Locked in My Shop, Going Crazy
'I'm an out there guy. I love people. It was rough, I can't lie to you.'
Sam has been around trucks all his life. "My father was a commercial transport owner-operator for most of my childhood," he says. "And my late stepfather ran the shop for a transport repair company. He's the reason I'm a mechanic. Sunday mornings, I was polishing transports."
Today, Sam owns a small garage. That's a new development. From November 1st onward, he used to drive snow plow for the province of Nova Scotia. "I was plowing the major highways, then I'd do all the county roads.
For the beginning half of the pandemic," he remembers, "we worked 12 hours a day. 5:00 am to 5 pm, and 5 pm to 5 am. Seven days a week. Two guys, one truck. We socially distanced, we sterilized. There was no problem. We even staggered the shift times, so we wouldn't all be in the break room together."
Then came the vaccines. On his 40th birthday, "I got sick off my first shot," says Sam. "Really, really ill. Immediately after my dose." Nausea and abdominal pain. “It was bad. I mean, excruciating. This started the day of" and persisted for months.
"I wasn't getting another shot until they told me why I got ill," he explains. A doctor ran some tests. "They gave me a cup and said, 'Take it to the Urology Department'" of the local hospital. "They were checking vax passes at the door. I didn't have one, so they weren't going to let me in."
Appealing to a nurse standing behind the security guard, Sam talked his way in and submitted his urine sample. "Never heard a thing back," he says, two years later. "Not a single thing. And then I get to work and they're like, 'Hey, you haven't given us the date for your second dose.'
"So I was suspended without pay. It made zero f**king difference at all whether or not I had the vaccine. And then I heard through the grapevine that my replacement was an unvaccinated contractor. I got so upset."
For Sam, the months between his October 2021 injection and the first weeks of 2022 were especially challenging:
My daughter is big into sports. She's freaking out because I can't make it into the arena. And they kept moving the goalposts. Like, get one shot and wear your mask and you can be in the arena - but you're not allowed in the change room. My wife was fully vaccinated, yet there were times she wasn't allowed in to watch her play ringette. It was ridiculous. None of it was making any sense.
Because of what the media was saying, some of my close friends and people I'd worked for felt pressured to exclude me. I'm an out there guy. I love people. It was rough, I can't lie to you.
I was locked in my shop, going crazy. I was miserable. I was fricking miserable. Watching the media, watching the mandates. I'm a mechanic. I looked at the whole system and I couldn't put it together - what was going on in our country, what was happening.
After Sam heard rumblings about a protest in Ottawa, his wife agreed he needed a change of scenery. "Just go," she said, "You're a basket case." Shortly afterward, he remembers,
we saw a fellow mechanic's wife in the grocery store. She's walking down the aisle and I'm looking at her cart. It's full of things you'd normally pack to go camping. Hardy food: lots of nuts, pastas, meats. And I was like, 'Mariah, where are you going?'
She rolls her eyes, 'Andrew's going to that trucker convoy.'
And I was just so excited. I came home, backed my camper in, gutted it. Started loading tools and oil and compressors and torches and camping gear - anything I thought I might need.
On Thursday, January 27th, a dozen vehicles departed from Sam’s corner of Nova Scotia. Trucker friend Jeff, in his Western Star, headed out early to a Convoy launch near Halifax. That afternoon, Guy and Mike drove straight for the New Brunswick border in a vintage Mack and a banana-yellow Freightliner. Andrew "took his service truck with a crew," remembers Sam. Then there was "the owner of a local trucking company and his employees. They brought four or five of his trucks."
It was after dark by the time Sam himself got on the road. He was driving a four-door pickup, "a nice, mid-2000s Dodge. Gold, real classy, sharp-looking truck. I looked like I could fit in in any subdivision. My trailer was 28 feet long and it was all white. I was the last one to leave town."
At 3 am he pulled into a gas station in Woodstock, New Brunswick. "There was Guy,” he says. “sleeping over the wheel, the Mack on high idle. And Mike in his bunk."
The next day,
we caught up to the Convoy as we were coming into Montreal. You know, you've been driving for hours and hours. You're burning fuel and you don't know what you're getting yourself into. It's minus 28. And the overpasses have people in full snowmobile gear with flags and fireworks.
'Thank you! We love you!'
next installment: We’re Here to Help Fix This Mess
fully crying over this one.....*sob*. WHAT.A.STORY!