12/9/16

Grandpa and the Truck goes on the Road (when I Guest-Speak)

Latest Reviews of My Guest-Speaking

Posted on December 8, 2016 by ckmellor

Dear Colleen,

“What a wonderful day we had at Leisure Learning. Everyone was so impressed with your presentation! You have inspired many from the youngest to the oldest. You know from the audience’s response you held their attention to the very end. I am so proud that I was able to introduce you….” (photo is of St. Luke’s Peirce St., East Greenwich, where I spoke.)

From Eleanor Keating (the woman who booked me), Leisure Learning, East Greenwich, RI

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The following is from Director of two elder-living sites in West Warwick where Colleen spoke this fall. Colleen’s now invited to the third site this director oversees in Johnston for a presentation in 2017:

“Colleen Mellor and her husband were guest speakers at two of our elder living sites this fall… Plaza Esperanza in West Warwick and another visit to Wildberry Apartments.

“Our experience with Colleen Mellor was extraordinary!

“Colleen was funny and very entertaining. She was a burst of energy for our elder residents. She inspired them to consider the history of their lives and to be their own memory keepers. Colleen engaged the residents to reminisce…

“I look forward to hosting Colleen and her husband again at our other senior housing sites. Not only is she a wonderful guest speaker, but she is also a genuinely kind person.”

Lucy Goulet, CRSC

Housing Opportunities Corporation

I not only speak. The audience bought my Grandpa and the Truck books, too. We can offer them on our website until Dec. 18 and then cannot guarantee shipment in time for Christmas or other holiday. I can personalize by child’s name if you add in Paypal instructions and I sign as author (how cool is that?) Your intended child gets actual author-signed book, one backed for authenticity by biggest trucking group, OOIDA, and Women in Trucking (WIT) and recommended by teachers, parents, and kids! And contact me if you wish guest-speaker. I’m loving my new role…and apparently audiences do, too.

For children’s books, go to https://grandpaandthetruck.com

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10/26/16

Trucker Books (and the Trucker) a Big Hit with All Ages

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Trucker/husband Paul Wesley Gates and I went before two audiences last week where we had a ball. While at one, a woman came up , tapped my husband on his arm, and said: “You look just like Roy Rogers.”

I laughed, inwardly, as I thought: “That must make me Dale Evans.”

I get why she said it. He’s tall, lanky, with a Southern drawl (he’s a long-ago transplant from Arkansas who got here as a Navy Seabee.) As such, he’s a great favorite of the ladies. It helps that he wears a western hat, cowboy boots, and a leather vest with insignia sewn on.

I freely admit: I use him for my presentations.

You see, I write about his adventures in our children’s books, Grandpa and the Truck (Books 1 and 2), for he was a long-haul, big rig driver who went all over the United States, moving households. Our books are the perfect vehicle (pun intended) to teach geography, regional differences, dialect, trucker lingo (the words we can safely use). Each story comes with guide questions, maps showing where the truck is, a moral (remember—I’m a teacher) and table of contents.

To date, we’ve published two colorfully-illustrated books, and we give lively presentations to children, too. Our biggest audience was a 200-child school gathering in Tiverton, RI.

How we doing? Our colorful books fly out the door, at these presentations, with women who recognize their value….author-signed books recommended by teachers and truckers.

If you order your own now, we get them to you before the holidays….

#truckers #bigrigdrivers #kidstruckbooks

07/13/16

Note to Truckers and Teachers!

If you like what we do–then please support our efforts.

We are the ONLY stories written for little kids by a 30-year trucker who won awards for his expertise and his author partner (her work appears in Wall St. Journal, Providence Journal, and a host of others.) In addition, she’s a 30-year teacher.

And we’re endorsed by the two biggest trucker groups–OOIDA and WIT.

So, if you support American truckers and they hard job they perform, support our books by buying them.

We sign as author and personalize to a specific child if you put that in the instructions.

We cannot produce the rest of our series (6 more books, each set in different geographic regions) without your support.

Why should teachers support us, too? Grandpa and the Truck books are written by a teacher, and teach geography (and a whole lot more.) We’ve included table of contents, questions, maps, trucker terms.

This fall the author will begin a series of auditory books–the stories she and her husband have created.

Help us bring to the public the very real and exciting life of the American trucker. You can do this by ordering books from this website. They make great children’s gifts and help the image of the American Trucker.

