Dear Reader, meet Bruce, my Truck.  I never understood why my wife insisted that each of our vehicles have an official name, and personality to match, but it has always been so for our many married years, and so one of the first things I did after being assigned my new truck was to petition my family for a name.

It was necessary to point out the this truck was powered by a Detroit Diesel engine.  A beautiful piece of engineering in my opinion. Bruce also had qualities of being quiet, stable, a hard worker without complaint.  Once I had provided my family with the qualities of the truck, Bruce was the name.

Bruce is a 2016 Freightliner Cascadia Evolution.  Did I ever tell you that I love this truck?  It has a 12-speed automatic transmission.  Well, it's not automatic in the true sense of the word, it's still a regular 12-speed transmission, it just has a very high-tech shifting mechanism added to the standard transmission which uses air pressure and a lot of computer code I'm sure, but it's truly mind boggling to see how it all works.

My right shoulder has had two largely unsuccessful surgeries, and I must confess that it is nice not to have to add the chore, the responsibility, and yes, the distraction of shifting to my otherwise many duties of learning to drive this truck in the craziest of situations.

Like the warriors and cowboys, where horse and rider become one, communicating with each other through things as simple as the touch of a knee, or the pause in stride, so Bruce and I communicate and work together.  Because of his reliance on cruise control and automatic shifting, I have to help him understand what's going on ahead. It's taken a few weeks to understand what he's trying to do, and how I can best be of assistance, but we are getting there.