From the Pastor’s Desk
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners:
A couple of years ago, I contributed the following to the monthly newsletter of the Council 4901 of the Knights of Columbus for which I am honored to serve as chaplain. I thought I might also share it with you. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to ride, drive or operate things with wheels. When I was 8 or 9 years old, I longed for a five-speed stingray-type bike. When I was gifted with one, I rode it all over our backyard and countryside where my family grew up in the fields and orchards in Sutter County. As I grew into my teens, I begged my father to let me drive tractor in the nursery row for the nursery that he founded and ran for five decades. I wanted a break from the hard work of being on one’s hands and knees in the nursery row weeding and “suckering” which was the term that is used to describe the removal of the lower limbs of a young tree. Finally, when I got my driver’s license to drive a car at the age of 16, my father allowed me to jump on a tractor. I drove everything from a Farm-All, which straddled the nursery trees to a crawler-type “Caterpillar” tractor discing in the open field. The summer after my senior year of high school, I got my Class A driver’s license so that I could drive semi-trucks and deliver the bare-root trees in the winter to customers in California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado. I delivered trees all through college during the tree harvest season which ran from December through April. Fortunately, I attended a university where we had a six week break at Christmas time so I could drive truck. I couldn’t get enough of the truck driving. When I was in graduate school at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, studying for an MBA, I drove tomato truck for two summers. It was good money for a young man in his mid-twenties.
Driving for Sierra Gold Nurseries. At a truck stop in Utah in 1983
Still, I had always wanted to drive cross-country, so when I was 27 years old, I drove for the better part of the year for JB Hunt Transportation based in Lowell, Arkansas. Although I would start from a JB Hunt Terminal in Los Angeles, typically my first load would take me back east. Then, for three weeks I would be hauling between cities east of the Mississippi River where most of the country’s cities are bunched together. At the end of three weeks, I would get a load to take me back to L.A. where I would get a day off for each week that I was away. I loved it. It gave me a chance to see the country, albeit mostly from the elevated vantage point of a tractor-trailer and the smooth sailing of the freeway. In eight months of 1988, I drove some 90,000 miles through 46 states, missing the Dakotas and obviously Alaska and Hawaii. I drove 500 miles in a typical day’s work and 2,500 to 3,000 miles a week. I hauled anything that you can think of that didn’t need refrigeration: toys from L.A. to a Walmart distribution center in Bentonville, Arkansas, rags from the Bronx, New York to the naval ship yard in Jacksonville, Florida, video tapes from L.A. to Chicago, styrofoam cups from Sacramento to Spokane, Washington, and potatoes from Clovis, New Mexico to Springdale, Arkansas. For that potato trip, I had to take back roads all the way through Texas and Oklahoma, since my truck was overloaded by 10,000 pounds and I wanted to avoid the truck scales on the freeway. JB Hunt was, and still is, I imagine, for the most part, an “irregular-route” trucking company, which means that you drive from point A to B to C to D, and so forth. Typically, the irregular-route truck driver is not driving back and forth between the same two cities. It kept life interesting, to say the least, and allowed me the opportunity to visit family and friends throughout the country.
Hauling tomatoes for Morning Star Trucking in 1985
On Sundays, it was a sometimes challenging to find a Catholic church where I could attend Mass (especially in the southern states known as the “Bible Belt”). Way before the internet and GPS, I would pull my rig over and find a telephone book in a phone booth (remember those?) and look up the nearest Catholic church in the yellow pages. Parking the truck was somewhat of a challenge also. Sometimes, I had to drop the trailer so that I could just drive the truck tractor to the church. In any case, I don’t remember missing Mass the whole time I drove cross-country. The long hours in the truck gave me the chance to listen to books on tape about the Catholic faith. I also listened to novels and short stories. To be sure, I listened to ballgames and news shows, as well. And, I would pray the Rosary at least once daily. I was not particularly pious at that time in my life, but the daily prayer and Sunday Mass provided good structure in a job where every day brought new experiences.
My mother and I in 1988
When I look back on that cross-country truck driving experience, I am struck by how it was not all that different from this life. We are on a journey. Our life’s journey is full of twists and turns and we realize that it is not all that there is. We know that eternal life awaits us. And, to be well-prepared for the life to come, we need to be fed on the journey. Brothers and sisters, this season of Lent is a time to re-commit to growing in our faith and virtue. I encourage you to re-commit to attending Sunday Mass, in person if possible, but at least virtually. If you already attend Sunday Mass, and are free on weekday mornings, why not attend daily Mass? Challenge yourselves to be fed by some good spiritual reading or a good podcast or a video offering on Formed.org. Take advantage of the Sacrament of Confession frequently. Above all, may we grow in our friendship with Jesus Christ, who died for us and rose from the dead and who loves us beyond all measure.
In Christ Jesus,
Father Berg
