First, my credentials as they relate to this topic: Although I've done my share of white collar work, it seems (as my mother once said about me to my worried third wife), "...he's not likely to stray, but I don't think you'll be able to keep him off the road". Between hitting the pro rodeo circuit in my teens and early twenties, being assigned as a small truck driver in the Army, commuting lengthy distances even to office jobs, and several years of actual big rig truck driving.... It all adds up to a bit more than two million miles behind the wheel and countless hours of fighting to stay awake and alive during the process.

A number of times, working at a Nebraska office during the 1970's with a 45-mile commute from a South Dakota residence, I barely made it safely back home after work. How do I know this for sure? Um. Waking up, still in the driver's seat at the curb in front of the apartment building, that's how. Not an all nighter, you know, but maybe half an hour to an hour after the usual arrival time.

Once, while driving OTR (Over The Road, the long haul truckers you see out there every day, and every one of them fighting fatigue on a regular basis), I just about lost it. Heading down through central California on a heavily traveled highway, I realized I was actually wandering over the line into the other guy's lane, already sound asleep and barely managing to wake up enough to jerk the wheel back before I creamed a couple of cars or a Highway Patrolman noticed me weaving like a drunken sailor. Trouble was, I knew the next available truck stop was still fifty miles down the road or more. Hadn't even planned to stop there, but choice in the matter had been eliminated from the equation. Somehow I did make it to that little unpaved lot safely, eternally grateful that my worn-out wife had slept through the danger. If she'd known, of course, she would have been doing whatever she could to help me stay awake....

To this day, though, my all-time worst occurred in 1981. I was driving on-off road for Halliburton, delivering bulk cement to drilling rig locations in eastern Montana, western North Dakota, and bits of Wyoming. With Halliburton, you are always on call. Using an oilfield exemption written into the Federal safety guidelines (HOS, Hours of Service, limiting how long a driver may remain on duty per day and per week), the company is legally able to run their hands as long as work is available. To add to that, I had to run from Glendive to Billings one day to file for bankruptcy (another tale for another time)--between cement runs, no official day off to compensate.

Net result: 62 hours straight, on duty, much of that actually driving, some doing heavy labor, with only TWO HOURS of real sleep stuck somewhere in the middle. By the end of that, the last run of that horrible cycle, I was heading back in the truck from one of our rare Wyoming jobs. Had about 200 miles to go, middle of the night, and yes, I made it. But for roughly 100 miles of that, I had no recollection whatsoever of the ground I'd covered. Yes, that meant that somehow I'd actually driven sound asleep for a couple of hours.

I do not recommend that. Likewise, I do not recommend the first stay-awake technique listed below. Oh, it WORKS, but you'll see why it's not recommended!

Technique #1: Having a near death experience (NOT RECOMMENDED). No, not recommended at all. Sure 'nuff does work when it happens, though. Two examples:

My two sisters, both in Montana, were (years ago) driving a pickup across part of the state to visit our parents. It was after dark, they were motoring along just fine, when suddenly another pickup occupied by two young men began playing head games, trying to force them off the road. It did not work, and the men are fortunate that it did not: At the insistence of their husbands, both women had taken along their matching .357 Magnum revolvers. And yes, the pistols were loaded, and yes, they do know how to use them. Still, the primary point is that while they were not drowsy in the first place, they were definitely wide awake for the rest of the journey.

A similar event, though of longer duration, occurred in December of 1973. This time it was Carolyn and me. We were driving from our home in Eugene, Oregon, to get married in Reno, Nevada. After all, I'd asked her if she wanted to do that (after having been together for a year), and she responded logically: "Why not? I don't what else I'd do with the rest of my life." We're not married today but are still close friends, and I still kid her about that. Okay, back to the action.

It was a bit after 1:00 a.m. We were bone weary. Not only had we both worked full days at our respective office jobs, but I had insisted on delaying the start of the trip until after my office team's basketball practice in the evening. After all, we were the worst team in the league anyway; why make it any worse? Add to that the driving rain covering the first part of our journey, and we were flat. Worn. Out.

Pulling back onto the highway after an unsuccessful attempt at finding anything open to sell us a Coke in Mount Shasta, California, I noticed a tan 1963 Chevy start up from the shoulder, falling in behind us. Again, there were two men in this car, estimated to be somewhere in their early thirties. My ER (Enemy Radar) kicked in immediately, which of course also woke me up a bit.

Before long the game was on. They would tailgate, then shoot past, then dynamite their brakes in an attempt to slow us down. Now, I can be as intimidated as the next guy in the right circumstances, but not when I'm driving a weapon. The kicker, however, involved the two five gallon cans full of gasoline right behind our heads in the Gremlin...which had no trunk. With the long gas lines, national 55 mph speed limit, etc., there was no guarantee that even the Gremlin's over-400-mile range could get to Reno (520 miles) in one shot.

