Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Morning folks. Lately I've been mentioning my son Bob a lot, but the fact is I have three sons, Bob, Mike, and Brian. Because I don't want you to think I have a "favorite", because I absolutely don't, I realized it's past time to mention the others. That's when a post I wrote on May 23rd came to mind, so if you don't mind, another post from the past:


Most people know the feeling of dread one feels when hearing of a serious accident where a loved one might be involved. If the loved one is one of your children, no matter the age, the feeling is multiplied a thousand-fold. A little history......

I've mentioned that one of my sons, Brian, works up north in what we call the "oil-patch". That name is given to the part of the country where literally oceans of oil and natural gas are found. It would be hard to describe the enormity of the projects on-going. One such project is a steam injection operation where-by the oil is forced out of the ground, processed, and the water re-cycled to repeat the process. This is just one of many such sites, and will take 10 years to complete. Being a work-a-holic, guess who he blames for that, he works 24 days in, then a 4 day break, and back in. His work-days are usually 16hrs, but often go around the clock. His brothers are the same, and that is blame that I proudly accept. I've even heard that the grandchildren are showing signs of having inherited the same gene. Now to the point of the post......

Brian's 4 day break starts with a 6 hour bus ride to Cold Lake, Alberta, where he stays with a buddy. To come home entails a further 1000 mile flight, so he does that every second cycle. Otherwise he would be spending more than half of his break travelling. So, the other day, Friday, while sitting here trying to get the hang of the transmission in this new "truck", because damn it, I'm still grinding gears like a rookie, I hear a news bulletin about a bus bringing workers down out of Fort McMurray being in a serious accident. Instant panic!

What had happened is a bus full of workers was stopped in a line of traffic, waiting for a single vehicle roll-over to be cleared. Because the workers were understandably impatient, they talked the driver into turning around to find a way around the tie-up. While attempting that dumb-ass move the bus got stuck and was sitting 90 degrees to on-coming traffic. Along comes a fully loaded semi, and with nowhere to go, hit the bus broadside! 4 dead, 19 critical, so far.

Quickly I think, did Brian call this morning..no, so I call Booper to see if she had heard from him..no, called his brothers..no, called his wife..no. Between us we probably called his cell phone 500 times..no. What had happened is the poor guy was so beat, that when his bus, which was hours ahead of the one involved, got to Cold Lake, he turned his phone off, and went to bed. In fact we knew about the accident before he did. Still, you can imagine the panic.

Even though Brian is a very big man, as are his brothers, who stands over 6 feet, and weighs about 280lbs, all I could think of was holding him in my arms as a baby, and the smell of him fresh out of the bath, in his jammys, when I would give him a little hug, and tuck him in. God, how I love those boys! We did'nt get hold of him for hours, and by then I was a wreck. When I finally got him on the phone I was such a wreck that I jumped on him, then immediately apologized. When he realized what had been going on, he started to apologize. So here we are, two guys big enough to move a mountain, bawling our eyes out. Know what folks, it felt damn good! It reaffirmed what I already know, we are such an incredibly close family. Let's just say that it was Hug City around here this week-end.

What with the above and the little snit about this page, it has been a trying time. I, we, have survived and are probably better for it. It brought home to me what is truly important and meaningful in my life. Getting exercised over a stupid truck, and other cutesy images, missing from my page is juvenile. To those of you who pointed that out to me..you're right! But don't be too nice to me, or I'll hunt you down and give you a big ol' hug. After one of those, deep breathing may be painful. Thanks for helping me through this, but it's time to stop all this wussy stuff, throw this thing in gear, and make some miles!

See ya later today.

Trucker Bob blogged at 2:55 AM

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