Introduction

September 2004

Sometimes I think it’s a darn good thing that we cannot see our future. Fortune tellers, prophets, and economists have never boasted 100% accuracy and for the lay person the odds are even worse. Yet in our world of securities and commodities traders, pressured speculation, incomplete documentation, and second guessed hesitation, mocked are those who miss the subtle signs of change. Despite a universe in flux, the appearance of certainty is always the name of the game. Everyone is looking for a sure bet in an uncertain world.

“Someday I’d Like to See That” was originally proposed as the second offering in a trilogy, a collection of short stories I’d written over several years. Each story, offered up in chronological order, represented a transient viewpoint. Beginning from a position of “what was”, I’ve always traveled in the hope of moving toward “what could be”. I began this journey as an optimist. I ended this part of my walk as a shaken, maybe even tentative, pragmatist. Yet even as these stories were written, and an unseen but horrible reckoning lay waiting; one that would change everything that I’d taken for granted in my life, I continued to place my bets on a big sky horizon. I believed and still believe in a forgiving, endless second chance landscape, a place where the sky remained that deep blue we westerners sink our dreams on.

It’s now been over two decades since I first began to write, day dreaming myself silly all over those horizons. Word by word I’ve crawled toward a tomorrow that certainly isn’t here yet, but one that doesn’t seem that far out of grasp. What originally began as a collection of tales from the road has transformed itself from road warrior antics into essays of picking up the pieces while looking for anyone else who also might have survive the metallic fallout. If anything, this collection is written for the survivors. The people who live on the edge of the edge and yet who continue to persevere: The truckers and the cattle ranchers, the loggers, and the single mothers, the farmers and the blue collared. The hard working and invisible souls that labor long, and pray harder, they are the ones who inspire me. Their unspoken and silent dedication drifts among us, lubricating our lives and yet most of us are thankless for their gifted presence. These heroic dreamers still have their reserves of try, although by now they should know better, and despite the skeptical odds makers, they still place their weary eyes on horizons that long ago sank out of view.

For those who have been disillusioned, faced confusion, and who have found their lives uprooted by events that seemed too strange to be true, it is my hope that this work will reach and deeply touch those parts of life that maybe seemed beyond empathy, possibly even understanding. That the shame of secrecy will vanish and that the light of acceptance will replace the awkward reckoning that many of us have acknowledged one painful step at a time.

Although these essays sprouted as stories about the endless turning of gears, big horse powered engines, and eighteen wheels rolling 24/7, somewhere along the way they’ve turned in entirely different directions. I still don’t know exactly where any of this is going but the anticipation remains that it would be somewhere my trucker’s atlas has yet to see, and that the view might bring salted but inspired tears to my eyes. Already, some of the vantages, however sideways they might appear on the surface, have transformed me for the better.

When I reentered college in 1998 as an adult learner, I left the coast to coast Interstates behind and traded those frantic road trips for the motions of classrooms and learning. My education nearly broke me before I could stand to embrace it. Working my way through school via trucking and aviation, the real world danced through the artificiality of the academic world at light speed. At times, the professors surrounding me seemed oblivious, while in other moments of candor they seemed more aware than I’d ever imagined. Like popcorn under pressure and heat, our faith sometimes exploded in these exchanges. The results of our conversations were neither uniform nor were our edges always smooth. Some kernels never varied under pressure, while others were unrecognizable once the heat subsided. In the end, our diverse experiences forced understanding, and even amongst the most conservative, there was a dedicated and agreed commitment to other viewpoints. Together we had more answers than questions, and in the end, I think our collective embrace of one another left me reassured. Even in the most conservative of belief systems, change was possible.

In this deregulated lifetime of supply sided manipulation, I’ve witnessed fewer and fewer winners but near bottomless variations of economic losers. Even as this overwhelming awareness filters down, the world remains much bigger than we ever imagined. I know that the industries I once loved and the way of life I’ve tried to document, is changing rapidly. This is especially true in the extraction and transportation industries where rode hard holdouts face the threat of multinational corporate unaccountability, exploited and underpaid outsourced workers, and where company men and independents function under impossibly predatory competitive forces. As the dust settles from each assault, those diehards who stubbornly remain find themselves both simultaneously tenacious and trigger locked as they struggle to survive.

Yet no matter the challenging circumstances, we continue to love the western lifestyle, her people, and the cowboy way. Whether that commitment to individuality is expressed from the seat of a Peterbilt, the worn saddle mounted on a purebred registered AQHA Quarter Horse, or the slow time circling of a John Deere tractor, many of us still look at perpetual motion as the ticket to freedom and healing. That addiction to motion has transformed the personal pain of many of our haunting nightmares from real time, to virtual, and finally into manageable notations. This transformation and healing has occurred not only in my biography but also in the histories of those I love.

As the miles blend into one another, I remain ever addicted to their passing. The comfort they’ve provided and the growth they’ve inspired, is not lost on me. So wherever these future travels take us, I hope that with each new day, additional stories tumble forth. Under a fellowship of commonality, ever waiting on the setting sun, it’s my hope that “Someday I’d Like to See That” will be far more than wishful thinking. As our hopes and dreams are collected and documented, our stories told; I still believe that someday our silent prayer will come true. That someday not only would we have liked to have seen that, but that maybe, we will have already witnessed the collisions of our fantasies and goals. A future horizon, endlessly manifesting itself in both real time and as already growing golden memories.

While the sparks of our warm campfire’s dance toward heaven, and our tales carry the laughter of our dreams into the dark night, indeed I believe that our prayers will have been already answered.

Timothy Anderson