Ah, I do miss the '70's but not Disco or the Village People!!!


Back in the ?70?s during the second oil embargo(?) the chemical tank line my truck was leased to had several oval shaped tanks, which, for all the world, looked like petroleum tanks both 4 hole and 5 hole types. The concept behind these was fairly straight forward a trailer could hold four or five different chemicals without fear of cross contamination plus, a driver could deliver to more than one chemical consignee. Not bad and the pay wasn?t too shabby either.

On the return ride from a very long five stop chemical load I pulled into a closed gas station in central New Jersey to catch a few hours sleep. I could have gone home but greed was driving me to go back and hook to another 5 stop load and get back with the program. When I stopped the truck I noticed the station belonged to a, not very well liked, guy who was the president of the New Jersey Gas Retailers organization and this one guy alone stood in the way of NJ getting ?Self Service? gas stations!
Anyway, I slept until daybreak; I got up, stepped out of the truck to answer the nature call and noticed a very long line of cars waiting for the station to open. I couldn?t resist playing the Devils Advocate; I walked up to the 1st car in line and asked the driver what he was doing. He told me he wanted to get the shot at getting gas for his car, which was a ?77 Cadillac Fleetwood. Now of course me being me told the guy that I was instructed to park at the abandoned station to draw a crowd then leave to deliver the load somewhere else. What I didn?t tell the guy was the trailer was empty and wasn?t designed for petroleum; I conveniently left that part out. The other part that was neglected was the fact that station was not abandoned but I didn?t see the fun in letting that piece of trivia go.
I pulled out of the station and headed back to Bayonne for the next load.

The next day I called dispatch to let them know I was still on the payroll and the boss asked me what I had done in North Brunswick and of course I told him I hadn?t done anything. He then told me a mini riot broke out at the Citgo station over a driver being told not to deliver gas to the station under strict orders. I asked the boss what made him think it was me and he just said ?Because I know you!!!?
I couldn?t argue!!!!

Till the next time.............

 

Altho I'll honestly admit I'm still a rookie by all standards I do have a few stories about when I was driving with my first company and had to run the dumb/dumberer plan after my 'trainer' time........
I'll admit I was the dumb, but my 'co-driver' did fall into the other category (no matter how many degrees he held)......

Well we were both products of the 4weekers and then spent our 4weeks with our trainers before being forced to teamup together, but we picked up our truck outta 'Dallas' and also our first load (I was lucky and got 1st seat considering his English was barely understandable-W.African)
I decided since I grew up around the area I would drive to p/u our load and make the first leg of the run, which went fairly uneventful.....Well when it was his turn we heading up thru Little Rock and then E. on 40 towards NY for our first drop.....it was pouring down rain and since I wasn't familiar with his skills dint sleep too well and was up in the jump seat when before we had even reached Memphis we had already seen 3 trucks rolled including a fellow company truck, due to the storm.....Well as we continued thru the offramp portion of 40 there by the state line my co-driver did finally safely slow us down thru the corner but couldn't find his gears to continue outta the curve insomuch the 'check engine' light was on for the rest of his portion.....well needless to say I was a bit scared after that but during his next portion was going up 81 and when we hit the 'hills' I noticed that not only could he not uphill downshift but he 'killed' the truck and put it on the shoulder.....well not too bad until during his attempts to get going again did he roll it back before moving forwards.......needless to say that was just the beginning of a long 30days, with even more events happening thruout our mandatory time together, and of course dispatch wasn't too helpful in trying to find me an alternate co-driver........

Should I go on with some excerpts of this 30-day mandatory journey??

 

Most definitely yes!!! I need a break from posting my entire 975 pages of journal writings

I also noticed you have an Amateur Radio call sign, have you done any DX from the truck???

