So I'm walking back to my car Saturday night from a gas station in
Kramer's Junction, a Mojave Desert hamlet built around the
just-passing-through traveler's need for fuel, coffee, food, indoor
plumbing, and souvenirs.

A truck pulls up to the red light and catches my attention because the
door has more stuff written on it than a WW2 bomber with almost enough
missions to go home.

There was just enough light to read some of it before the light turned
green, and it included: two or three truck rodeo wins, somebody's
Driver of the Decade award, and (spelled out thus) Three and
Three-Quarter Million Accident Free Miles.

I'd seen a million-miler before, and a few who'd passed some milestone
on their way to it, but 3.75 million?    I think a typical Apollo
mission involved less than 400,000 miles, and although more concerned
than drivers usually are about meteors and the air supply and stuff,
*they* didn't have to worry about drunks veering over the double yellow
on the two-lane into Barstow!
Do they give him the door as a souvenir every time he wears out another
truck, or what?

I passed him  later and it briefly crossed my mind to see where he
stopped and ask for quotable pearls of wisdom.  But we ended up on
opposite sides of a railroad crossing and I lost track of him.
Besides, his theories about a stranger approaching at night at a truck
stop  probably featured "hijacker," "panhandler," "hitchhiker," and
"scary nutjob" a lot more prominently than "guy on a road trip who just
hatched a story idea for the safety newsletter at work."  So whoever
you are: consider hats to have been doffed in your direction!

(The next morning's drive down to Needles, alas, brought a couple of
drivers who'd lost their chance at such a distinction. One had stood
his rig on its ear for reasons not trivially apparent.  Another, on the
other side, had recently had his trailer's  back bumper -- the
car-stopper with all the reflector tape on it -- used for a crumple
zone and air bag check by a newish Dodge pickup.  Then again, maybe
they only consider at-fault accidents for the safety honors, and absent
other knowledge, I'd sure place my  nickel bet that that one was the
pickup jockey's fault. )

After seeing lurid accident scenes down on that stretch for years, I
have formulated a theory that people who've been on the road way too
long realize a millisecond too late that they shoulda gotten a motel
room in the last town instead of pressing on to the next one...

--Joe