“Love to see those college boys sweat, see what college did for them.”

Driving a tractor-trailer during the 1978 trucker's strike

“Love to see those college boys sweat, see what college did for them,” said the truck driver, staring at me while dragging his last bit of nicotine out of an unfiltered cigarette. I kicked and scuffed my cowboy boots on the dusty concrete floor, generally avoiding eye contact. A few other truck drivers and I were watching executives from the front office load our trucks. None of us dared to help.

I was in a warehouse in North Carolina during the 1978 trucker’s strike and many of the dock workers were not showing up in sympathy for the drivers. The company pulled them out of their offices to load the tractor-trailers. The few drivers at the dock worked for “independents” and we didn’t have much choice but to show up for work. Besides, $15 an hour was good pay for a college kid and I needed the money to support my growing photography habit.

Photo from my 1978 road trip to Arizona. The tractor trailer is similar to the Autocar mentioned in the remembrance.

Driving, I felt the freedom of the open road versus the confines of the college library. The tractor was a 1968 Autocar, a diesel-fueled 12-speed beast of a vehicle, faded from the North Carolina sun and stained by the red clay of the back roads I needed to drive to avoid the protesters on the interstate overpasses. I kept my secret, I just couldn’t say to the other drivers, that this evening I would be working on writing my photography thesis.