I listened to some smooth Jazz on the solitary drive North to Preston for a regional armwrestling warzone tournament which was just as well given the time spent stuck in traffic. How do the people who listen to death metal feel under similar circumstances? I imagine it would be stressful. Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond and Frank Marocco kept me cool whilst the engine was idling.
I met up with 65 other road warriors and we battled for a total of 710 matches to determine the winners – a different system of competition from double elimination. My armwrestling seems to be regressing. Multiple injuries and other training priorities are to blame. If I could pool all the injuries on one side I might have a good arm to tell a story with. As it is things hurt, don’t work and concentration on running the event doesn’t often allow for any sort of preparation or the implementation of even a simple strategy. No matter. I enjoyed the event and the time spent with my friends kept me smiling all the way home. I had to put the shades on. Summer is on the way.
I passed a truck last night parked with the cab curtains closed. The driver had a licence plate of his name on the dashboard and the legend “SOPHIE” in the passenger side. In the following few seconds, I imagined the whole nomad trucker scenario like Kris Krisopherson from CONVOY or Sylvester Stallone from OVER THE TOP and wondered if this is a real thing for this couple. A permanent life on the road going place to place in 2026? Surely you’d have to have an address, a bank account and somewhere for the authorities to send speeding tickets and tax demands to? A post office box maybe, or mail sent care of a freight distribution centre. Nights on the side of the road, truck stops and ferry queues. Part of me could have gone that way, another might have worked permanently on a ship out to sea or on a drilling platform for some of the year.
The nomadic existence is romantic for sure and I’ve been on the far fringe of it, albeit having a storage unit full of junk for three decades and a permanent gym of scrap metal and concrete in my back yard. I’m very comfortable at home so such notions of travelling light with no fixed abode are similar to the office wallahs who fantasise about an unrealistic beach life on their annual fortnight vacation. They return to their concrete jungles for another 50 weeks quietly despising their bosses between turning the pages of the holiday brochures. Or so I imagine.
I had my share of dead end jobs and unfavourable circumstances. Luckily when I was young I heard Jim Morrison’s line from the song CHANGELING that “I’ve never been so broke that I couldn’t leave town,” and took it to heart. I left enough times to end up here. It didn’t provide the sort of wealth most imagine, or the oppression of routine that many have settled for.
I’m home for a fortnight with a few local adventures vaguely planned. The endless rain seems to have abated. Life is good.
See you down the road.