01/30/16

We Were Ahead in This Trucking Trend

I’ve read the reports and I was thrilled to find: Mattel is making more realistic dolls, dolls that look like real women. We were ahead of this curve–in the trucking industry–by writing about real women truckers.

How so? In“Grandpa and the Truck,” “Girl Truckers” is story 2 in Book 2. Each book (we’ve published 2) has beautifully-illustrated stories, maps, trucker lingo, guide questions.

As author, I based our series on the 30-year career of my big rig driving partner, a man who traveled through every state in the United States. Those two “girl truckers” were legendary female drivers from Rhode Island who could wield their own big rig and do the job as well (if not better) than any trucker he’d ever met.

Millie and Mollie were raised by their trucker Dad, “Leatherneck” O’Day . Truckers often have nicknames, and they give their trucks nicknames, too. My partner (and hero of the series) is “Gater” and he called his big rig “Proud Mary,” after that CCR song, about the riverboat whose wheels were ‘rollin…rollin…rollin. ‘

The girls named their truck “Pink Lady.”

It was easy for fellow truckers to see “Pink Lady” approaching on the superslabs (trucker lingo for highways.)

So, that’s it in a nutshell. Our books speak to equality in opportunity that is even more important today than it was in my generation (I’m a grandmother) for trucker ranks will be seriously depleted in years to come. This article speaks to that.

We have 6 more books in this series, awaiting publication. Each story is set in a different region. The next will be about the famous Woodstock Music Festival seen as only a trucker could (ironically, it didn’t happen in Woodstock!) and then this trucker’s West Virginia mining story.

As we say in our tagline: “We teach geography…and a whole lot more.”

It is our hope that America’s children will learn about our vast country through the journeys of our big rig, along with its unflappable, quirky driver (who won awards for his driving expertise)… and not solely via GPS devices.

But we also see dolls modeled on Millie and Mollie, two of this country’s first female big rig drivers.

01/27/16

On the Road of Life

How “Grandpa and the Truck” books…a hospital database manager, and a seriously-injured trucker and his wife came together on life’s journey.

In Hawaii, a few years ago, I met California’s Colleen McGuinn at a luau when my husband and I visited the ONLY state this long-haul trucker had never been to (we tell school children audiences: “There are no water wings sizable enough to float a big rig.”)

While there, we got to talking about a long-haul trucker’s life…the hurdles…the excitement (pic to right shows us explaining, at a book show, what truckers do for America.)

Flash forward to December 2015, when McGuinn heard from Indiana sister-in-law Carolyn Bledsoe that Carolyn’s 72-year-old trucker friend, Jerry Matson and his wife, Janet, faced a medical crisis.

While grabbing some well-deserved shut-eye in the cab, of his big rig, in Oakland, California, Jerry was attacked by a gun-wielding assailant who broke in and shot him in the stomach. A former soldier, the trucker lunged forward and warded off his attacker who fled. But Matson suffered serious injury.

At his first hospital, he fared poorly. Infections raged and his wife, a retired ER nurse, saw little improvement. A local TV station stated that wife Janet slept in local hotels and on one occasion ‘in her car.’

When Database Manager for Saint Francis Foundation, Colleen McGuinn heard of their plight, she recalled the Grandpa and the Truck authors she met in Hawaii and set in motion a plan to help. With the approval of McGuinn’s boss, Kevin Causey, Foundation Board Chair, Tom Klein, Case Manager, Sara Lee, Linda Newton and Darlene Brady, Jerry Matson was moved into Saint Francis’s Burn Unit (because of type of wound he sustained); he was given a skin graft; and he is now on the road to full recovery.

And Janet? She’s been moved to a hotel, with room and meals for one full month, paid for by the Foundation.

Just one example of the larger community and a special hospital stepping up to help a trucker family in need. Here’s the TV station story, and pic of Database Manager, Colleen McGuinn, is below.

As one voice representing trucker nation, Grandpa and the Truck thanks you, Colleen McGuinn and your colleagues, for your significant part in all that transpired.

(Readers: Got your own story of a long-haul trucker who either got or gave unselfish help? Send the contact info to us… We’ll write it up and publish….If we’re personally involved, we’ll like it even better!)

#truckers, #long-haultruckers, #saintfrancisfoundation

And if you want autographed/personalized books for little ones, order them, by going to the right of this column, and clicking “Buy Now.”

Thank you. We work to get a positive image of our nation’s truckers out there…

“Grandpa and the Truck” Stories for Kids

We Teach Geography…and a Whole Lot More