While laying in the MRI tube last week I started feeling somewhat confined. I really don’t have much problem with small spaces but for some reason the sound of the magnets sounded like a drum circle and I went into a trance. The feelings of confinement were not related to the machine I was trapped in but had to do with the need to wander. Get out of this small town and just move around.

For years my dromomania was satisfied with touring to Grateful Dead shows and driving them big trucks. Seeing the country blow by through the windshield was almost as good as stopping in a strange place for a bite to eat and a walk. Smelling the Pacific Ocean breeze one day and waking up in the Rocky Mountains the next. Dining on the great sausages and cheese in Wisconsin on a Tuesday and crawfish or jambalaya Wednesday in Louisiana. Hearing Jerry jam out a Franklin’s Tower in Atlanta one weekend and by the middle of the next week hearing Brent pound out a Dear Mr. Fantasy on his keyboards in Columbia. Life was good.

The days with The Dead sadly came to an end in 1995 when Jerry Garcia died. My last show was in Memphis that year when I got my cousin, who I drove for, to route me to Eastern Arkansas with the express purpose of seeing the band on the Mississippi River front. It wasn’t long after his death when I quit my regional job and hit the long distances with a carrier that did all 48 states. (yes, Jerry’s music and presence influenced many lives) Irregular routes and hot loads were all I craved.

You Tuber “coyryan09″ posted this video of his pictures set to Jason Aldean’s “Asphalt Cowboy”. Because they all look alike now I’m not sure which T/A he took the photos at but I am sure I have been there. The mountain backdrop and bi level parking makes me think it’s the one at Knoxville, Tennessee. Worth a watch if you like the big trucks or country music. Blusey with that Nashville twang. Tells the story of a drivers life in jast a few minutes.

I miss those times on the open road. The days or nights driving through all kinds of weather. It could be snowy on Donner Pass in California then sunny and warm all across Nevada and Utah. According to the time of day, week, or season the traffic varied. I tried to drive at night to avoid heavy traffic but sometimes I would get hung up in Saturday afternoon traffic near a beach town on a holiday weekend. I miss that too.

I long for the days of lies in the logbook so I could hurry up and wait at a shipper while the farmhands were still harvesting the canteloupes that would become my load. Racing across Arizona and New Mexico late that night watching the streaks of light in the starlit night that could be anything. Hurrying to Chicago with my produce and waiting for the receiving warehouse to find room to unload my trailer into.

Due to a back injury I left truck driving in 2000. Probably will never get back into a truck again. Thats just the way it goes.

Yeah, I miss all of that but I also dream of the days of that other kind of truckin’. The dancing kind. The quick paced walking, The days when I could get around without a lot of pain. Because I miss all kinds of truckin’ I am posting a few music videos for your entertainment. Have fun.

I’ll start with this swinging number by Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears, an all female dance band that was made sometime in the ’30’s. “Truckin’”.

Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar screams in this 1972 Deep Purple show where they played “Space Truckin’”.

Hot Tuna with Jorma’s brother Peter Kaukonen sitting in on “Keep On Truckin’”.

Eddie Kendricks does a jam up job on this version of “Keep On Truckin’”.

I would be remiss to leave the Grateful Dead out of a lineup of Truckin’ songs so I will close out the set with the 4/17/72 “Truckin’” from Copenhagen, Denmark show.