With a sip of her soft drink, Emma Lou Collins considers the possibility that she has the perfect job.
”Well, my husband and I get to see an awful lot of this country, and we pretty much do what we please,” she says. ”And we get to be together. I guess that`s about 100 percent ideal.”
What Robert and Emma Lou Collins do is drive trucks. Big trucks with 18 wheels and 40-foot trailers. And they do it a lot. Both have driven about 2.5 million miles without an accident.
”I`d have to say the Lord takes care of us,” Emma Lou says. ”Of course, we drive defensively, too.”
Robert is 68. Emma Lou is 65. For the past 14 years, the San Antonio couple have driven as a team for Church`s Fried Chicken Inc., delivering store equipment and supplies to the fast-food chain`s 1,500 stores. Emma Lou estimates that she and Robert have seen 46 of the 48 contiguous states. They drive about 150,000 miles a year, following the interstates across the nation. ”The truck is our home,” Emma Lou says. ”In it, we`ve got just about everything you need except a bathroom. And frankly, we need to stop for the exercise.”
This year, Emma Lou beat out 3,000 men to be named the 1984 regional driver of the year by Ryder Truck Rental. The award is based on
recommendations from employers and the driver`s safety record. She is the first woman to win the award. Robert won the award in 1982.
With a quick warning that she likes to talk, Emma Lou pauses for a breath, then continues. ”We like to call ourselves commercial tourists,” she says. ”Anytime we take a wrong turn, that`s sightseeing. Now you can`t beat that.”
Robert, a large man, gets in a rare word. ”We`ve had a pretty good life,” he says. ”I guess we kind of like each other.” He smiles. ”Of course, living in a six-by-eight truck cab, we`d have to.”
Emma Lou grabs her husband`s hand. ”The way I see it, we`ve been married 96 years,” she says. ”That`s 48 years for each of us.”
Robert showed his devotion once at a truck stop near Meridian, Miss. Emma Lou had stopped to give the owner some recipes. Robert, who had been asleep, woke and took his turn at the wheel and drove off.
”I got on the CB and called out his handle, which is Superchicken,”
Emma Lou says. ”I said, `Superchicken, this is Queenbee. You left me at the truck stop.` Some other driver got on the CB and said, `If Superchicken comes back for her, it must be true love.` Well, he sure did come back for me.”
When Emma Lou`s family moved from a small farm east of Waco to Kilgore, Tex., in the 1930s, she and Robert, a football star at Kilgore High, became high school sweethearts. They married in 1937. She was 18, he 21.
”I was so worried about what we`d talk about after we married,” Emma Lou says. ”But Robert says I haven`t shut up yet.” Robert nods agreement.
They have four children and three grandchildren. ”We`re lucky in that we`ve been able to take the grandchildren on trips with us,” Emma Lou says.
”And they love it.”
Emma Lou Collins became a truck driver at an early age. As a teen-ager, she hauled the cotton her father grew from Waco to Houston. ”Daddy didn`t have any sons, so the girls had to drive,” she says. ”I also hauled logs and lumber, you name it.”
During World War II, Emma Lou carried mail in Louisiana. In 1948, she and Robert hauled milk for their own dairy delivery firm in San Antonio. After 25 years, their company folded because of a loss of customers. After working as independent haulers, he went to work as a driver for San Antonio-based Church`s in 1967 and she joined him in 1970.
”We`re the only team Church`s has,” she says. ”We don`t smoke. We don`t drink. And we don`t take chances.”
When Robert is driving, Emma Lou prefers to read the Bible that rests near the road atlas, or she crochets. One year, she made 26 afghans. ”I don`t like to just sit and do nothing,” she says.
On vacation, Emma Lou, well, drives. One summer, she took her mother, her daughter and two grandchildren on a 4,000-mile trip in a recreational vehicle. ”I took off a week once and did nothing. I thought I`d go nuts,” she says.
Trucking has become a way of life for Emma Lou and Robert. It`s a life they wouldn`t trade for anything.
”We`ve met a lot of good, decent people, and we have good friends all over the United States,” she says. ”And we really get to see the country. I tell you, the flowers this year are the most beautiful I`ve seen.
”Once, we saw a double rainbow in Florida that had the most beautiful colors. That`s something you can`t recapture.”
Emma Lou pauses for a moment. ”We`ve seen some bad things,” she says.
”We`ve seen terrible accidents. And I`ve helped pull men out of burning cars. But we`ve never looked for trouble, and God`s been good to us, because we`ve never had any.
”No sir, I wouldn`t change a day of my life. Of course, we do kind of wish they`d build an overpass over Missouri. That state can really be a pain to drive in.”
