Harold Ives Trucking remembered

I worked there around same time. What was your handle? Who are some of the drivers you might remember? We all used to be like family. I miss those days.

 

I'm glad I wasn't only one that made that run like that. That was a money run. AF took care of us.

 

I still remember my truck number. 651. It was one of the Petes back then. I loved that truck.

 

Uncle Harold, no relation, just my nickname for him, decided in '87 that if this new CDL was coming, he was going to train his own drivers and I was in the first class in DeWitt @ Rice Belt Vo-Tech. Didn't have the $800 tuition so they lent it to me. 33 years later am still in the game, doing what I love.

 

Not true. You're thinking of the Waltons and J.B.Hunt.

 

I almost went to work for Harold back in the early nineties but got a better offer from another dry van company. They seemed respectable and wished me luck.

 

They were a good company, better than most of their contemporaries. I moved to Atlanta and went to work for Waffle House commissary division in '88. Will always be grateful for the faith and confidence they showed in me, the chance they took on a young vet right out of the Navy.

 

I did that run quite a few times with Covenant right after they bought out Harold Ives. From what the old timers said, Ives was a much better outfit to work for.

 

Harold Ives reminds me so much of the small mom and pop place I drove for at my 1st OTR place. Yes I hauled rice out of Stuttgart AR more times than I care to remember also there. When you have a customer that takes 5 loads a week of unexpanded Styrofoam in Little Rock and you need to get back to Illinois for the return load that was the sweet spot. Well one night got loaded out of there hooked up with a bunch of Ives drivers and we rolled towards Chicago they had deliveries the next morning at either Jewel Dominics and other places around Chicago. I had a delivery in my hometown. To say those KW's he had could pull was an understatement. They gave Rose my 850HP IH a workout in MO on 67 in the hills staying ahead of them. That was one hell of a night right after a tornado had ripped thru that area.