1. The class is pretty full with lots of different people in it. Some older, some younger, some women, some men. Some tattoos, some pierced faces. Some looked quite preppie, some like they just finished a track meet somewhere. Yes, I felt quite at home. The seat nearest the back that I took was next to a fidgety young guy, an ex-cop or so he said (if you ask me, he sure didn't look like what I expected one to look like) named Bill Robinson. We talked briefly and all the while his eyes were shifting about - as if he was looking for the most direct escape route or something. It seemed he had a passion for trucks, one that was borne of an adventure at a place called the "Dixie Boy Truck Stop". It sounded pretty darned scary to me! Until he started rambling about some runaway comet called the 'Rhea-M', at which point he sounded mostly insane (but jovial about it). What movie did this odd but mighty duck Mr. Robinson step out of? The Convoy Maximum Overdrive Duel The Night of the Comet

2. Class had not yet begun and two attractive ladies a few rows over were chatting and giggling like two childhood girlfriends. I overheard them talking about rotten marriages, a little murder and, if I got it right, an occasional robbery. Their names were Thelma and Louise and I immediately knew who those two rascals were. Considering what happened to that one fellow's semi, at their indulgence to do it, in that 1991 film they were in together I'm surprised they wanted to learn to drive one. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised to see those two ladies alive at all. Didn't they take a flying detour off a cliff inviting certain death? Apparently not. But, anyway, just how did Thelma and Louise exact revenge on the truck (or did they just get even with only the driver? Or just the truck?) and what had the man done to deserve such unfriendly treatment in that movie of theirs? They unfastened the gate on the truck so that when it took off the huge amount of contents in it unloaded on the highway and did it just because he'd made a rude joke about Thelma's hair-do. They blew up the truck because they were quite miffed at his sexual remarks and entirely sexist and cavalier demeanor in their direction. Wronged women must stick together, after all! They actually left the truck alone but stripped the driver down and left him in the desert to die all because he wouldn't give Louise a sip of his whiskey OR let her borrow a cigarette. They put the truck in 'neutral' and let it roll into a lake after tying the driver to a nearby fence. Why? Because he was married and boldly cheating on his wife and they had no time for such disrespectul behavior.

3. As class was about to commence I felt my shoulder being tapped so I turned around to see an expectant face seated behind me. OK, guys, where's the hidden cameras? I expected many different types of students in this class but this one just had to be a joke! My nearby classmate was a chimp! Yes, a primate (and I was suddenly all nervous, hoping that he didn't end up being smarter than me - that would be a little embarrassing, wouldn't it?). A human voice sounded "Is The Bear bothering you? Don't mind him. He probably just wants to borrow a pencil to chew on. School bores him." Um, OK, whatever you say, dude. The fellow did seem pretty friendly and down-to-Earth as we talked. I liked him (and his monkey sort of grew on me, too, after turning at least three spare pencils to sawdust). It turns out his name was B.J. McKay, immortalized in a vintage television series named, apropriately, "B.J. and the Bear". The truckdriver and his long hauling Curious George-ish partner. I caught a glimpse of B.J.'s full name as he signed his textbook. What name did he put there? Billy Jackson McKay B.J. McKay (turned out his parents couldn't think of anything better) Billie Jo McKay William Jerome McKay

4. At that moment the teacher showed up. My gosh, he was a rather dapper Italian fellow with a swagger that made both Thelma AND Louise flush a bit. He introduced himself as Mr. Mangiacavallo (whew!...what a mouthful; I'll be calling him 'Mr. M.' in no time flat!) and told us a little about himself. In truth it was quite a lot! He spun a tale of Rosario Delle Rose, career truck driver and eventual sneaky smuggler using said truck as means to transport illegal things. The police, having no use for these Highway Cowboys, shot Rosario dead. Left behind was his beautiful widow Serafina and a quite lovely daughter Rosa. As time passed, the widow (rather scorned due to all that smuggling tomfoolery) withdrew into herself and encouraged her daughter to do the same. In a jiffy, the passionate daughter broke free of those suggestions and soon after Serafina learns that her late, criminal AND frisky husband had been involved in love affairs. Golly, what a story! At that point is where our 'Mr. M' shows up in the mix ~ all handsome and as carefree as you can be and it certainly didn't upset the spaghetti sauce that he, too, was a trucker. Needless to say, the widow gets over that "being in a shell" routine in a hurry! Which film is this one? Woman of the River The Rose Tattoo El Bruto The Fugitive Kind

5. The teacher, who I was by then convinced was a character for sure, opened our daily lesson with a movie. "Just a little example of how NOT to handle your truck," he smirked. "it'll just take a few minutes to watch." He was right about that part - a 17-minute movie? I have to say, it was funny and, it's said, one of The Three Stooge's best. It was all about a mild-mannered waiter with a crazy quirk that triggered something in him to become a killer boxing machine, a greedy sports promoter and throw in a violinist, too. Now, as to that truck...Larry drove it through an arena wall so as to deliver the tune "Pop Goes the Weasel" or Curly would surely get the stuffing knocked out of him. Ah, those crazy Stooges. What film did the teacher show us? Punch Drunks Uncivil Warriors Grips, Grunts and Groans The Big Idea

