Fifteen Hours on The Road And I'm Gonna Make It Home Tonight

In the 1960s truck driving hit “Six Days on the Road and I’m Gonna Make it Home Tonight,” songwriters Earl Green and Peanut Montgomery capture what it means to drive a marathon trip…

In the original version of the song as recorded by Dave Dudley, the lyrics include the words "...I'm taking little white pills and my eyes are open wide..." a reference to the stimulants some truckers used to keep driving (and make their delivery times) when they needed sleep. Some remakes of the song replace these words with a reference to looking at the white lines on the road.

I didn’t take any pills last week when I drove 15 hours to and from Illinois and Texas….but I did tip a couple bottles of “Five Hour Energy.” And while it served its purpose, I don’t recommend it.

My youngest, Alex, needed to get back to the town where he grew up, Bethalto, after I plucked him from there back in 2003. Those were turbulent times in my life and after much soul-searching; I decided he and his brother needed to relocate with me in Fairfield.

He will enter Lindenwood University in the fall after earning two degrees from Western Texas College and study communications….specifically….broadcasting. In a somewhat stunning side story, I also enrolled his brother Doug in the Lewis and Clark Community College radio program for the fall. Hmmm…two sons continuing the family business without any prompting from me. I would tell them they aren’t gonna make any money and sleep on some couches….but then that did not detour me 25 years ago. I was also the station janitor at one stop in order to make enough money to feed them.

I had a very limited window to deliver Alex and all of his stuff so I took off in a rented van before sunrise on a Thursday morning and drove (with him following in his car) for about a thousand miles to Bethalto.

My hometown's coming in sight,
If you think I'm happy your right.
Six days on the road and I'm gonna make it home tonight.

Along the way, I got into the “correct change only” lane of the toll way without “correct change,” Really hacked off the people I made move backwards to get into the “cash” lane. I fumed when I learned that the fast food restaurant on the exit sign was really five miles off the toll way and I got lost in Tulsa because a giant sinkhole forced the closure of the interstate. About eight hours into the drive, I got real tired.

I had seen the energy drink advertised and decided to try one of the little orange bottles in order to stay alert. It worked. I had to do the same three days later when I got up at three in the morning and drove non-stop back to Texas.

Thank God for my I-pod. A mix of rock and country music kept me entertained. I also listened to podcasts of the 1940s Jack Benny Radio Show (He was a genius) and Prairie Home Companion. And then were was “live radio” where I listened to Mark Belling (Bright, but not a genius). Belling was my former boss at WMAY in Springfield in the mid-1980s. He is now the king of talk radio in Milwaukee and sits in regularly for Rush Limbaugh on his nationwide program. I caught him near Oklahoma City.

I have to admit that I did not deal well with leaving my son behind. He is my baby and knowing he was going to be a thousand miles away was very emotionally disturbing to me. I’m a big boy but his departure also made me realize that I’m moving to another stage in my life and I would much rather be Dad in the next room…..not Dad on the phone. Besides a pair of sleepy eyes, I also had some wet eyes.

The Five Hour Energy drink didn’t help me with the moisture problem.

Only time will solve that…