marching to Georgia

It was already after dark, and we had been traveling for nine hours. The vast parking lot in front of us fairly vibrated with humming trucks, parked on the back lot of the local Flying J. Dwarfed by the two trucks on either side, we slid into a space and put out the slides. The sound from a hundred idling trucks made the fillings in my teeth hum in sympathy. Over the next several hours trucks peeled away from the group and resumed their journeys while others entered the parking lot. When, at 3:30, a large cattle carrier came within inches of our slides, we, too, joined the stream of trucks on the highway. What a different life they lead from us--criss-crossing the nation with the goods we use, sleeping a few hours at a time in waysides before continuing their ways--off time spent in lounges that look like hospital waiting rooms, fried food buffets and rented DVD's for company. --All so that we can buy our imported TV's and clothes, our transported food, our sale items from Walmart and Target. We don't think often of the army of people who transport our goods and make possible the huge quantity and variety that we enjoy.