And the You're listening to nocturne. I'm Vanessa out.

In most places, the defining feature of night is darkness. And darkness can make us

unsure of our footing. So some people go slow or stay still, lest they trip over a roof, knock into a wall.

Conversely, some people get behind the wheel of a 50,000 pound truck and go hurtling

through the night with a mission.

Al is one of these. My name is Albert Creighton Wilkinson.

I was born in 1940.

I used to be a truck driver.

28 years I drove truck commercial. Before that I worked in construction in the mid 70s. Construction

went pretty much belly up and I figured that the last thing people are going to buy

after they pay their rent are groceries.

And so I was very fortunate to get on

with a grocery company. I had a good career out of it.

The tractor, of course, had the steering wheels.

Some of them have a look like a conventional pickup truck,

except there are probably five times bigger.

Trailers varied from 20 foot trailers to 53 foot trailers.

There was a time when United Grocers there in Portland would hook up three

trailers. They call them triples and you'd pull three trailers to someplace, the up or down I five and I did

that several times. I didn't have any mishaps with the triples. Myself and another truck driver,

we were sitting in a coffee shop and we were talking to somebody. They were saying,

well, aren't you guys scared when you see that back box sway

...