Texas Border Business
Baltimore, MD, April 7, 2020 ̶ During a time where many of us are grappling with self-distancing, what better people to advise us on what it’s like to practically live in isolation than those who drive the highways of America for a living. Author and 60-year veteran truck driver, Ed Miller reveals ‘behind the highway’ secrets, stories and gossip from driving tractor-trailers since the age of thirteen. In his new book, A Trucker’s Tale: Wit, Wisdom, and True Stories from 60 Years on the Road (Apollo Publishers), Miller gives an inside look at the allure of the work and the colorful characters who haul our goods on the open road. In the book, he shares what it’s like to:
• Grow up in a trucking family;
• Drive trucks for 60 years under extreme circumstances;
• Work as a petty officer in Vietnam; and
• Morph from a trucker to a granddad turned school bus driver.
With personal tales and those told by one trucker to another, A Trucker’s Tale presents a compelling portrait of a vibrant but little-known, isolated industry.
Miller delivers a behind-the-scenes view of how truckers do a damned fine job of keeping our economy and country humming. Filled with colorful stories ̶ some heartbreaking, some head-shaking, often hilarious and all true ̶ about on-the-job experiences that happened to him personally or to truckers he met on his travels.
The American Trucking Association tagline “Without trucks, America stops” isn’t just hype. We depend on trucks for everything from personal package deliveries to supplies necessary to build roads, bridges, homes, hospitals and schools. But few of us think about the people that drive trucks as highly-skilled professionals with a demanding job. In A Trucker’s Tale, Miller opens up his world and reveals the tapestry of American culture. Over the course of his career, he became an expert on the dangers, hardships, responsibilities, absurdities and colorful characters that come with the territory.
Author Ed Miller was born into a family of truckers in North Carolina and began driving tractor-trailers at age thirteen. He has more than 40 years of management and ownership experience in many aspects of the motor carrier industry, including flatbed, van, refrigerated, specialized and transportation brokerage. From 2003 to 2010, he worked in the Office of Freight Logistics at Maryland’s Department of Transportation, where he served on numerous county, state and national transportation and research advisory committees. Today he is a part-time school bus driver, working as a substitute/trip driver transporting students or taking school teams to sports events. Ed grew up in western North Carolina and attended East Carolina University before serving in the US Navy Seabees. He is a father of three and a grandfather of two and lives with his wife in Rising Sun, Maryland, near Baltimore.
