Passion for Trucks

Not quite sure when my passion for trucks began but perhaps my love for them began with the gratitute I felt for the Motueka logging boys that didn't run over me as a child.  We lived on the main thoroughfare in the day, from the hills where the logs were felled to the mill at Baigents where they were processed.  According to the stories my mother told, as a toddler, I was always getting out of the section and onto the road, causing the logging trucks to stop, and remove me from certain disaster.  As the story goes, I was put in a dog collar and tied to the fence in an attempt to curtail my wandering and potentially fatal ways.  As I am still in the land of the living, obviousy at some level, it worked.  Whenever a truck show came to town, I would be there dreaming. And then we moved to Southbridge.  I yearned to leave the city and work in the country so once again the dream to drive was at the forefront.  Opportunities were a bit limiting, 'a' because of my age and 'b' because of my experience, or lack thereof but still I was determined and began both the study and the driving lessons at the Charter driving school.  After I had acheived my Class 2, I hired the truck from Charter and drove it to Southbridge just for fun.  I was over the moon, the truck felt enormous and I felt as if I could accomplish anything.  One step closer to working in the country I began studying for my Class 4.  It was more expense and more challenging but I was determined to succeed, and more determined to leave the city commute to work behind.    

The proof in the pudding came once this next goal was achieved.  My workplace was relocating across town and there was no one to drive the truck that had been hired to move the furniture.  Everyone knew I had my Class 2 so the job fell to me.  Driving with an instructor and driving a fully laden truck through the central city are TWO totally different things, as well as holding up the traffic on a main road so that I could back into the site, with everyone lined up on the balcony watching (fortunately for me, I couldn't see that). 

As fate would have it though, I acheived my goal of working in the country but by design or flaw, I never got my Class 5 license, although I did get to drive a Class 5 beauty.  I left my job in the city and started working from home part time in my home office and the other part- time feeding calves (another story).  When calving was finished, I began full time from home, essentially The Phone Guys 'Dan Carter Country Contact Centre'.  Nowadays my Tikled pink RatBag is as close to a truck driving job as I have, and that is ALL pleasure.