Saturday October, 20, 2001 at around 12:30 am I am making my way back to Cornwall Ontario, Canada when the turbo on my semi-truck decides it wants to retire. I call the Freightliner hotline and they direct me to Detroit Diesel. One call and a couple of hours later my tractor and trailer are on the back of a tow truck on the way to Truck Enterprises Inc. in Harrisonburg, Va. By now I am so tired and the tow truck decides it wants to retire itself. Here we find ourselves on the highway waiting for another tow truck. It wasn't all bad, Amos Sylvious of Trans Tech Towing had a good sense of humor. The tow truck he was driving had such a bad case of the shakes that as tired as we were, we were starting to act foolish. We found ourselves driving down the road like two kids saying ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! from the truck shaking so bad.

Well, we arrive at Truck Enterprises and the truck and I get settled in. I get to meet Walter Bryant and he seems like a pretty nice guy. I explain to Walter my dilemma and he tells me that they won't be able to get to me until Monday sometime. I was really looking forward to getting home on Sunday. By now I get to meet Paul Dean the day foreman. He explains to me that they are very busy and that there will be no guarantees on when they will be able to service my truck. I couldn't very well argue with Paul, he had a job to do and I had to respect that. By now it was 6:30 am and I am too tired to even worry about when I am leaving. I let Paul know that I am going to my truck to get some sleep and that he should wake me up around 3:00 pm before they close for the weekend and run me over to a hotel. Paul agrees and off to bed I go.

I hear a knock on my truck door. I roll back the curtains and there is Paul Dean standing there with a smile on his face. It is 2:00 pm and Paul tells me my truck is just about ready. I was taken by surprise, I could not find the words to express how grateful I was. Paul had put Andrew Thompson on my truck and what a fine job he did.

It is people like Paul Dean, Walter Bryant, Andrew Thompson and Truck Enterprises Inc. for hiring them, that keep America moving. I could not find the words to express my thanks to all of them for the exceptional and courteous service that I received. This article for the World Wide Web to see is my way of saying thank you again, and I will be back.

I would also like to send out a special thank you to the gang at Toms Brook Truck Wash in Toms Brook, Va. for going the extra mile in trying to remove all of the oil on my tractor and trailer. Katrina who worked as hard as she is pretty, Tim, Shane, Chris, Domanique, Tommy, Kevin, and Jeremy. You guys worked very hard and I thank you. You can count on me coming back.