Counting Trucks (Or, Direct Into The Future?)
©2025, George J. Irwin. All rights reserved.

Colleen and I were driving on the Thruway one day when we came across a tractor-trailer with an interesting slogan: "Direct Into The Future!"

To which I responded, "Unless you have a Tardis, what other way is there?"

At first, I found this annoying, then humorous, then, rather endearing. This particular company regularly sends trucks through the area, so we see "Direct Into The Future" at least once per trip on the Thruway. The company also has a variety of paint schemes for their trailers, including a very attractive full-color nighttime scene of their home metropolitan area, which is North of The Border.

So—don’t laugh—we started counting the number of times we saw one of these trucks. Why not? Were we too old to something that kids and families like to do, or at least liked to do before technology competed with the view out the window during a drive? As I’ve noted before, John Steinbeck remarked in his book Travels With Charley that once the Interstate Highway System was completed, it would be possible to drive coast to coast without seeing a single thing, but I’m sure he never dreamed of smartphones, tablets, wi-fi, and "infotainment screens."

At any rate, some time after we commenced counting Direct Into The Future trucks, while once again traveling the Thruway, we saw a tractor-trailer going in the opposite direction. Instead of the flashy full-side decoration, this trailer had a medium-sized single word, a name, actually: "Andy." This immediately reminded us of a story that Colleen’s mentor Jack told as an opening to his inspirational talks:

Forrest Gump passes away and meets Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter says, "It’s nice to meet you, Forrest, but I’m afraid that it’s getting a little crowded up here so we’ve needed to introduce an entrance exam. It’s only three questions."

"Okay, I guess I’ll try," Forrest says.

"That’s the spirit. Here is the first question: How many days of the week start with the letter T?"

"That’s easy. Two. Today and tomorrow."

St. Peter thinks a moment and says, "Well, that’s not the answer we usually get, but I think I will accept it. Here is your next question: How many seconds are in a year?"

Forrest ponders for a little while and says, "Twelve."

"Twelve?"

"Yes. January Second, February Second, March Second…"

"Okay," St. Peter interrupts, "That isn’t really the answer we were looking for, but you have a point. So here is the third question, take your time. What is God’s first name?"

Forrest doesn’t pause at all and says excitedly, "That’s easy! Andy!"

"Andy? How did you ever come up with Andy?"

"We sang about him every week in church! ‘Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me…"

Which is a reference to the song "In The Garden," written in 1912 by C. Austin Miles and recorded many times by individuals from Roy Rogers and Dale Evans to Elvis Presley. The actual lyric is, "And He walks with me," but that doesn’t make for much of a punch line to the story.

And so we added the tallying of trailers marked "Andy" to those on which "Direct Into The Future" was lettered.

We included a third trucking firm during a trip to my daughter’s college not too long after. This particular truck line has a colorful abstract mural theme across the front half of many of its trailers. It was eye-catching so we added it.

While our decision to count trucks on road trips will never be called earth-shattering, including by us, it has added a new element of fun to the journey. It has also resulted in some philosophical discussions about, well, Rules of the Road.

For example: How do you count a tractor without a trailer, assuming it can be identified as belonging to one of the three truck lines that we are following? How about a double trailer being pulled by one tractor? How about just a trailer? What is the protocol if you come across a whole parking lot full of "Direct Into The Future" rigs as we did, since one of their terminals is located within sight of an expressway? The answers, by the way, are: a tractor or trailer by itself is one-half, we’ve never seen any of our truck lines with a tandem trailer arrangement, and no, we didn’t and wouldn’t count tractors parked, unless it’s in plain sight at a service area or other parking place directly and exclusively connected to the expressway or toll road.

We made an inadvertent but agreed exception recently when we saw three tractors with unmarked trailers outside of Radio City Music Hall, awaiting the "load out" of the tour equipment of the act that was wrapping up a series of shows that night. The tractors were in plain black, no colorful lettering, just the company logo. In our excitement we forgot our rule about parked tractors and that company won with a score of three halves that day.

I suppose you may be thinking that even for us, this is a rather, ahem, unusual pursuit. But we literally walked by these three tractors.

It’s another thing entirely to be looking for a place for lunch North of the Border and realizing via the map application on my phone that we were within a mile of a major location and repair shop for the trucking company that goes Direct Into The Future.

And we have the photos to prove it.

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