REQUIEM FOR A UPS TRUCK

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Pt. 1

I drove a package car (delivery truck) for UPS for 20 years. It was the most excruciating, emotionally unrewarding, (but financially rewarding), job I ever worked in my 77 years on this good earth.

I still dream UPS, (and the dream is ALWAYS the same). I find myself driving ole 59299, and the sun is low on the horizon; beaming its last golden rays across the streets, and houses, and trees, and hedges which surround me.

And I am running late

I have three packages which still need to be delivered, and I'm out of time. However, UPS takes a dim view of returning with packages which we left with that morning, and we drivers knew that we knew that we better do our darndest to come back "empty handed" at the end of the day.

I find myself looking at my watch now, and I have to get back to the center with my pickup packages in the next half hour. And so much like the phrase from the English novel and movie "Jane Eyre," I find myself saying to myself, "What to do? What to do?" (or) "Man oh man, am I in a fix! I gotta get myself movin!" (And since when I dream this dream, it seems SO real, and I wake up exhausted, I think UPS owes me almost 30 years back pay)!

Pt. 2

I was pedaling my bike today, and I notice one of those Big Brown Bessies ahead of me. I see the driver get out of his passenger side with a package, and walk to the door of a home. I decide I will chat with him when he returns.

"Hello. This was my route almost 30 years ago!"

The driver smiles, and speaks.

"Oh yeah?"

(and)

"Cool."

We exchange some small talk which includes my perspectives about a driver's pay having doubled since I was with UPS, and I ask a question related to the condition of today's delivery vehicles.

"Do you guys EVER wash your package cars?"

The driver assures me the trucks are NEVER washed now, (whereas we were required to wash our package car every night after the delivery day was over).

I remember sailing along these neighborhood streets while sitting in the driver's seat of ole 59299. I recall jumping up and down the three steps of my truck, and running a myriad of non-descript brown packages to a myriad of non-descript doors. And at that time, I must have thought my excruciating, seemingly non-ending tenure with UPS would last forever. However now, I am an aging former driver not all that far from my eternal "jumping off place."

Bidding my newfound friend in brown "adieu," I walk back around the delivery truck to where I parked my trusty bicycle, and suddenly a stray thought drifts through my mind.

I pause, and began to trace some familiar numbers into the dust which coats the side wall of that UPS vehicle. And I think of the oh so similar Big Brown Bessie I used to drive along these same streets; a delivery truck that has long since been crushed, recycled, and turned into door knobs, soft drink cans, license plates, (and perhaps embedded into the fabric of this very package car, and many of its compatriots).

And now, the man in brown starts his engine, and off he sails down the street. And I smile as I realize those familiar numbers which I have scribbled into the dust which coats this vehicle will grace it for months and months to come.

59299

Requiem for a UPS truck.

Bill McDonald, PhD