A Different Dance

A Mechanical Ballet

Engine Orchestration

Ready the horn section

Drummers thump tires

Dancers ready their shoes

Coolant section warms up

Compressor builds up the air

Oil can handle the pressure

Driven to be the best

No one is exhausted

Lights, air brakes, traction

The conductor raises baton

(Dispatcher assigns equipment)

Diesel dancers couple trailers

After pulling them from the doors

Pirouetting around parked pups

(Pup is a 30 foot trailer)

Curtsying the cab to corners

Twirling around the dollies

(A dolly connects two trailers)

Do-si-do by the dumpster

Sidestep the slippery sidewalk

High kick the hefty horsepower

Kicking it into high gear

A tricky terminal tango

And exiting stage left

Taking the show on the road

Down the black velvet ribbon

Lined with footlights

Steering under the stars

Either one, or billions

 

 

Not sure if you would have to be a freight transportation supervisor (latest euphemism for “truck driver”) to understand that, but it was fun to write.

This was written from a bird’s-eye view of a trucking terminal at the peak of an outbound operation of an ltl (Less than Truck Load) carrier.

 

Deep Purple

“Space Truckin'”

We had a lot of luck on Venus
We always had a ball on Mars
Meeting all the groovey people
We’ve rocked the Milky Way so far
We danced around with Borealice
We’re space truckin’ round the the stars
Come on let’s go Space Truckin’

Remember when we did the moonshot
And Pony Trekker led the way
We’d move to the Canaveral moonstop
And everynaut would dance and sway
We got music in our solar system
We’re space truckin’ round the stars
Come on let’s go Space Truckin’

The fireball that we rode was moving
But now we’ve got a new machine
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah the freaks said
Man those cats can really swing
They got music in their solar system
They’ve rocked around the Milky Way
They dance around the Borealice
They’re Space Truckin’ everyday
Come on