Back to the August 2003 Newsletter Index

Truth Truckers give boost to tour

The Face the Truth Tour's message got an added boost this year from three modern-day knights of the road who drove their message-laden trucks repeatedly in loops around many of the tour sites.

Volunteer drivers Bill Calvin and Frank Diorio alternated driving a tractor trailer-sized truck emblazoned, back and sides, with photos of an aborted 10-week fetus and the single word, "Choice."

Calvin is regional director for the New Jersey office of the California-based Center for Bio­Ethical Reform, which owns and operates a fleet of "Truth Trucks" throughout the country.

Ron Brock, a wiry, gray­whiskered veteran of the pro-life "rescue" movement, drove a camper truck, which he has decorated himself with anti-abortion pictures and messages.

Calvin says he doesn't worry if the complexities of strange new streets at demonstration sites cause him to get off course occasionally.

"We are not UPS drivers," he explains with a grin: "we are not delivering a package. If we get on a wrong street, we are still delivering our message to someone!"

He was especially happy at the downtown Baltimore stop on July 31, when his loop around the demonstration site took him past the University of Maryland Hospital.

"Every time we went past, all these young medical students with their white coats. and stethoscopes hanging out of their pockets were coming out to go to lunch, and gawking at the truck."

On his cell phone, Bill quipped to Diorio, who was driving behind him in the "security" car, "They're probably all thinking, 'I'm going to be an eye doctor!'"

During his last trip past the hospital there was a fire alarm, and security guards were evacuating a building.

"The sidewalk was filled with hundreds of people, mostly women. A fire truck blocked me in for 5 minutes. I think the Holy Spirit wanted some of those women to see the pictures!"

Face the Truthers said it always gave them a lift to see Brock riding by in his brightly painted truck, honking his horn, with his Christian and American Flags on the roof fluttering in the breeze.

Ron returned the compliment. "I get to enjoy fellowship with people who are doing things that cost! "

"Ron Brock, Bill Calvin and Frank Diorio are modern-day John the Baptists," said tour leader Grace Sims. "Very few of us could put up with the humiliation and insults that they contend with.

'They have courage!"