Appreciation! - - - What Is It?
#NTDAW26
Good day friends.
A lot of the thinking of lately has been around the upcoming Truck Driver Appreciation Week. We’re focusing on it (you) all month. The week is proper from Sept 14th -19th 2026. I admit that the team of folks that help us manage Mideastern.com and some other various aspects of our office solutions have pushed me on to this just a bit. These folks have me planning. What’s wrong with taking care of it with a note from my shirt pocket when the day comes? Their good guidance is correct, and we will do better for our friends because of it.
This planning and preparing and sharing and research has gotten me to thinking about this. Last night in my quiet thoughts time, awake in the middle of the night, I did some self-study. For many years this beginning for me was in my late teens. New thinking. I was 5 to 6 years old and still in my birthplace city over in TN. My Grandfather and his brother and maybe a cousin started a lumber yard that became a building supply and mill house. I think the cousin refrained from the hard work and booted himself out early on. They had delivery trucks. My father did some delivering and thus likely my first truck ride. Soon I was allowed to ride with George on some Saturday mornings. George became to me the greatest guy in the company. He was out by himself representing the entire company! He also didn’t mind riding little kids, only one of us at a time, and answering four million questions in one half day of deliveries. Some other time I will share my entrepreneurial spirit story.
When did it begin for you? Mid Eastern has been here now for many years. Through it I have been and continue to be blessed in many ways. This has not only been the greatest teaching of all times for me; it and the teachings have allowed me to venture in various other ways. No matter what that has been I am always drawn and have kept myself right back here. These truckers, not the companies, the men and women truckers are perhaps largely a true part of the core of the backbone of America.
Sometimes I am a little behind the curve on the news. I just recently read about the new July 2026 legislation on protecting our USA citizens’ drivers, revoking some state loopholes and setting a precedent at our federal level to hopefully never have this happen again. That same effort also has a provision that helps promote and provide a pathway for veterans to become CDL compliant drivers.
Appreciation! It is acknowledging the efforts of others. It is the way you look at, think of, and treat others doing the same things that we are doing. It is knowing that without something, something else would be dramatically different. Maybe it is sometimes having and showing admiration for the way someone accomplishes something. Maybe the greatest is just knowing in your heart that you are grateful for what others do, and you show it.
Mid Eastern has some great things planned. They made me put it on a calendar and be accountable! It is a struggling world that we are living in at the present time. Let us not forget or lose hope, we are resilient people, and you are at the very core of it!
Summer is winding down. Construction zones continue winding up. Freight is moving. The Interstates Zoo continues. Take a breath. Smile at someone on the road when you were maybe having a rage moment. Just never know… Be kind to your neighbors, they’re everywhere.