 

I haven't been able to afford the gear to even go 2m/440-mobile in the rig and am just a nocode Tech
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Question: which rookie driver would you prefer to have running? (this is based on actual experiences during the aforementioned timeframe) a Driver that can stay up 20hrs a day but can only run from the Iowa 80 west and not make it outta Nebraska after over 11-12 hrs or one that from the same starting point on I-80 that ran 630mi(close to half thru Wy) after 10.5 hrs???? and ohh btw this was in a Covenant FLD120

 

Which ever one you feel more comfortable telling about... This topic could use some new blood spinning tales from the Dark Side, oopppss I mean the highway!! :shock:

 

well I'll say that this other driver really had his drawers in a bundle ..... another experience we had was running a load of Apples from Wash state back East(in between the Iowa 80 reference)......needless to say he was driving E-bound on 90 thru Idaho and it was a minor uphill grade thru 1-lane construction.....due to a coolant leak we had overheated a bit(or so he said) and had killed it in the one lane stretch.....there were alot of ticked off 4wheelers and largecars that drove around us thru the cones....then as he finally got it started again, had difficulty getting it to a pull-off up the 'hill' where I took over.....put some water in and turned on the 'vent' and proceeded down the road till we found a T-stop with a water hose......

More adventures of the Covenant Dumb and Dumber to come......LOL

 

well I'm not sure about going into some of the happenings and definitely dont want to complete dog the co-driver I had, outside of the truck he probably woulda made a good friend but inside the truck well it dint help that they paired a smoker with a non-smoker at that for 30days.........


Another excerpt from the trip: Leaving outta NJ and taking the turnpike and eventually 80W to California we had a load that easily could've been given to a solo with the time allowed on it, well I was going thru Sprint PCS for my cellphone and of course my bill was due and we had just gotten paid....well we eventually pulled into a Petro and it ended up if we would've waited another 30minutes I coulda paid my bill but as it turned out I ended up wasting alot of time trying to find somewhere to pay it as the trip progressed considering there is no Sprint payment center off the turnpike or anything until we were basically in Chicago.......at one point I had just missed a place closing by about 10minutes and was really peeved about this and he poked his head out the cab (while I was on the phone with Sprint, cuz at this point it was shut off and he never allowed me the usage of his phone) to tell me that we NEEDED to get the load rolling......needless to say I was so ticked at him (lack of sleep, etc ....due to his driving and then previous events--stalls, rolling backwards on hills, etc...) and being ticked @ Sprint for giving me bad options (can't always pull a tractor trailer into a Ripoff Shack parking lot) that I just looked up at him from the ground and told him I highly suggested he leave me alone and I'll drive when I'm ready to, he was like "well I could drive" but he was outta hours from his earlier shift.....

Well personally I felt it was better I cooled down first before getting back behind the wheel than to drive all ticked off...........One Q? How many drivers feel that it is right to pull it over if t'd off or whatever than to become a 'road rage' driver????

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thought I'd give ya something to read Doc since I'm leaving in a few hours for Shifty/Swift orientation and prob wont be back on here for a few

 

Careful what you say part 2:

A week or so ago I wheeled my quad dump into a convenience store to grab an ice cold refreshing beverage. I had noticed a non descript truck training school vehicle in the parking lot. I wandered in to buy my beverage and overheard one of the students making comments about dump truck drivers not being real drivers. The instructor saw me standing by the check out lady and came over to apologize. I told him not to worry there is always one "know it all" in every class. Oh I do know the instructor. Then the "mouth" told his fellow students that he'll not go to the Northeast and will tell the dispatcher so. I walked over to the guy and informed him that he was a prime candidate for East Coast running since he knew it all and he had the right frame of mind for such an adventure. His instructor agreed. I also told this potential professional that I was the one driving the quad and that I had more than 30 years on the road and if that didn't make me a real driver then I didn't know what did.

This student got real quiet real quick and left to get behind the wheel of the training truck. The cashier and I watched as the truck jerked out of parking lot and turn right crushing a sign near the driveway. The cashier laughed shook her head and said "He'll be a real gem on the highway!"
Who was I to disagree!!!


Oh by the way the thread has gone over 15,000

 

I have been out in the truck with my husband for the past two weeks. We leave again on Wednesday for another 2 to 3 weeks. This trip out has been pretty good except for the the suicidle bird. We had just pulled out of the Port of Entry on the 30 in Wyoming when a bird decided to fly straight into my window. Thankfully the window did not break. The bird flew up the side of the truck over the trailer and hit the pick up behind us. The guy in the pick up passed us and let us know we were number one. All I could do was give the guy a big smile and a wave. I think I shocked him because I would not tell him he was number one. My husband however could not stop laughing as he seen the bird out of the corner of his eye and I did not do to me having tunnel vision. I must of jumped at least a foot.

 

Ah yes tis the season for suicidal birds and four legged creatures!!

The dude in the pick-up probably needs a few lessons in Highway Manners!