Created: 10/10/2006 6:24:55 PM 
By WBIR-TV Knoxville
JACKSBORO, TN -- These days, the daily routine is much different for Bob Burgess of Jacksboro. Two years ago, a stroke took the life from his legs, but he refuses to let this limitation come between him and his lifelong passion.
"All my life, I've been able to drive anything that's got wheels on it," says Bob Burgess.
Whether it is a wheelchair or a truck, driving is second nature for Bob Burgess.
"I drove trucks for 46 years," says Burgess. "I slept in the truck. I ate in the truck."
From coast to coast, he traveled nearly three million miles before retiring two years ago. Burgess moved from an 18 wheeler to a red, F 150 four-wheeled beauty.
"I just simply loved the truck," says Burgess.
Then, life abruptly threw on the brakes. Burgess had a spinal stroke.
"I've been on the move all my life," says Burgess. "It was kind of hard to sit and watch four walls and TV. I'm not a TV person."
That was when Burgess made a decision and a change.
"I was going to try to trade the pickup truck for a van," says Burgess.
He needed a van with adaptations for a wheel chair, a van he could drive, but the folks at Accessible Mobility said his truck would actually work just fine.
"They told me I could still do the same thing in my pickup truck as I could do in a van, which allowed me to keep my pickup," says Burgess. "I was elated."
Modifications were installed in the truck and Fort Sanders Occupational Therapist Kristy Clark helped him learn how to use them.
The driver seats comes all the way down to the ground. Burgess slides in it and then, using a remote control and a lift in the cab of the truck, he puts his wheelchair in the back.
"He's very able," says Clark. "He does anything a walking man does but walk!
He has been driving the adapted truck for five weeks now.
"When I was driving a truck, my handle was 'El charro,'" says Burgess. "I kind of nicknamed it (F-150) the 'el charro express.'"
Even though Burgess and his truck have already covered four thousand miles, he says the two have a lot more truckin' to do.
"I try to do what I want to and the best way I can," says Burgess.
His new friend agrees.
"It helps people to see just because you've got a wheel chair doesn't mean life is over," says Clark.
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