I woke up with this annoying 1970s trucking song in my head. Remembering the days when everyone wanted to be an outlaw trucker, so they bought cowboy hats and Marshall Tucker cassettes, and even listened to a bit of Hank and Haggard.

The song made me think of the hot night at Hunts Point Market in the Bronx with a load of Florida oranges, three in the morning, in desperate need of sleep and a shower, probably more the shower. Days between showers and sleep were long and boring. Sleep was supplanted by white-crosses and coffee.

Walking up on the loading dock and right in the middle of two guys. A Puerto Rican guy and a Black guy, I was friends with both of them. Something, a woman, some weed, some shit started things up and resulted in a fast and dirty knife fight. I was in the middle, I didn’t have a knife. A small group of white-guy, cowboy truckers watched, like sidelined teen-age girls at the dance.

Knife fights suck.

One frozen night in Canada, a diner, waiting to dump a load of Orange County onions, a deep, spiritual debate with this cowboy named Ronnie. Armed with a spare $100 in his pocket, he couldnt decide if he should buy a new pair of boots, or go with the hooker in the corner, behind me, by the rack of pies and cans genuine Decacer Canadian maple syrup. I campaigned hard for the boots, simply because they’d last longer than the deep spiritual love he felt for the hooker. I lost…

These are the things that never made it into 1970s country songs.

For the record, the song in my head was not the Lowell George classic, Willin’. That was a real deal, 1970s trucking song.

Yeah, Lowell, Weed, Whites and Wine…