Hats Off to a Truck Driver

Sometimes your emotions can turn 180 degrees in an instant like mine did yesterday.

So I'm on my way home from work, and I'm almost to the vicinity of my home. I'm driving in the far right lane of a 4-lane road with two lanes going in either direction and no center turn lane. The posted speed limit is 35 miles an hour and is fairly well monitored. The left side of the road is a seemingly endless row of industrial businesses--The kind with lots of truck traffic and loading docks and the like. On the right is a grassy area, somewhat swampy, with train tracks that paralleled the road. Behind that area is the fence that surrounds Emerald Downs, our local horse-racing track.

On my left and slightly ahead of me is a full-size semi truck with a flatbed trailer loaded with metals or something.

All of a sudden he puts on his 4-way flashers and swerves partially into my lane and slows to a stop, blocking both lanes of southbound traffic. I can't really see past him, but I'm assuming he's blocking the road for another truck that us using part of the road while he backs into a business or something. There were four or five cars behind each of us, all stopped by his blocking maneuver.

We wait. Nothing seems to be happening. I'm starting to get pissed at this point, wondering what is going on. About the time I was going to get out of my car and look around the side of him, I saw the reason.

Just passing in front of him and coming into my view was a mother goose and 5 or 6 babies, making their way across the road to the swampy area on the other side of the road.

My building rage suddenly turned into a broad smile and I gave a mental "nod" to the truck driver. He knew exactly what had to be done, and he executed it perfectly. I doubt if many other drivers ever knew what the cause of the stop was, because when the geese reached the side of the road they disappeared out of sight.

Way to go man.