6. Our instructor then got on with the matter at hand. He selected a young woman, a quite lovely one (not to mention plucky in demeanor) in the front row to stand up and tell our class why she wanted to become the professional driver of a truck. She was quick to oblige and began with "O, pioneers of the pavement and faraway horizon, how better a way is there to enjoy the song of a lark, the expanse of the road, the rain as it washes down the world than from the seat above eighteen wheels?" Huh? Windy little thing, it seemed to me (I turned around to discover that even the monkey was snoozing - and this woman was just getting started!). She was familiar, that I noticed. From an old TV movie, late 70s, about a waitress by day who was a trucker by night (played by Deborah Raffin) with two kids at home and another on the way. Throw in an alcoholic mother and absentee derelict husband and you've almost got the idea of the movie - the sort of thing TV movies love to explore. I couldn't remember the name of that better-than-average TV film, though, until I caught those nifty clues in her opening line in class. Read that sentence and you'll know, too, not only the young lady's name but also the movie's title. Which of these is right? Willa Astrid Bonita Joleen

7. Steven Spielberg's early-on TV project "Duel" was the next issue to be brought to the fore. The teacher called it "a classic example of the ultimate potential of what we now call 'road rage'." That was clearly not the most cleverly hidden theme of the movie - that part hit you in the head after the first twenty minutes of footage! Then, though, the instructor offered a theory that I'd never heard before regarding the movie, the innocent driver in it chased mercilessly by a horrific truck (there's no question the truck was going to be used to kill the businessman [Dennis Weaver] given the chance), and the driver of this menacing semi. Teacher 'Mr. M.' theorized that the truck's driver was a woman in that 1971 movie. You remember that film inside and out but, now given this new thought, you're wondering: could that mad Teamster possibly have been of the feminine gender? Absolutely not since the silhouetted profile of the driver was seen twice and was bearded with a baseball cap on. Maybe - all the viewer knew was that the vehicle was being driven by somebody and was never more specific about it. Impossible. It couldn't have been a woman since there weren't women truck drivers back in 1971! Snap out of it! There was no driver since there was no truck. That whole movie was a roadside dream a businessman was having after a long drive.

8. "Smokey and the Bandit" (1979) could easily be considered the King of all trucker movies and, of course, Mr. Mangiacavallo referred to it often as he addressed our CDL class (and it's no secret that we are all puzzled as to how that movie about transporting illegal beer out of Texas has anything to do with getting a legitimate trucker's license - but most of us gave up on asking too many questions shortly after Thelma and Louise showed up). The movie, while a few tires short of a classic, WAS the second highest grossing film of 1977 [bested only by "Star Wars"] and also made Citizen's Band radios and the nicknames/"handles" used on them commonplace and extremely popular things. As we daydreamed in that rather chaotically structured class, which of the following was an actual CB "handle" as it appeared in "Smokey and the Bandit"? San Antonio "Smokin' Cha-Cha" "Hot Pants" Hilliard "Muscle Shirt" McManus They all appeared in the film!

9. Yikes! After a well deserved lunch break (with The Bear and his banana, The Bandit and his beer and pretzels, the jumpy ex-cop who just gulped down Maalox [those ulcers of his, I guess] and the rest) we all returned to class. To our utter shock and dismay our teacher had changed clothes in our abscence and, as quick as it took to say "blue suede hound dog", here he was dressed up like Elvis Presley! Yes, our esteemed leader was suddenly an Elvis impersonator!? He turned on some music, a tear-jerking song for sure, about a little crippled boy and some truck drivers who find him (after an open CB radio signal) and make his dreams come true. Even though the air had suddenly gotten sentimentally thick in there I listened to that song "Teddy Bear" about the disabled lad and I looked at "Elvis" in his goofy get up. Did Elvis Presley really sing that 1976 version of "Teddy Bear"? Yes No

10. Our next lesson (right after we watched our teacher offer a quick lip-sync and pelvis wiggle to "All Shook Up") was to discuss some famous truck drivers in history. Naturally, Mr. Presley was one. Rock Hudson. One of the members of that band "Garbage" (Douglas Erikson) and some others. We reviewed some various lesser-known famous/infamous Teamsters and got to Rick Bronson who came to be better known in 2003 for his adventures at the helm of a big rig. What happened to, with or about Mr. Richard Bronson? He resigned from his trucking job in order to marry Princess Märtha Louise of Norway - they wed in January 2005. He was fired for being caught drinking Pepsi on the job (when he was employed by Coca-Cola) in early summer 2003! He was working for a Turkish Engineering Co. on a U.S. Base in Iraq and was captured and beheaded in 2003. He was discovered to be a marshall in the Ku Klux Klan and implicated in some arson in Louisiana; ultimately arrested February 2003.