Ok folks, your Camp Soapbox counselor here.

It is National Truck Driver Appreciation Week.

So before I climb onto the soapbox and start aggravating people, let me say the part that should not require an app, a rewards card, a company meeting, or a marketing department.

Thank you, drivers.

Thank you for starting the truck while most of the country is still asleep.

Thank you for missing birthdays, ball games, anniversaries, Sunday dinners, and more nights in your own bed than most people will ever understand.

Thank you for driving through rain, snow, construction, traffic, bad directions, worse parking, and four-wheelers who believe the space in front of your bumper was left there personally for them.

Thank you for sitting at docks where nobody seems to know you arrived, even though they called six times yesterday asking where their freight was.

Thank you for checking the straps one more time, walking around the truck one more time, looking at that tire one more time, and doing all the little things nobody notices unless you fail to do one of them.

Thank you for moving this country.

Not just during emergencies.

Not just when a hurricane is coming.

Not just when shelves are empty and everybody suddenly remembers where everything comes from.

Every day.

That is driver appreciation.

To the drivers

Take the free coffee.

Eat the pizza.

Swipe the card and collect every point you have coming.

You earned them.

Just do not let anybody convince you that a free drink, a raffle ticket, or a company hat represents your value.

Your value is sitting on every grocery shelf.

It is hanging in every closet.

It is inside every hospital, factory, school, warehouse, jobsite, restaurant, and home in this country.

You were there before the shelf was stocked.

You were there before the factory could build the widget.

You were there before the customer ever saw the finished product.

When hurricanes come, you bring the water.

When towns rebuild, you bring the lumber.

When stores run empty, everybody suddenly remembers you exist.

Then the emergency ends, and too many people go right back to telling you to stay out of their parking lots and get out of their way.

I cannot fix that with one article.

But I can say this and mean every word of it.

Thank you.

Thank you for the miles nobody sees.

Thank you for the nights nobody counts.

Thank you for doing the job while the rest of the country argues about everything except how the things it needs actually got there.

You keep this country fed, clothed, supplied, rebuilt, and running.

Fifty-two weeks a year.

Not one.

End of transmission.

JR Elrod

President, BAR Transportation LLC

Camp Soapbox Counselor