Read more
Wit, wisdom, adventure, and revelations from sixty years on the road.They say that only truck drivers experience the true grandeur and landscape of America: the winding mountainsides at sunrise, the first frosts of winter descending on apple orchards, the call of the rising roosters. In
A Trucker's Tale, Ed Miller gives an inside look at the allure of the work and the colorful characters who haul our goods on the open road. He shares what it was like to grow up in a boisterous trucking family, his experience as an equipment officer in Vietnam, the wide range of vehicles he's mounted, and the daily trials, tribulations, risks, and exploits that define life as a trucker.
Ed's vibrant, no-holds-barred tales are hilarious and heartwarming, sometimes cringeworthy or unbelievable—recollections of heroic feats as well as the “fishing stories” that have stretched and shifted from CB radio to CB radio. Many are the results of what he calls “just plain stupidity.” Others bring to light the small acts of kindness and grand gestures that these Knights of the Highway perform each day, as well as the safety risks and continual danger that these essential workers endure. Together they paint a compelling portrait of one of the most important but least-known industries and reveal why Ed, and so many like him, just kept on truckin’.
List of contents
Preface
Part One: An Education
Part Two: Military Trucking
Part Three: College Trucking
Part Four: Characters
Part Five: Management
Part Six: Directions, Shippers, Strikes, and Baby Animals
Part Seven: Knights of the Highway
A Note on Safety
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the author
Ed Miller was born into a family of truckers in North Carolina and began driving tractor-trailers at age thirteen and moving trucks around his family’s farm or backing them into the dock at the warehouse yard. He has more than forty years of management and ownership experience in many aspects of the motor carrier industry, including flatbed, van, refrigerated, specialized, and transportation brokerage. From 2003 to 2010, he worked in the Office of Freight Logistics at Maryland’s Department of Transportation, where he served on numerous county, state, and national transportation and research advisory committees. Today he is a part-time school bus driver, working as a substitute/trip driver transporting students or taking school teams to sports events. Ed grew up in western North Carolina and attended East Carolina University before serving in the US Navy Seabees. He is a father of three and a grandfather of two, and lives with his wife in Rising Sun, Maryland.
Summary
Wit, wisdom, and revelations from sixty years of life on the road.
Foreword
Mainstream, endemic, and author hometown media targets to include human interest, men’s interest, transportation, trucking, and Maryland and other East Coast targets. Targets to include The Atlantic, New Yorker, NPR, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, and more.
Special targeting to truckers, veterans, and Marylanders, all groups with overlap with the author, through targeted digital marketing and advertising.
Father’s Day and summer reading tie-in promotions and giveaways.
Influencer, BookTok, and other social media campaigns will reach popular book reviewers and explorers with large followings.
In-person events at bookstores throughout the author’s Maryland hometown, as well as other regional bookstores.
