Bald Eagle’s Message (#755)

Driving east from Appleton in southwest Minnesota over to Minnetonka, I had  loads of time to ponder my latest job adventure.  I was making my way to the “love of my life” grocery store known as Trader Joe’s to stock up on favorite food staples and just enjoying the day and the road, autumn colors, beyond blue skies. But…

Back to pondering my plight tho’, way back in midsummer, I had been offered a job working the SugarBeet Harvest which takes place during the month of October out here in the midwest.

It seemed like a good fit: 12 hour days (but only for a month), drive a 10 speed 30’  truck hauling beets from the fields to the piling station.  Working the fields, hey, just like a migrant worker.

In our phone interview, The trucking boss asked: do you have any experience driving a stick shift?   A car, Yes!  But not a truck.  He said, that’s okay, you’ll pick it up.  

A sojourner’s length of days later,  here I was eager, excited to learn this new job and haul beets with the best of them.  We did a test drive in one of the trucks…..so foreign, so totally different from what I expected.  I was in shock and felt like I had let myself down.

Mind you, I spoke with truck drivers who said, nah, you won’t have any problem, it’s easy once you get the hang of it. 

The length and load did not bother me a bit but the shifting; rev up the engine before you shift, don’t use the clutch, just listen to the sound.  There….at the end of the run, I was apologizing to the boss, saying I knew I could do better with more practice.

Did it phase him?  Not one bit.  He just said I got some automatic drive trucks coming in.  You can drive one of those instead.  In my “interview” mode I am most agreeable and said, Sure, sounds great.  I am there!

But weighing things in the light of a new day, I still could not make up my mind.  Until….

That drive, that long, long drive.  I will remember it all of my days and then some.  Well, not the drive itself but what happened during that drive which left me without a doubt as to what to do.

Right on the side of the road…..yes, beside my car as I was driving down Highway 12 about an hour into my trip, a Bald Eagle took off into the air, turned its head, caught my eye, then flew off into the beckoning blue skies.

I had my answer, gifted to me from the universal wisdom that is All That Is…..