Book review: "The Long Haul" by Finn Murphy

I'm a sucker for stories about working people.

While others may seek out novels about wizards, vampires, or war and peace, or deep-thinking treatises on politics or social issues, to me some of the best stories come from some of the most ordinary places.

I'm fascinated by the fact that we're surrounded every day by people who do different jobs that we do, but we rarely get a look at what their lives are really  like.

Finn Murphy, right, author and truck driver

That's one of the reasons I find books like "The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road" (2017) intriguing. In this book, author Finn Murphy takes us inside the world of a "bedbugger" -- a long-distance mover.

The other reason I like "The Long Haul"is that it's just plain fun to read.  The book is filled with so many good stories I have trouble picking my favorites.

There was his disastrous first day as mover -- so bad he offered to quit right there and then (his boss refused his offer). There's the story of moving a baby grand piano when things go awry. There's a tense story of driving his truck backwards up a muddy, narrow and winding mountain road in the rain -- the only way he could deliver his cargo.

There are stories of  various "shippers" -- those are the people who hire the movers, like you and me -- who are arrogant, rude, strange or friendly (included one attractive wife who was very friendly).

I love how Murphy finds joy in practical things. For instance, he rhapsodizes about the beauty of a well-packed truck constructed of carefully built "tiers" of household goods:

"A well-built tier is a beautiful thing to see and lots of fun to make. It's basically a real-life, giant Tetris game with profound physical exertion incorporated into the mix. When I'm loading I go into a sort of trance because I'm totally focused on visualizing everything in the house and mentally building tiers. This is one of the sweet spots where -- as anyone who has done repetitive manual labor understands -- the single-minded focus, concentration, and hard physical work combine to form a sort of temporary nirvana."

If you also like books about the working people, I would recommend "Rivethead" by Ben Hamper, the story of life at an auto assembly plant. Also, I liked this article about the life of a woman "cable guy."

A parent's impression of Fresno State University

Of the seven college tours I've done in the past two years with my kids, my least favorite was the one at Fresno State University.

But don't take that too harshly. Fresno State wasn't terrible, or anything like that, just ordinary. And there were a couple issues on the day we visited that weren't really the school's fault.

For one, there was the heat. It was around 95 on the afternoon we visited the campus, the kind of temperature that will suck the cheerfulness out of almost anyone and make the most eager prospective college students want to run away to the nearest air-conditioned room.

Then there was the odd group from Bakersfield College. My son and I arrived early for our campus tour because we planned ahead, knew when it started and didn't want to miss it. Every college tour I've been on has started almost exactly on time, and I  had every reason to believe this one would be the same.

But in this case we were kept waiting in a nearly empty meeting room for 10 minutes. Eventually a representative told us we were waiting for a group of transfer students from Bakersfield College to arrive.

The group finally arrived and the tour began. Throughout the tour, the Bakersfield College giggled and laughed among themselves, sometimes even when the guide was talking. Then, halfway through the tour, the Bakersfield group announced they had to leave. I was left puzzled by a group of transfer students who had come a long way for a seemingly important visit, but arrived late, didn't seem to take it seriously, and left early.

Fresno State can't be blamed for that group's behavior but they might work a bit on training and preparing their tour guides. The young woman who led our tour was very nice, but she wasn't nearly as enthusiastic or as well-informed as our guides elsewhere.

Fresno State is probably a fine school for many people, but the only thing we saw on the tour that struck me as particularly special was the Recharge Zone.

In the basement of the student union building was a storefront featuring a darkened interior, the "Recharge Zone" sign outside and two large round spheres inside.  What are they?  Napping pods. Yes -- make a reservation, pay a fee and climb inside for a nap.

That sounded like a really nice option on a hot day in Fresno.

A parent's impression of UC Merced

The University of California at Merced, which opened in 2005, is the youngest campus in the UC system. Like the adolescent it is, UC Merced is a bit awkward and its identity is still in the formative stages. But get ready: This youngster is having a BIG growth spurt.

My son and I visited UC Merced recently, walking around the campus and taking an official tour. It seemed considerably different than many of the other campuses we have recently visited.

