H. L. Griffen: An Author Who Has Driven the Same Roads You Have

Ever since I was was a kid, I have always been fascinated by story telling. From movies, TV and books to people telling them. I always loved to hear a good story. Growing up as a troubled teen from a broken home, the TV, movies and books, allowed me to visit a better place even if was only for a short time. One that was better than the one I lived in at the time. I was getting into so much mischief at the time, that my mother was told by the police that if she didn’t do something with me, they were going to send me off to reform school. So, I was sent from New York to Georgia to live with my father, stepmother and four half siblings at fifteen years of age.

It was early1970. Once there, I was introduced to another world and culture that would change my life in ways I could not have imagined at the time. My father, being a truck driver, among other things, worked me at a variety of things like no one else has since. My first stint with him was working on a carnival up in Cleveland, Ohio doing almost everything you can imagine. From setting up and tearing down rides, working games, doing electrical work, painting, mechanic work, and almost anything else that needed doing, I did it or helped do it.

During that time I met a cast of characters that can only be described as social misfits of the highest order. I worked around Hell’s Angels, Black Panthers, Black Nationalists, and all types of people from various walks of life that I never even knew existed. There are more stories there than I have time or pages to share. I got drunk, got high, got beat up because I was white, almost got thrown into the Ohio River for getting drunk with some of the guys on the show and throwing up in a black dudes car. I got to see a riot up close and personal. I saw people get shot and some get killed.  All this while, trying to understand where my place was in all this. Thankfully, my father moved us back to Georgia for a year where I went to school and then he moved us to Oxford, Alabama where he partnered with a friend of his in a small trucking company.

It was here that I was introduced to the world of trucking that had more characters with more stories It was here that I learned how to change tires, oil and air filters, grease and lube along with the other nasty duties of servicing trucks and trailers including tarping loads and being a yard jockey. I also learned how to drive just about any type of truck that was available at the time and haul any type of load, mostly flatbed. I describe some of this time in the earlier parts of my book. All during this time I was honing my skills as an artist, sign painter and craftsman because that was my first love. After my father and stepmother split up a year and a half later, she and my half siblings went back to South Carolina where they were from, while I stayed in Oxford. Being on my own at 17, I was still learning about life and how to survive. I worked an assortment of jobs from delivering parts, to working around body shops and eventually sign shops. At one body shop, I got introduced to NASCAR when a fella by the name Charlie Roberts, car number 77, came in to have the owner put his car back together after wrecking it in a race. I got to help out doing the repairs and also got to letter his car. He offered me a job helping out with the car and traveling from track to track, touching up the lettering and other repairs.

During that time I got to meet and hang with a lot of the big names of the day and even painted on some of their cars. Charlie was a mentor of sorts a time when I needed one. He is still a friend and I still call him ‘Boss.” More stories from there helped shape my story here. After leaving that scene, I worked at a variety of sign shops until finally moving to South Carolina to be with my step mother and half brothers and sisters. For the next thirty plus years I worked at sign shops and body shops, all the while being intertwined with trucking and racing people.

I myself, street raced, drag raced, raced dirt cars, drove ambulances, tow trucks, crane trucks and so on. There is a lot more to my story but, the main reason I decided to share this much information about my life is that, I believe that if you are going to write a story about a topic, you know what your talking about. Well, I have been there, done that, got the scars and the T-shirt. Later on, I worked in management and even some corporate jobs. Some, with a nice office where I got to wear a shirt and tie and tell other people what to do. But, years later, I eventually tired of that world and after Losing my wife of fourteen years, I decided to move back home to New York. There I decided to work for myself, and opened my own business. I still work on hot rods, motorcycles and whatever, pin striping, airbrushing, custom painting along with an assortment of others things. Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, I discovered, that, even all these years later, most of my best friends, acquaintances and customers are truckers or have trucking history in their family. In some way shape or form, it seems that I have had trucking around me most of my life. Five years ago when I finished telling another one of my crazy stories to my wife, she said. “You should write a book.”

And so, here we are. After a lot of research and careful thought, I decided that I wanted to write a story that had some meaning and not something goofy or too far fetched. Something that dealt with real life scenarios, some action-adventure, maybe some high tech development to address today’s technology, a spiritual journey, a love story and of course, bad guys. I created my characters based on real people that I’ve known, met or heard about. I’ve put some of my own stories throughout and created some fun things along the way. I may have pushed the envelope on some stuff but, hey, it could happen. More importantly, the trucking people in this story are the good guys. I felt that there is enough junk, bad press, and bad actors out there that make the trucking community look bad. I wasn’t going to go there.

This story is the culmination of over fifty plus years of experiences, living life, sharing stories and keeping legends alive. I created this book series for the men and women of the transportation industry. But, if other, non trucking folks like it, that’s okay too. Thanks for taking the time to check it out. Hope you enjoy the ride. Stay safe, and keep the shiny side up.

Sincerely, H. L Griffen