Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway People’
It&#x27;s important that there be jobs for people without much education.  When I was in my twenties I volunteered as a reading instructor.  One of the students was a trucker in his late 30s who had never learned to read.  He had just memorized certain routes and took the same ones.  He wanted to read so he could get better jobs.<p>Not a dumb guy, but he&#x27;d slipped off the rails at a <i>very</i> early age, and dropped out of school as soon as he could. He did already know the alphabet and numbers.  He was embarrassed to even talk about this with his peers.<p>Abstract ideas of &quot;job retraining&quot; may sound great but I think they are generally unrealistic.  Folks who figured they were &quot;done with school&quot; at 18 or even 22 and then find themselves unemployed in their 40s have a hard time changing direction in my somewhat limited experience.<p>(But those students at community college who are aged between late 30 and 50?  <i>Really driven</i>.  It&#x27;s embarrassing to compare typical college students to them.)