Ready to End This Chapter

Thursday, December 20, 2007

I am ready to end this chapter in my life. When I reflect back on what I have done for over 40 years it is with mixed emotions. I have enjoyed the most of it but I should have left 10 years ago. I could then have a much better feeling about what I had accomplished. I hate what has happened to this industry.

I taught classes at Nashville State Community Collage in Cookeville for a while but just didn’t have my heart in it. I hated to see students working and studying to learn an industry that wasn’t going anywhere. When I would be asked what the prospects were I could not honestly tell them that it was worth the effort. We still have a lot of manufacturing in this country but the jobs have become more completive and the pay is less in comparison to what it has been most of my career.

As you know if you have read any of my blog, we have mostly Mexicans where I work. I don’t have anything against them. They are very hard workers and take a lot of bull from the owner. But we are in an economically depressed area because of several plants moving to China and Mexico ant the companies here had rather hire a cheap Mexican. I am not going to get on my soap box with this right now but it is only a matter of time that we have foreign nationals in ever aspect of labor in this country including truck driving. When our plants went to Mexico the skilled jobs stayed here but that is not true with China.

Back to the main subject of this blog: I am ready to call it quits. Truck driving may not be the eternal answer but it will be a change for me. I will be turning Sixty (did I say that) when I start this new career. My goal is to drive a million miles before I leave.