why are you where you are?

Wow! 16 years with JB might be some kind of record.

 

Started riding in a log truck w/ the old man as a kid and it didn't take long and had me behind the wheel while he took a nap. SOB had it planned. Anywho 30 years and a few trucks later....I is one. Just a few more
Miles and a dozen roses.

 

Cause ya got to do what ya gots to do

 

I've driven everything from vans, refers, flats to tanks. I was working for a gas hauling outfit and was fired after differences with the "manager". When I tried to get on with other gas hauling companies I was told I wasn't hired because of my termination. I was basically black balled by the local companies. A friend of a friend had an opening in one of his trucks at FedEx Ground. So after 15 years of driving it was time to pull doubles. I was denied unemployment after being fired and after 12 weeks I just needed something. That turned into the best job I've had in driving. I don't want to do anything else. Set run, home every night, Saturday and Sunday off, and the most money I've made in driving for someone else. I wish I had gone earlier.

 

I started out pulling a refeer, did that for about eleven years. Got sick of dealing with packing house's and grocery warehouse's. Hooked onto a bull wagon hauling hogs and cattle. Quit that because the only way to make a living was to not hardly ever sleep. But it was a very fun job. For the last year I have been pulling a stepdeck. I love what I do now. If someday I can no longer do this then I think it will be time for me to find another occupation.

 

I went to flatbed soon after getting my CDL. Loved it, miss it. I'm post menopausal now and scared to fall and break a hip. So it's vans unless I go back to Hawai'i where it's pretty much all cans.

 

Don't know if I'm nuts or what but my ex-father-in-law talked me into working with him at an Allied agent. I was 23 at the time. Two weeks later I was learning to drive tractor trailers. Left four years later and started in food service. First with a company that delivered to nothing but Wendy's. Did that for a year and then nine years with a small local company doing local and regional runs. Left in July and found my new home. Still food service but hourly pay, all local, paid benefits, union, and easy to work with.

 

It was all about what their Daddys did for a living that Sunday. One was a banker, another a lawyer. He looked at the little boy with his head hung down and quietly asked him what his Father did. My Dad drives a truck, he said. I taught you well, but I will burn in Hell before I let that statement pass. Driver man boy, you hear me? Don't give me that hang dog look, Your Daddy is a King of the road, he is a winner in anyones book! Who feeds you kid? a burger joint, down the street? Someones Daddy or Mommie drove all night long bringing every bite you eat. You stand proud boy, your Daddy Is a Trucker.

 

I thought flatbed would get me chicks, it didn't, but I ended up liking it anyway.