Symbolism of the Christian Fish, Autobiography of an Alien, and Symbolism of Salt, the Essential Element. He has completed a number of segments in his Symbolism of Astrological Symbols series. Also in the works is Life Lessons I’ve Learned in 37 years of Trucking. He is most excited about his new Wall Street book: High Frequency Trading: The Origin and Operation of the Largest Financial Shakedown in History.

Reviews

[Robert Redding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well...this book is exactly what you think it will be. It is full of true life stories, some of which are funny, and some of which are sad. It has the ring of truth even though some of the stories are hard to believe. If you've ever wanted to know what it's like to be out on the road, day in and day out for months at a time....I'm sure you will find it interesting.