If you're not familiar with UC Merced, it's not surprising. Not only is it quite new, to get there takes a lot of effort. First, you drive to the middle of nowhere. Then you go a little further. The campus lies outside the small city of Merced, past the farms that surround the city, on an isolated patch of rolling grasslands.

The "Beginnings" sculptures at UC Merced

Even at the age 14, in many ways UC Merced seems as if it just opened. Around the campus, the trees are small, as if recently planted. Parking for commuter students is in a temporary lot that requires a long walk to the classrooms. The parking lot we were supposed to use for our tour was a small, poorly marked gravel rectangle that we missed on our first pass.

Currently, the campus has an awkward layout, requiring all arriving students to funnel into campus along one road and across a single bridge.

But big changes are afoot. The campus is in the midst of a major expansion that is adding new classrooms, dorms, a soccer stadium, competition swimming pool and more. One of the first things you see as you approach the campus are large construction cranes.

Part of the expansion has been completed, and the rest is supposed to be done by the end of 2020. Existing buildings that are new and modern will be supplemented by buildings that are even newer.

The expansion, which will ultimately double the size of the campus, addresses key weaknesses. The current student recreation center, fairly weak by college standards, will be replaced by a new facility. The temporary student parking lot will be replaced by a more central parking.

For now, UC Merced, with just 7,500 students, has a feeling of almost a community college, though it does have dorms.  Our guide explained that new students are welcomed on their first day by a cheering tunnel of faculty and upperclassmen. The school embraces its farmland location with events like the music festival they've dubbed Cow-chella.

Still, like a teenager, the character of UC Merced is fast-evolving. In a couple years, I suspect it will have a much different feel.

A parent's impression of San Jose State

It's 3 a.m. and your laptop breaks. What do you do?

If you're a student at San Jose State University, you head to the school library, where you can rent a laptop -- from a vending machine. At 3 a.m., or anytime.

I toured San Jose State recently with my high school junior son, who is considering attending there, It's an attractive campus spread over a flat rectangular plot in downtown San Jose. Perhaps the school has run out of room to expand laterally because this "ivory tower" literally has a lot of towers.

Many of the buildings rise up 4, 5, 6 floors and more, especially the dorms, one of which I swear looks, from the outside, like a high-rise Marriott.

The large and fairly new King library at one corner of the campus is unusual in that it is both a university and public library. For the public, it closes at 9 p.m., but for students it stays open 24 hours (all-nighter, anyone?).

Laptop vending machine

Our guide, Anna, said the library features a rotating bookshelf and a "trap door" in the elevator but unfortunately we couldn't find either when we went inside. We did, however, find the laptop vending machine on the fourth floor.

Just days before our visit, San Jose State had opened a gigantic new student recreation center that had been years in the making. I've seen three of these shiny showpieces at other campuses (Sonoma State, San Francisco State, and Cal Poly Pomona). This one was similar to the others -- climbing walls at the entrance, multiple basketball courts, lots of exercise equipment -- but on an even larger scale. It also featured a large "party pool" at the back, which was quite hopping on the hot Tuesday afternoon we were visiting.

One of the features of the new gym is that, if you forget your ID card or just don't feel like carrying it, you can use your handprint to gain entrance. That's the theory anyway. When we visited, the handprint system didn't seem to be working that well, and there was a long line of students waiting to get in.

Perhaps they should call on some engineering students for help. San Jose State has a large and well-regarded engineering school. It is unique among the majors at the college, Anna said, in that engineering students spend most of their classes together right from the start. This can make a tighter social group of friends and study partners.

Anna was a fun guide, pointing out at one point that the Central Classroom building is called that because it's, um, in the center of campus and contains classrooms. (You might think that's obvious, but at San Francisco State our guide noted that the Science Building contains almost no science classes.)

Describing why the campus's historic bell doesn't ring anymore, Anna said, "They remodeled the building -- and by 'remodeled' I mean, it burned down."

Unlike SF State -- where students are told not to bring cars to campus -- Anna said they're actually "encouraged" at San Jose State. About 7,000 of the 33,000 students live on campus. Freshmen are required to do so.

Anna mentioned that the campus does offer some partnerships with the many nearby Silicon Valley businesses -- maybe that's where the laptop vending machine came from.