Because I used to make a (meager) living as a driver, I can appreciate what the folks who drive "the big rigs" go through- especially in this country, where things like our current economic Depression make it exceedingly more difficult to make a living behind the wheel. As a cab driver, I was forced to pay for my own gas every time I got behind the wheel. (College kids, who thought it was funny, would "jump and run" from time to time- never knowing (or caring) that the only person they were really hurting were the drivers; the company itself never lost money on a bail-out: the driver owed half of every fare metered, as well as a full tank of gas at the end of the night...) This past year, doing an on-going comic strip for a local ad paper (CAPE FEAR COMICS, which can be seen, I'm told, at encorepub.com), I did a panel showing big rigs lined up beneath a DIESEL $4.29 sign at a service station. The caption above the cartoon read: THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. To all the drivers out there: you are not alone.
