Truck drivers in Europe are legally permitted to carry oneadditional passenger in the front seat of their lorry. However, itis against most company policies to pick up hitchhikers. With thatin mind, the following is a true story in which the names have beenchanged to protect the guilty.
Last March, seeking a memorable and exciting way to test theboundaries of my freedom, I decided to hitchhike with two otherstudents from England to Morocco.
Starting from Oxford with our "MOROCCO via PORTSMOUTH" sign, wecaught our first ride after only 20 minutes with a friendly butincredulous compact on its way to a football match in SouthHampton.
Our next ride did not come as easily. With rain soaking throughour jeans, we stood on the side of the road for 45 minutes watchingthe passing drivers shake their heads, shrug their shoulders, or(so helpfully) laugh and wave goodbye. No ride, mate.
With Morocco still 1600 miles away, our prospects lookedgrim.
Our first rule of holiday hitchhiking: if you can't get a ride,get lunch. Only at the pub did we learn that the on-ramp we thoughtwould take us to Portsmouth didn't actually go to Portsmouth. Ahh.Right. Okay. So we cursed the blasted island over fish and chipsand lamented our ill-luck (or stupidity) with an afternoonpint.
We crossed the English Channel with a French station wagonheading to Bretagne and woke up in St. Malo. An hour later inRennes, two trucks with the John Mann International blue and yellowstripe down the side pulled onto the shoulder of the road andoffered us a ride. With no time for questions, in we went and offwe were, the girls in one truck and me in another.
Miraculously, the John Mann caravan was heading to Morocco.
From what I have observed, English truck drivers are generallyfriendly, middle-aged men with pot bellies and varying degrees ofbaldness who eat a ton or just smoke and drink coffee all day. Thefirst guy I drove with was no exception. A veteran driver with morethan 25 years experience sagging over his belt, he liked to smoke,eat M&Ms, and drive with his elbows so he could concentrate ontext messaging.
In six hours, we almost ran two cars off the road. I wasrelieved to change drivers in Bordeaux.
The next three days of my life were spent driving with Tom, a nobull kind of guy, slightly balding, who didn't drink, didn't smoke,and didn't give a toss.
Tom was a man who knew what he liked: blueberry and chocolatechip muffins, Serrano ham, two for three specials, andfreebies.
He let me drive his truck around the parking lot in Guarromanbefore Bailen along the NIV heading to southern Spain. Once hecalled me a young Descartes. Instead of listening to music, he readthose trashy romance novels from the grocery store while he drove.Yes, while he drove. I kept my eyes on the road, just in case.
Tom liked to talk too. He told me about his wife and twochildren, his stint with the British army, and quoted his favoriteromantic comedies verbatim. He talked about the history of theroutes, the truck mechanics, the driving laws and the roadconditions until my ears bled.
But we also talked about politics and history, theology andphilosophy. It turned out that Tom was the political philosopher ofthe truck drivers. By the time we pulled into Castets that firstnight, we had already debated the ethics of gay marriage and theright of the U.S. to go to war against Iraq.
Tom drove nine or 10 hours a day, about 6,000 miles per week,every week of the year. He has driven to places like Saudi Arabiaand Moscow carrying whatever needed to be transported.
For the past two years, he has delivered raw materials toMorocco and finished clothing back to England. He lives in the tinycab of his truck with his clothes, bedding, food, T.V., and DVDplayer. He drives almost everyday back and forth, back and forth,back and forth.
Truck driving does not seem like an easy life. Tom doesn't getenough exercise, doesn't see his family, and drives back and forthall day everyday. But Tom likes being a truck driver and couldn'timagine doing anything else. It's not the solitude or the sceneryor the power of driving a big truck that he likes. He is happybecause he is in charge of himself. He is in control but doesn'thave the final responsibility. He feels free.
Tom and I had a very different perception and understanding offreedom. Although I thought the trucking lifestyle was confining,he and his fellow truckers saw it as liberating.
One of the other drivers had a serious girlfriend once whofinally asked The Question: trucking or me? He chose trucking, thefree life.
Freedom is a fundamental human value. But freedom meansdifferent things to different people. Two weeks ago, I wrote aboutFrancis Bok, an escaped slave from Sudan, who has a profoundappreciation of the value of freedom. Tom's is a thirdperspective.
But I think the freedom that Tom enjoys is qualitativelydifferent from the freedom Francis earned in his escape fromslavery. Tom has assumed freedom at a default level. It is not theliberation - personal, professional, intellectual - that I hope toattain through education and hard work of a different sort.
My road trip with Tom was like a two and a half day tutorial inthe lessons of life, a liberating adventure into the depths offreedom. I will never forget looking down on all the cars from uphigh, from that unusual vantage point of freedom, as we drovethrough the Spanish hills and olive groves and beautiful desertvistas spotted with colorful homes tucked into the mountains.
Noah Trugman is a senior majoring in philosophy.
