Encounter With TDI

I just passed the Truck Driver Institute in Richburg, South Carolina. This is only notable because it's the place I trained to get my CDL in 1999. I'm surprised they're still in operation, to be honest with you. But I assume they must be doing a better job now than they were in 1999. How else could they still be around?

Anyway, I stopped at the truckstop there in Richburg. One of the trucks from TDI was parked there. That was a little strange. Somehow I hadn't expected to encounter one of their trucks. It summoned up all sorts of nostalgic feelings before I laughed at myself. A few dazed people stood near the truck, who I assume were students of the school. Okay. An interesting moment. Nothing more. Move along.

I walked around to the front of the building and found the doors locked, and three employees chatting and smoking cigarettes. “We're closed,” I was told. I hadn't been to that truckstop since 1999, when I was in training. And the last time I'd been there I'd been with a trainer and some other students in a school truck. It struck me as ironic that here I had tried to go inside for the very first time, and the doors were locked. I just smiled at the girl and said “You can never go back.”

If there's a better metaphor for the direction my life is going in, I can't imagine it.