Charles Edwards:  

Went to college for a year and didn't like the field of study I started, so I took a work break and went to school part time while doing that, getting my BA degree at the State University of New York in 1974. So, essentially I've spent the last 40 years or so in what you could probably call the North American hinterland. Basically started out hauling freight (yes, in an 18-wheeler) from anywhere to anywhere else in the USA and Canada, later trained new drivers, helping them learn how to do it safely and prosperously, and of late doing troubleshooting of some of our dedicated routes that have had service problems, either as a solo driver or part of a team (the latter often involves going coast to coast in 60 hours hauling serious time sensitive freight). The biggest thrill is helping a new driver become successful, sometimes it changes their whole world when for the first time they get really good at something and it just powers up everything else in their lives as a result. I've had the pleasure of seeing that happen a few times. And yes, a lot of the time it's just a grind, but then again you have good times and you have times when you look forward to the good. I do it for periods of 5-7 weeks out, then go home for a week, then do it all over again. My wife Carolyn came out with me in '95-'96 for a little over a year, got her CDL and drove with me after she left Texas MHMR where she was a trainer for handicapped people under state care. But this isn't for everybody, and she went home where she now does her art and minds the fort while I'm out. We live in the Texas Hill Country just west of Austin, near Lake Travis, where I get to go windsurfing when it's warm enough. Down here that's about 9 months, something I love about this place. For now, however, I'm back in it periodically with my job, maybe I'll go back to running only the south like I did for a while, but with current economic conditions maybe I need to take what I can get. And when I'm alongside the highway putting tire chains on 6 of the 18 wheels in a blizzard in order to go through a mountain pass in Colorado or Montana, I try to keep my eye on the prize, so to speak. But anyway, back to the previous topic, It's like a whole week's vacation at the end of the tour. Recently gave in to a recruiter friend's suggestion to try flatbed again--saying that my brief foray into it way back in '73 was not really very accurate of what it's all about, so I went to work for her company and ran steel coils, lumber, sheetrock, and just about anything else you could tie to the bed of a trailer--including some a/c uni...Expand for more