jo burgess hannon

fit for today, fit for life

My dad was a truck driver

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February 8, 2022 Ottawa, Canada (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP) via NPR

I know, I KNOW!

I have written about him before. But now that we are in the midst of government officials and mainstream media who want to paint truckers as violent anarchists I have to re-visit this topic. My dad was a trucker and for the most part a quiet, gentle man. My dad spent hours and days on the road as a long hauler from Seattle to Chicago. He had hands like leather from tarping his loads and putting chains on his 18 wheeler. He was tough as nails inside and out. I never really understood how he spent so much time alone.

A massive protest in Ottawa, Ontario, that began with truck drivers opposing a cross-border vaccine mandate is still snarling traffic in the Canadian capital more than a week after it began. Farmers are driving their tractors to the city, U.S. truckers are driving in as well. Money is pouring in from all over the world to support these people while they take time off their jobs to effect change.

Side Note: With what must have been immense political pressure, Go Fund Me has seized these dollars. And then said if funders did not ask for their money back, “they” would decide which charity(s) should get these millions of dollars. This is fraud. Yes, they are now giving everyone their money back without having to ask. Still, it needs to be said this is fraudulent cancel culture.

I guess it takes the quiet ones who enjoy solitude to stand up and fight against tyranny. I had to look up the word tyranny to make sure I was using the word correctly: cruel and oppressive government. Mainstream media and politicians are trying to paint this movement as something horrible that needs to be stopped immediately. Yet police are handing out tickets for too much honking. Because unlike the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, no windows are being smashed, no businesses are being looted, no cars are being burned, no city blocks are being taken over as autonomous zones. NPR reports that the protesters have largely remained peaceful. Much of the criticism of the protest is focused on the disruptions to city life for those residing and working in Ottawa.

Having grown up around truckers I can tell you these are a group of hardworking people who are trying to provide for their families. There is no logic in requiring Covid 19 vaccines for the Northern border of the US when millions are pouring in unvaccinated over our southern border. Aaaaand, requiring a vaccine that does not prevent you from getting or giving the virus seems like overreach too.

I admit, I am surprised it’s the truckers who have the courage to be the first to peacefully protest against vaccine mandates on a large scale.

I’m proud to be a truck drivers daughter.

Life is perspective

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I have no viewpoint beyond my own.

I was raised In a blue collar, working class house where both of my parents held long time jobs. There were a lot of racial slurs, what are now derogatory labeling of different ethic groups. In my childhood it was common, everyday language. I could roll four ‘nicknames’ off my tongue right now. It was somewhere in elementary school, early 1970’s, when I became friends with a Japanese girl, that I realized this might be disrespectful.

When we know better we can do better.

And, I really thought I was doing better. We worked hard to raise our daughter to be what I thought of as color blind. To not label a person by their skin or ethnicity. To instead describe the person. To see the human. Learn about the country the Taiwanese friend came from.

It still seems like a good way to raise a child: see the person, embrace who they are. Martin Lurther King said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Our perspective, viewpoint, can can change when we are open to input. Do you think Dr. King’s dream is still relevant today?

There’s an Elephant in the Room: The collecting of things

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Over the years I have amassed items gathered from the people around me. I have an elephant cigarette box that belonged to my mom. The day she died was a complete shock, sudden and final and unexpected. And, it was a relief, with the anxiety of her unknown aging future no longer looming.

Anyway, that brown pottery elephant: I drove down to her house by myself the next day and just wandered through her rooms. I’m not even sure why I did it. I guess I just wanted one last private moment to feel her presence before we packed it all up.

Have you ever done that? Looked around, seeing how a person might have left their home to run up to the grocery store or walk to the mailbox? There were piles of mail on the counter, a message on her answering machine blinking and this elephant on the table next to her recliner chair. I sat down in that chair and it was so personally hers it felt all kinds of wrong and invasive and so very quiet. As I faced the TV and observed the surroundings, her surroundings, I took in the box of tissues, the TV remote, a little notepad and pen and the elephant.

I have mentioned here on the blog before, that while my relationship with my mom wasn’t broken, it was never really whole. And every time we took strides forward to ‘getting’ each other, accepting one another, we’d fall back almost to the beginning of exhausting (for me and most likely both of us) turmoil.

Someday I’ll write about how my mom put me on vacation (or was that she took a vacation from me?)…but not today. Today is for elephant boxes, crib boards and leather backpacks.

I lifted the lid where cigarettes were to be stored and it was full of little notes folded half and then half again. The notes were numbered. I opened them in random order, each one carefully placed in my lap as I extracted and read paper after paper.

It was the story of me; carefully written in my mom’s distinct, neat, cursive handwriting on 10 pieces of paper. The story of finding out she was pregnant, even on birth control. Her happy emotions of learning I was a girl when I was born.

I’ll never really know exactly what kept us continually strained and now that she’s gone does it really matter? What I know for sure is my mom loved me, fiercely.

It’s a Wrap

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Now that we are in full swing of beautiful fall days I think I’m finally over my mourning of another summer gone. I so did not want to see this summer go as I feel like it was a weak version of the last 2 summers. The weather has been so spectacular the last few summers I even started saying, “If this is global warming, bring it on!” I know, I KNOW how wrong that is to say. Please try not to judge this sun loving Seattleite.

The thing is I could vote with my feet and move.  (See what I did there, putting my $50k, 1985 dollars economics degree to use?) My bestie just packed up and left for the blue skies of Tuscan.  Turns out I really like my life here in the Northwest. And, a sunny January trip can really help lift the brain clouds. Bestie, girls weekend in your new hometown?

Jeff manning the cider press. He is so awesome with kids.

Anyway a good old fashioned cider pressing a mountain ridge and 150 miles away, and a glorious sunny 78 degree September day can really lift the spirits.

And the joy of extending my Y hike program into September was pretty awesome, too. Cougar Mountain was a fun way to make new connections outside the doors of our building.

Side Note:  Who knew that it would rain Wednesday after Wednesday? In July? And, then in August? Members turned out anyway. Again, I know, I KNOW! I won’t melt.

So nope, did not pick any blackberries because, as was already covered: wimpy summer. But I did get to play frisbee with my boyfriend.