A Trucker's Tale – Junnie Jones

May 23, 2024 - one year ago

Pardon me while I stray from my military experiences for this article, as I jump ahead a couple of years, to tell you about a truly different individual named Junnie Jones.

A Trucker's Tale - Junnie Jones — *Junnie and I drove tractors similar to this International CO4070. Photo: Ed Miller.*

I returned to college after my stint in the Seabees. Periodically, my funds would run low, and I would drive tractor-trailers for a trucking company, WMTS, based in Eastern North Carolina. I drove for three months, saved most of what I earned, then returned to college. During one of these times, I met Junnie. I have never been able to decide if Junnie danced to the beat of his own music, if he was one-of-a-kind, if the mold was thrown-away after he was born, or if any dozens of other clichés adequately describe him. Very deep down, I know that, sure as hell, I will never meet another person like him.

For close to a week, it so happened that Junnie and I received duplicate dispatches. Each of our loads were picked up from the same shippers, and delivered to the same consignees. We both questioned the accuracy of each dispatch, but sure enough, there were two loads waiting for us every time. We had several short runs of 300 to 400 miles, and a couple longer trips of 600 to 700 miles. Usually, when you spend this much time with another person, you get a pretty good idea of what makes a person tick. Well, I never did, and I never will.

Because we ran together, we also stopped at the same truck stops for fuel and food. After eating several meals, I noticed Junnie letting me be the first to order. It did not matter what I ordered. Junnie told the waitresses he would have the same items I ordered, including which beverages I drank. Curiosity eventually got the better of me, so I asked him why he didn’t make his own decisions regarding food and drink. He said he didn’t like or dislike any foods, and that the only reason he ate anything was because he had to eat to stay alive. He felt it was a helluva lot easier to let someone order for him than to suffer the aggravating chore of having to make his own food selections. Junnie told me, when he traveled alone, that he would sit at the counter at most truck stops and drink coffee until another driver arrived to sit beside him. Yep, you guessed it. Junnie would have the waitress bring him the very same foods the other driver had ordered. He also said there were many times he just laughed-it-off when one of the drivers, whose order Junnie had copied, referred to that “strange fellow,” or “fruitcake” sitting next to him.

Subsequent conversations with Junnie provided further information, or confirmation, to indicate his eating habits were only one of the ‘different’ ways he lived his life. Once, he was rudely awakened during the night to find his wife straddling him (not sexually), as she pointed a loaded handgun at his face. He asked her what the hell she was doing, and she replied that she would blow his God damned head off if he ever messed with another woman. Junnie questioned why she decided to do this thing in the middle of the night. She informed him that since she could not sleep, she just needed to tell him how she felt. Junnie finished this story and I just sat there shaking my head several times. For once, I was not able to utter a single word!

At another meal, (where I ordered), Junnie related the story of what took place several years before I met him. He said, while he was living in a house in a swampy section of Eastern NC, he noticed a snake crawl under his house. He didn’t think anything more about it until, over the next few days, he counted several more snakes. When he finally opened the door to the crawl space, he saw a den of snakes. Junnie went into his house, loaded his shotgun, reopened the crawl space door, and then “killed every one of those sons-of-bitches.”

Junnie did, in fact, kill every snake. He soon realized that he had also killed most of the plumbing and electrical wiring running throughout the crawl space. He said he replaced the pipes and wiring by himself, and that although it was pretty expensive, at least he didn’t have to crawl around with live snakes down there. Kinda made sense to me. (Kinda)

I was relieved our week together was coming to an end, because this last story left me shaking my head so often that I had a terrible headache. It sounded so bizarre that I just knew he had made up this s#*t. But then, damn if friends didn’t tell me they had read about it in their local newspaper.

As Junnie was cleaning a shotgun, while sitting at his kitchen table, his wife called down to him from the top of the stairs to ask if he was watching the television, which was playing in the den. He answered that he had been watching, but he was not watching it at that moment. She then asked him to turn it off. Half an hour later, she yelled from the top of the stairs, “I said to turn-off the God damn television!”

Junnie calmly loaded his shotgun, pointed it through the doorway and politely turned off the television by blowing it all to hell. His wife ran down the steps yelling, “Why did you do that you crazy bastard?”

“Well, you told me to turn-off the God damned television,” he replied.

“What if I had told you to turn-off the oven or the dishwasher?” she asked.

I will shorten this domestic disturbance story by telling you that the police were summoned, and they hauled Junnie off to the pokey. At his court appearance, he told the judge he didn’t know why everyone was so upset, since everything he had blown-to-hell was his, so what did it matter? The judge replied, “No, Mr. Jones. Everything you did not shoot was yours. Everything you did shoot belonged to Mrs. Jones, and you are going to replace all Mrs. Jones appliances you shot.” Junnie told me he bought a new television, dishwasher, range, refrigerator, and washer and dryer.

I know he drove several more years for WMTS, but until recently, I wondered whatever happened to him, figuring his shotgun still played a big part of his life. He must have straightened himself out because he has driven for the same company for many years, and he is soon to retire. I am glad to know he took care of his demons. (He probably blew the s#*t out of them.)

Ed Miller ([email protected]) has more than 40 years of management and ownership experience in the trucking industry. Today, he is a part-time tour bus driver, published author of “A Trucker’s Tale”, and regular contributor to Supply Post. He is a father of three and a grandfather of two, and lives with his wife in Rising Sun, Maryland.