An Attitude of Gratitude: My Tipping Point

Roger Ryberg says he’s “too young for retirement, too old for a paper route, and too tired to have an affair.” He writes a column called “A Likely Story.” Here, he offers an attitude of gratitude based on his experience as a trucker.

I don’t tip some people. In fact, I don’t tip a lot of people. That would include load brokers, funeral directors, flight attendants, or folks standing on the corner of a get-on ramp. I don’t tip the last group in particular, even if they are load brokers, funeral directors, or flight attendants. Nor do I tip police officers, if I appreciate my freedom. But more on them later.

Another group I don’t support are the evangelical TV hucksters preaching prosperity. Oh, I know, Joel and Joyce and Benny and Creflo have yacht payments just like I do, but they don’t have a spouse like I do. I even have to hide receipts from the QuikTrip bakery.

But I’ve recently started to wonder about something. In an industry characterized by sign-on bonuses, quarterly pay raises, increased detention, and annual vacations, many truck drivers can’t afford the four basic human needs: cell phones, laptops, lottery tickets, and video games. Some of my fellow gearjammers can’t even buy their own CB radios. It might be the money. Or it could be they don’t know what they are.

The economy is so good right now I could afford more chrome, a newer car, a traditional funeral, and tipping the highway patrolman who just wrote me up for an illegal U-turn. If I do that, of course, they’ll take away the car, sell my chrome, and fast-track the memorial service. Even good deeds, it seems, don’t often go unpunished.

This is a crisis of indescribable proportion. Markets are up, unemployment is down, politicians are getting along, and food stamp use is dwindling. Well, okay, most lawmakers are on a hard-earned vacation. They’re on it. We earned it.

But there is a group of people I look forward to tipping, and I see them every day. The server that brings me breakfast, the porter who cleans my shower, and the mechanic who services the stepdeck so I don’t have to. They don’t influence the rates I get or the hours I lose, but they still pave the way for an attitude of gratitude.

They’re not perfect. Sometimes they’re even bad. But they’re on the job so I can take a break from mine. They drive to work in rolling junkyards, using tools they had to pay for, living on the equivalent of minimum wages. They wouldn’t be there if they could go anywhere else, and I wouldn’t be there if they weren’t.

The Bible doesn’t tell me what to give, exactly, and I would never tell you what to tip, but Scripture does encourage us to look out for the less fortunate. Especially the ones who keep breakfast hot, towels dry, wipers intact, and tires aired up. There are only so many times, after all, that I can get my wife to crawl under the trailer with a grease gun.

Seriously, we can all do a little better job of appreciating those who serve us, protect us, provide for us, and work for us. Like that Ohio State Highway Patrolman who wrote me a ticket, and then took the time to lead me to my destination. I sincerely thanked him for his service to me, and to his country. Like the construction flagman I was able to give a cold Gatorade to. Or the PFJ mechanic who snapped on my new wiper blades without a labor charge. That was an easy five bucks for both of us!

Too old for a paper route, too young to retire, and too tired for an affair. Lucky to be married to Susan, blessed to be a grandpa, and wealthy enough to accept collect calls.

A semi-retired trucker living in a Wichita, Kansas, Roger Ryberg says he’s “too young for retirement, too old for a paper route, and too tired to have an affair.” He writes a column called “A Likely Story” and offers his perspectives on an attitude of gratitude and more.

Read more contributions from Boomer readers in our From the Reader department.

Have your own essays, childhood memories, or stories you’d like to share with our baby boomer audience? View our writers’ guidelines and e-mail our editor at Annie@BoomerMagazine.com with the subject line “‘From Our Readers’ inquiry.”