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President's Letter |
In my junior year of high school I decided to become a writer. That meant studying literature. So when I applied to colleges the following year, I declared myself an English major. It was a romantic, writerly notion, to be sure, since the study of literature had a reputation for providing little in terms of practical (i.e., employable) experience. But practical was not a word in my vocabulary for most of the 1970s. My only “real life” work experience consisted of what I’ve come to think of as “odd” jobs. I dipped ice cream at a House of Flavors and drove the kiddie train at Clinch Park Zoo. I worked in the fast-freeze at Chef Pierre Pies, maneuvering wobbly carts of freshly made pastries across icy floors. I coached water polo at a hoity-toity boys camp in Maine (though I knew nothing about water polo). I glazed factory windows for a hair pin company. And for the two years between the completion of my master’s and the start of coursework for a Ph.D., I was a gravedigger at White Chapel Cemetery, in Troy. For the most part the jobs were temporary, tedious and not particularly dangerous. They simply supported my education. But there was one exception. In the summer of 1973, I drove a potato chip truck. My brother-in-law got me the job. He was the route supervisor at the Traverse City distributor for Seyfert’s, a snack food company based in Indiana. My route included Leelanau and Benzie counties, as well as the western half of Grand Traverse, not counting Traverse City proper. If I drove 14-hour days, I could complete my route twice a week. It was redundant and exhausting work, but a week’s commission was often more than $300. Not bad for 1973. The trouble began in late June. It was a Friday, and I was ahead of schedule, well on my way up the eastern side of Leelanau County, north of Suttons Bay. After a brief delivery at Rick’s Marina and Bar, I drove down the hill to the Omena General Store and there, just before M-22 elbows a sharp left to Northport, I pulled my red truck off the right side of the road. Puddles from the night’s rain splashed onto the manifold, raising clouds of steam and causing the engine to knock and cough longer than usual after I shut it off. I was not in the store two minutes, sizing up how much of the Made Rite space I could safely commandeer, when Bill, from behind the counter, asked if my truck was parked across the road. “Yep,” I answered. I assumed it was blocking his view of West Bay, not to mention access to a small private beach. I assured him, “I’ll just be a minute.” “It’s on fire,” he said, in a tone of voice as casual as the arms he rested on the counter. I barely looked up from my pretzel tally. “Oh?” I replied. “Probably just steam from when I ran through the puddles.” “I don’t think so,” he said. When I looked out, the smoke rising from the engine compartment was darker than steam. I asked to use the phone. The boy who answered P.J. was the one employee that John, the owner of Northern Distributors, was reluctant to assign a route. But as a relative of John’s wife, P.J. helped in the warehouse. “Is John there?” I asked. “No,” P.J. said. “Is there a problem?” “My truck’s on fire,” I said. “Whatdaya mean?” he asked. “I mean, my truck’s on fire. I want to know what John wants me to do.” “Can’t you finish your route?” P.J. questioned. “My truck’s on fire,” I repeated. “Would you just give John the message?” “Okay,” P.J. said. “But where are you calling from?” “Omena,” I said. “I’ll call back when I know more.” By the time I crossed the road, flames were licking the grill of the cab and blackening the paint on the hood. The windshield had just begun to darken with smoke when Bill came over to tell me he’d called the fire department. He also said I probably shouldn’t stand too close. The Omena Volunteer Fire Department soon arrived. It consisted of Rick from Rick’s Marina, who came hustling down the hill with a fire extinguisher in one hand and a kitchen mitt on the other. “I called Suttons Bay for back up,” he said by way of greeting. He then decided to find out what exactly was burning, so he released the latch with his kitchen-mitted hand and popped the Ford’s hood. Flames shot into the air. The circular air filter, haloed in fire, looked like a pan on a gas burner turned up too high. Rick untwisted the wing nut that held down the filter. He then grabbed the whole works and flicked it like a flaming Frisbee into the water of West Bay, barely 20 feet away, calm and sparkling with morning sun. There was a brief sizzle before it sank. “Sand,” he said. The three of us scooped handfuls of beach and threw it onto the carburetor until the fire was out. From the General Store, Bill phoned the Suttons Bay Fire Station and cancelled any back-up. I phoned John. Within an hour, P.J. arrived in the spare truck, a GMC. We spent the rest of the morning moving the undamaged stock from the Ford Inferno, and I continued my route. The GMC was newer than the Ford, though nearly the same mileage. I assumed it was the “spare” because the truck was the last manual transmission in the fleet. Most drivers preferred automatics. It was a false assumption. The truck ran fine for the next few days, though I pushed it pretty hard. The following weekend was the Fourth of July, and every bar, grocery store, and canoe livery wanted full chip racks for the holiday. By Tuesday, I’d reached the Empire Coast Guard Station, not one of my favorite stops. It took time, and I seldom sold much at the officer’s club, the NCO or the white radar dome at the top of the hill. I’d start at the dome. I’d park the truck in the road, shut it off, but leave it in gear. Then I’d take a boxful of vending machine snacks to a nondescript door. I’d knock, and after what seemed to be an interminable wait, the door would crack open. The man would order two or three small items and pay me with cash. This time, however, when I began to get out of the truck, it lurched forward, angled as it was down hill, so I set the emergency brake. I sold two brownies, two bags of sunflower seeds, and a Snickers. When I climbed back into the cab, I started the engine and released the emergency brake. What sounded like the snap of a cable was followed by the brake handle swinging loosely and the truck beginning to roll down the hill. I shut off the engine and let out the clutch, figuring the engagement of gears would slow me to a stop. The result, instead, was the loss of my power steering. In an odd moment of clarity, I considered my options. Just ahead of me, at the first intersection, two uniformed service people stood talking. To avoid hitting them, I’d have to swerve unreasonably wide, and likely turn a barracks into a garage. Farther down the hill, the road ended at a “T” where a crossroad ran along the ridge. There, I would have three additional options: swing the truck to the left and follow the road down a steep grade into Empire; leap out and let the truck and three thousand dollars worth of snack food plunge through a yellow barrier and down into a ravine; or swing the truck to the right, which would force it up the incline and, with any luck, to a stop. I chose the third option. All the way down the hill, I honked, waved and mashed on the useless brake pedal. The guys at the first intersection waved back, then leaped out of the way. At the “T” I made a wide right turn, tires screeching, shoulder gravel smattering the fender wells, and rolled to a stop in front of the NCO Club on the uphill incline, a trail of oil and grease marking my journey. The guys I had managed not to kill were nice enough to run up and see if I was okay. Another guy in the NCO club let me in the building to use the phone, but only after I’d taken his chip order. I called John and quit. John sent the spare spare truck and P.J. Together we salvaged what chips seemed undamaged. But I didn’t continue my route the next day. And every time John or my brother-in-law called, I quit again. But the good money swayed me. By Thursday I was back on the job and, with P.J.’s ride-along help, we got caught up before the holiday weekend. After all, what would Independence Day be without potato chips? When I received my Ph.D. in 1979, I had a variety of job possibilities, given my employment background. But with the birth of my first child only three months away, I knew I needed something long term and secure. Something practical. So I applied for positions in what I knew best. And what I knew best, after nine years of higher education, was literature and writing. And how well I could teach it. Phillip Sterling has taught courses in American literature, creative writing and composition since his arrival at Ferris in 1987. Author of the poetry collections Mutual Shores, Significant Others and Quantrains, and editor of Imported Breads: Literature of Cultural Exchange, his awards for writing and teaching include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry and Fulbright lectureships to Belgium and Poland. |
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