Timothy J. Anderson: Graced By Amazing

September 1, 2007

The junction appeared as if it was a desert mirage and gearing the truck down to make the turn, I eased onto highway 341. The weight of the apples pushed the rig forward while the Jake-Brake rumbled. The road was a bit narrower than I had expected. After making the turn I started grabbing gears and the truck pulled hard against the weight of all those apples. The ten speed was a bit too efficient for the pull and I found myself wishing for a ’spitter’ so that I could ease my way though the motions rather than having to lug the engine at the bottom of each gear. Soon the truck was back up to speed and the sage and prairie grasses were a blur of brown and tan. Across the valley, the Sierras remained to break sky from earth and California from Nevada. Dallas climbed forward from the sleeper and sat up in the shotgun seat. Squinting and rubbing his eyes, he asked a groggy, “Where are we?”

“Somewhere between Reno and Virginia City”, I answered.

“Oh” was all he said in response.

“Need me to stop so you can piss?” I asked.

He shook his head no and continued to squint out the windshield, once again providing a testament to waking up is hard to do.

Things are slow to register when a driver first wakes up, and in the silence I wondered what he was doing up so early. He wasn’t supposed to wake up for hours. He looked like he’d just gone to sleep. “You feeling O.K.?” I asked.

“Where did you say we were?” He looked towards me after several minutes of silence.

“Between Reno and Virginia City,” I responded.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well on the map this road shows up as being shorter….” I tried to sound nonchalant but he interrupted me.

“Did you just say, Virginia City?” His eyes were still squinting and he kept looking over at me and then ahead nervously or anxiously or with some kind of anticipation. I couldn’t decide which. Still, he wasn’t awake enough to do anything quickly but I could see that he was forcing himself to wake up as quickly as he could. Already his thermos was out and he was pouring coffee.

“Yep. Virginia City,” I answered.

“Uummmmmmm”, was all he said and looking over at him I was surprised to see this smirk on his face. It was almost evil.

“What?!?” I asked suspicious of his smirk. “What are you smiling about?”

He just looked at me and kept smirking and not saying a word.
From Timothy Anderson’s story Little Red Lines

I love rednecks.

I have come to terms with this fact after several years of trying as I might not to allow myself to indulge in this particular interest. I mean let’s face it, much like puppies… they are messy, awkward, not quite house broken, and never seem comfortable with being gay much less being in a relationship with a geek of a man such as myself, and much more likely to get you kicked out of a bar after decking the drunk bastard that would not stop hitting on you even though you plainly told him that the tall, dirty jeans wearing, rough looking, dude drinking the shot of Jack next to me REALLY IS MY LOVER.

I should have accepted this fact earlier in my life, the men who have been very close to me have tended to be scary Italian Motorcycle Club members with tusks through their noses (who insisted I call him mom), German Wisconsin farm boys who turned out to be Leather Tops (who insisted I call him Sir), and Southern drawling truck drivers and construction workers (who just insisted).
Go figure.

It has always been an issue for me and my love life, one I tried my best to curtail by a series of unfortunate relationships with practical, like minded, goal oriented, Guppies that ended in less than stellar performances of yours truly running out the front door of the house screaming for dear life about what the hell was I thinking. How could I have gotten involved yet again with such a foolish, shallow, image oriented, emotionally retarded, dishonest reject from Queer Eye!

I finally gave up, I stopped the denial, and started to enjoy the fact that the men of my dreams liked Huberd’s Shoe Grease not KY, concrete floors with drains not wood, Wesco Boots with heavy wool socks, anything with a Carhartt label attached and would not know how to even begin to tie a Half Windsor Knot even if it involved a life or death situation concerning their dog. But give em a choice of ball caps and they will argue endlessly on the benefits of the leather strap and cloth versus the plastic snap and netting.

*Sigh* Must be love.

Anyway I found Tim’s Tales From The Road on the old and long gone RuralGay.com back in 1998 during a very dark period of my life. My lover John of five years (a German Wisconsin farm boy) was dying from AIDS and I found through the internet a series of stories Tim was telling about his life on the road as a trucker with his other half of ten years Dallas. It was a breath of fresh air, a non-urban oriented, blue collar, gay view of the world and the people both gay and straight whom he meets from his life on the road and finally the glimpses of the intimate loving relationship between these two rough truck driving men. I was hooked immediately.

Timothy J. Anderson’s stories from his High Mountain Ranch website have a truly unique writing voice, a deep masculine baritone as comfortable as a pair of Wrangler jeans and smooth as a well polished pair of Tony Lama cowboy boots. I have yet to read one of his stories that is not both entrancing, exceedingly honest, lovingly tailored and thought provoking. The closest I can relate his style to would be something akin to that show… The Waltons you watched every week on television back in the 70’s, only John Boy is much cuter, gay, and not telling stories anywhere near as cloying or sickening sweet and overly sentimental.

Just because Tim is a gay trucker do not get the idea he is writing only about his sexcapades and his love life, this is about Tim as a whole person and in no way oriented solely on his sexuality. Though I have to admit to figuring a few things out that are not explicitly mentioned. These are stories of real people and real places with a homespun sorta wisdom that has been acquired from his travels and his growing up on a horse ranch. These stories have the smell of diesel fuel and rodeos, Midwest small towns and loading docks, roadside motels and all night diners. Life flashes past you in these stories like a trip down a lonely interstate highway and revelations abound about all sorts of different types of issues and sometimes down right bizarre life events that get the full Tim treatment tale after tale.

Though not overly sentimental there is real tragedy in these writings, I am so taken with, this is real life and Tim and Dallas were together for nearly ten years riding in their truck Little Red Ride ‘Em Good. Yet in the spring of 1999 Dallas ran off with another man, Tim wrote about this in his usual style, as honestly as possible, a highly tragic heart breaking event, bringing me to tears in the process and making me love him all the more for his still loving thoughts and concern for Dallas, in his story Rebound and then in a three part story that starts with Coyotes in My Midst.

I highly recommend these wonderful, free, life affirming stories found on the High Mountain Ranch website which is why I always have a link on my site and I know that you will find hours of very good, very wise, and very wild and woolly, laugh your ass off, gay truck driver tales. Tim has recently had one of his stories published in a book called Everything I Have Is Blue. Be sure to be on the lookout and pick it up.

Thank you Tim for simply being one of the best examples and inspirations for gay writers on the internet. Now if some smart hungry ePub knew what they were doing and wanted the literary clout of discovering a new Gay Writer with an honest to God blue collar background they should be pounding old Tim’s email hard to get these stories published by their company. He’s even pre-packaged the first two books for you.

As Tim says, Cowboy Up.

Book 1: Graced By Amazing
Book 2: Some Day I’d Like To See That
By Timothy J. Anderson