Tips From a Trucker on Keeping Your Cool During a Crisis

Want to know how to stay serene through endless shifts in a confined space during a pandemic? Talk to Anthony Visuano, 63, a trucker for OpenRoad Transportation. He hauls construction materials on one- to seven-week routes for 14 hours a day. Winter brings snow and ice; summer, tornadoes and hurricanes. Visuano prefers the Interstate Highway 5 corridor, from Washington to California, because he lives in Oregon. “I can stop by the house every now and then and see how things are going,” he says.

The lockdowns hit while Visuano was en route to Virginia in a 70-foot truck: “At first I didn’t have a face mask, because in an 18-wheeler there’s not a whole lot of pharmacies where I can just park and run inside, you know what I mean? I ended up getting a mask from a supplier who required them, so I could go into places.” He slept in his truck, parked at rest stops, and for a while was ordering his dinners from truck-stop delis while restaurants were closed. Arianne Cohen caught up with him while he was hauling insulation panels across Idaho. Here are edited excerpts from their conversation.