So my decision was made: No way were these guys going to get us to stop, but if they pushed it to actual vehicular contact, well, the FRONT half of a Gremlin is a BIG CAR in disguise, and I figured I could take us all off the highway and into a pine tree at 50 miles an hour. If WE were going out in a fireball, they were going with us.

Fortunately, their nerve did not match mine. When they tailgated with their brights on, I simply adjusted the fancy remote control mirrors so that I got no glare. When they braked in front of me so that it was me doing the tailgating and I had my brights on (payback), and they flashed their lights up and down as if to order me to dim my lights, I laughed.

I sincerely believe they would not have enjoyed that laugh.

About the third time they tried the brake-in-front-of-me maneuver, I told Carolyn, hang on, gunned it, and shot past them like they were standing still. Our interior lights were still on, as I'd been instructing my fiancee to write down their license plate number as I read it to her. Apparently that got through to our would-be persecutors, drunk or stoned or just plain developmentally disabled as they obviously were: They passed us a fourth time but kept accelerating. A few mountain curves later, we saw their taillights disappearing down the exit ramp to McCloud. The highway duel had only extended for nine miles in total, though of course in the middle of combat, time really has no meaning.

We never did get that Coke, but we were wide awake and talking about the adventure for hours, all the rest of the way through a stop to put the spare gas into the tank, and on to Reno, arriving just at sunup. So yes, extreme adrenalin does work, but no, it is not recommened.

Technique #2: Slapping yourself. When I'm at the ragged edge and no other method seems to be working, I slap myself. Please understand, this is an art, hardly science. If I'm not within a few miles of my destination, there is little point--it's not worth trying for more than a few final minutes. Also, the trick is to slap hard enough to sting but not hard enough to take your own head off.

Slapping the thigh is a good place to start. It's hard to cripple yourself doing that, and you might even count the exertion as exercise. But in my experience, this is never good for more than a minute or two.

One of the more effective ways seems to be slapping the back of one hand with the fingers of the other. A good, bracing, wake-up sting is possible without, again, taking your own head off.

Last of all, the face. This is really an art. Too lightly, and it accomplishes nothing. Too brutally, and you're thinking, Oh, I really shouldn't have done that!

Technique #3: Singing and/or songwriting. This method is placed in the middle because for me it serves as the anchor, the bulk of what I do to stay awake while driving. It does seem worth mentioning that you do not have to be a professional songwriter to benefit from writing songs behind the wheel. You don't even have to remember them later if you don't want to, and no one else has to hear them if you're not comfortable with that. You can even make up something about the problem you're confronting, like:

Driving down this stupid two lane back country road. Gotta find some gas or I'll have to git towed. I miss another turn I'm sure gonna be late. Gotta keep goin' and I gotta keep awake....

The greatest advantage, at least in my experience, is that repeating the lyrics over and over again is useful if you do want to memorize the new song. Working a single new song will sometimes carry me for three or four hours at a stretch.

Of course, I do have designs on the music industry despite (or perhaps because of) my age....

Technique #4: Listening to the radio or tape/CD player. Everyone does know about this one, and probably most people understanding the importance of picking stations (or recordings) that work for them. In order of effectiveness in my world, the listings would include: (A) Comedy. Give me a sharp routine by any good standup comedian, and I'm good to go even though I may have listened to the same thing thirty or forty times. Jeff Wayne! My favorite! (B) Driving music with a beat and a well worded message. Dave Dudley! Aaron Tippin! (C) Talk shows on subjects of interest. Politics! UFO's!

Technique #5. Just plain thinking about stuff. Everybody's stuff is individual and unique, of course. Mentally composing a letter you need to write. Figuring out how to rework those kitchen cabinets. What to tell Dispatch to get them to give you a better run next time. Whatever.

One last point to make: Countless people, especially today, can be seen driving while talking incessantly on their cell phones. It seems pretty clear that a move to outlaw this dangerous activity is well underway throughout the United States. And let's not even talk about texting...!

Thank goodness. This is one whatever-you-call-it that I could never include as a stay-awake technique, even a non-recommended one. I fully expect readers to inform me in no uncertain terms that they can multitask and talk on the phone and never lose awareness of the street or highway. Some of them may even believe it. If you are one of the cell phoneaholics who disagree, I simply hope that the worst you ever do is space off enough to drive past your exit on the freeway rather than space off enough to drive into your worst nightmare.

Last Christmas night, I made the mistake--no, not of dialing my cell phone, just relaxing enough to turn on the radio for a bit of country music...and a quarter mile later, hit a downhill intersection at 5 mph, discovered too late it had "slicked up" in the past hour (after I'd gone up that same way). Result: Slid my tractor and loaded tanker trailer across the icy intersection and into the ditch. That was from relaxing my vigilance by maybe one percent....

Thanks for reading,

Ghost 32