WE2

It's weird how we can be part of something and not even know it. Community is something can include you without any effort at all. A community is a group of people with a common interest, belief, or similarity. In Rick Zollo's Friday Night at Iowa 80, he studies truckers and the trucker community. First who are the members of this community? Well a common misconception would be that only truckers are part of the trucking community. It can be seen that there are many more members to this community rather then just the truckers. The employees at truck stops are also part of the trucking community. Really when we look at it, anyone with some kind of interaction with a community can become a part of that community. By interviewing the truckers and truck stop employees, Zollo becomes a part of the trucking community.

The truckers within the trucking community must face many hardships that make their jobs harder than they are made out to be. When thinking of driving a truck as a profession, the details seem quite clear. A driver drives a truck from point A to point B, drops off the load and is done. In actuality there are many hardships in the job. When a trucker is driving, they drive for many hours non-stop. Long distance truck drivers tend to show signs of premature aging from the stress and lack of sleep. Another concern is the growing number of truck drivers that must unload their own truck. A trucker typically only gets paid for the actual transportation of the goods. The stores or warehouses where the trucks is delivering are not providing a person to unload the truck so the trucker must either unload the truck themselves while not getting paid, or they must hire someone to unload it for them and pay this person out of their own pocket. Many truckers admit that these problems are only going to get worse.

As I stated before, it is not hard to become part of a community. Any kind of interaction with the community can make you a member. I have found myself in numerous communities such as the teenage community, the sports community, the computer community, the music community, and many others. Within in these communities there can be sub-communities which can be different genres or different factions of a group. Within the sports community, I would be part of the football, and basketball sub-communities. Though I can not relate to either of the readings Dumpster Diving or Friday Night at Iowa 80, I can relate to being in different sub-communities. In Dumpster Diving, there were different groups within the homeless community. Many homeless people search the trash for food and valuables while other search for cans to trade in for a little bit of cash. These would be sub-communities within the homeless community. It can be concluded that we all belong to different communities and sometimes become part of them without even knowing it. The different communities we are a part of are what makes up who we are and shows us the similarities that we have.