The Truck Driver's Wife

I wish I knew the author of this piece. It is my challenge to live up to...this clipping hung in my mother-in-law's house, and I am now privileged to have it hanging in mine. How often I have wished for just one more chance to ask how best to do this job...

The Truck Driver's Wife

She's the woman behind the man behind the wheel...
She's the woman who loves and comforts the man who has horizons in his eyes...
She keeps a snug harbor...and an open heart of welcome for the roamer home from the highways.

She's a truck driver's wife.

She runs the home for the man who drives by night so the world can live tomorrow...
She's a brave smile that says "Goodbye."
She's a happy laugh that says "Welcome home."
Her life is geared to the roar of the road.
Her life is made up of sudden farewells...and happy hellos.

She's expectant eyes peering out the front window waiting for the welcome sight of familiar headlights...
She's the dream a man carries in his heart on midnight highways and over rugged mountains and across lonely prairies...

She's a truck driver's wife.

She cooks the meals and tends the babies, washes the clothes and keeps the house...and waits...
Her heart skips a beat at the squeal of brakes...or the scream of a siren...
She dislikes rainy nights and emergency runs...the sight of red rear lights disappearing down the highway...
She's two loving arms at the end of a journey...

She's a truck driver's wife.

She likes days off...short hauls...the family gathered around...and her husband sitting safely by the fire...
She's waiting on the front porch...a smile at the end of a long haul...she's love keeping the home lights bright for a working wanderer.
She's a smiling photo in a man's wallet, a happy thought on an empty night, the dream a man carries in his heart when he's miles from home.
She has learned to smile when he says goodbye...the patience of lonely evenings...to live for the happy hellos...

She's a truck driver's wife.

At times, deep in her heart, she dreams of her husband working from 9 til 5 like other men...she envies the women who can tell by the clock when their men will swing into the driveway...

But then, she wouldn't be married to the fulfilled, confident man who holds forty tons of wheeled steel on the ribbons of the nations highways...and drives by night so the nation can live tomorrow...

So she waits with a patient smile...and she keeps her heart and home warm for the man who has highways in his eyes...

She's a truck driver's wife.

I Don't Know Who That Lady is....

The "littles" spent the morning with me while their mommie shopped. After making a secret hideout in the bedroom closet, they asked permission to "play pennies" with the Trucker's change basket.

Emptying the basket on the bedspread, we learned how many pennies were in a nickel, dime, quarter, and dollar.

Then I moved into the hall to work on mending, leaving them to their play. The girlies raided my baking drawer for measuring cups and spoons, and proceeded to bake "penny cakes" with "dollar icing" and "penny sprinkles" on top.

I kept half an ear on their conversation to be certain no tasting of the delicacies was involved. The whole of both ears perked up when they got distracted by the through-the-years photos of the Trucker and me on the wall.

"Look, there's Uncle & Aunt!  Here, and here, and here!" Then they moved to our wedding photo. "Here's Uncle again, but I don't know who that lady is....I wonder if Aunt knows?"

I wonder too, if Aunt knows who that lady is...or was....!

The Singer

Opened up a faithful friend today that, with two brief interludes, has been closed and waiting quietly for decades. A fun experience for all but the overstuffed feline who is accustomed to sleeping atop it when no one is looking...

Back in the 1920's my Dear Grandma and her mother, affectionately called Mammie, had the option of "electrifying" their treadle Singers. Great-grandma did, but Grandma liked action where it could be found, and preferred to treadle. Years later, she did acquire an electric "machine" which served her faithfully through thousands of quilt tops til she retired from quilt making in her 90's.

The brief respites? The first in 1992, when a sewing machine was not in our budget, I stitched hopes and dreams into the seams of my maternity clothing on the old treadle Singer.

Then my mother-in-law gifted me with a sturdy, vintage Pfaff which fashioned clothing and bedding for our growing family, while DD#1 created doll clothes on the old Singer. (I found some still in the drawers and was amazed again at her skill with the tiny pieces! Hope you do this again someday!)

Now that Pfaff is beyond repair, and replaced by a portable. And this morning the old Singer is again humming. If it could only speak....

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Reading on the Road

February 1, 2018

Now that my voice has mostly healed, the Trucker and I enjoyed Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery together the last days of this trip.  Although, certain passages did bring out some of the emotion that we have been choking back recently.  Some passages that resonated with me:

P. 83
I do not wonder that babies cry when they wake at night.  Everything presses on my soul then and no cloud has a silver lining.

P.147-148
We have learned to go on with life...as a matter of course.  If they do not come back, I know my heart will break (completely)...yet I go on and work and plan...and even enjoy life by times.  Just for the moment we don't think about things, and then - we remember - and the remembering is worse...

p. 188-189
The fierce flame of agony burned itself out and the grey dust of its ashes were all over the world...it was possible to go on with existence, since existence had still to be reckoned with.  There was work to be done.  She had to put on calmness and endurance as a garment in the day; but night after night she lay in her bed weeping...

I Find Some Peter Rabbits

I found some Peter Rabbits!  In a TA in Porter, Indiana.  

Most likely these did not ride the Trucker's trailer, though.