03/21/21

 How We Began Writing the Grandpa and the Truck Stories

Well, you can blame our becoming storytellers about big rig drivers on our youngest (at the time) grandchild—Finn, who was 4 or 5. We’d given him a toy big rig and he was on the floor, pushing the truck, making it appear as if someone was driving it. Suddenly, he held up his hand, holding an imaginary CB and began talking to other truckers who might be up ahead on the imaginary highway, saying: “Breaker…breaker..19…Any smokies up ahead, on the superslab?”

He was asking if any “smokies” (police) were on the “superslab” (highway) which suggests his trucker might have been going a tad faster than he was supposed to.

Hearing him told me that my youngest grandchild had listened to the stories I’d told him of Grandpa’s truck-driving years and he’d even memorized some of the special language truckers use when talking to each other.

In that moment, I decided to write my husband’s more remarkable adventures: being caught on an ice-slicked Maine steep incline with another big rig hurtling down at him, one whose trailer had swung sideways, threatening to take out Grandpa’s big rig…and Grandpa. Or the time Grandpa felt Jesus was his co-pilot, when he miraculously awoke to find his big rig had taken an exit, crossed through a busy intersection and climbed an entrance ramp, all, safely, and before he knew what happened. Then there was the time he was caught up in the Woodstock craziness, when approximately 400,000 converged on a dairy farm in upstate New York, to hear their favorite singers. He was stuck there for 3 days, unable to move, due to traffic congestion. What’d he do to pass the time? Helped another trucker buddy give away his cargo of watermelons, in a Biblical loaves and fishes kind of way.

Or the West Virginia story, when he climbed a mountain road in coal mining territory, a road that got increasingly more narrow. He had to think fast that time, to enable a unique delivery.

In our stories, I’ve written about truckers’ passion for their trucks…how they pretty them up, give them names, etc.

I allow Grandpa’s readers to see the vast country of America through the eyes of a long-haul trucker who traveled every single state, but one (do you know which one state you can’t drive a big rig to?), in his big rig. Geography figures big in our stories.

Each story has a moral or lesson that’s important for little ones, one borne out by our trucker’s experience. We weave together nature (ice storms, hurricanes), historical events, geography (no GPS here!).

Finally, Grandpa is a patriot; he loves America; he even served many years in the Navy and Army National Guard, protecting our land, while still trucking. He used his considerable trucking skills in other lands, too, building airports, schools, hospitals, because a trucker is never “just a trucker.”

So, we invite you and your little ones to begin the journey with 2 of our first Grandpa and the Truck stories (Book 1 and 2). They’re on the Amazon website, along with reviews.

“Breaker…breaker…1-9. Come along on our journey through America.”

Buy Book 1

Buy Book 2

 

12/9/16

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

Latest Reviews of My Guest-Speaking

Dear Colleen,st-lukes

“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

____________________________________________

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!books-for-yard-sale 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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11/7/12

Grandpa and the Truck Gaining National Attention

OK, I’m asserting bragging rights…and why not?  There’s enough terrible stuff out there, on the airwaves and in theatres, to make anyone wonder if “Quality matters.” But apparently it does, for Grandpa and the Truck series of children’s books is getting serious attention.

Our books’ purpose is two-fold:  to shine a spotlight on the contribution truckers have made to the American Success Story and to teach kids amazing life lessons.

And Big News–We’ve just been selected by OOIDA’s Landline mag. soon to go to 200,000 truckers and their families, in their min-November “Cool Gifts” section.

Why are we so special?  Each book has two beautifully-illustrated stories, Question pages, Maps, Lesson as Focus, Glossary of Trucker Terms (“smokie,” “CB radio,”for instance).  And we’re REAL truckers’ experiences, told by a REAL trucker to his author wife.

We all know how much kids LOVE trucks and we are the first to put series of children’s books highlighting the trucking industry while we teach little ones amazing life lessons.

Our books are currently available on Amazon.com.

Get Book 1 and Book 2 now.

ORDER HERE!

 

Now, more BIG NEWS for Grandpa and the Truck….

“Author Brings National Attention to the Trucking Industry While Teaching Children Valuable Life Lessons” via the following (Click on the links).

National talk-radio host, Patricia Raskin, interviews Grandpa and the Truck for its Voice America Positive Living series… 

OOIDA and Women In Trucking endorse Grandpa and the Truck on our book’s back covers.

Women In Trucking pays this tribute in its publication.

USA CDL School, in Orlando, recently gave Grandpa and the Truck their “18 Wheels and a Dozen Red Roses Award for bringing positive attention to the trucking industry.

“Overdrive” magazine salutes Grandpa and the Truck.

These organizations support what we do, as we bring positive attention to the trucking industry, while teaching valuable life lessons to little ones—always a trucker’s best fan club.

We plan to just keep trucking, getting a positive word out on an industry that does so very much for America, plus we teach little ones amazing facts about their own country (we’re a mobile geography course, as the truck goes through each state,) showing regional differences, diversity, the goodness of the American spirit, from the perch of the big rig….

We invite you to join us on this journey…