If You Were My Son.... Or Daughter...

Iam a familly dollar driver out of front royal va we don't have nyc but we do have dc baltimore philly and pittsburg fun stuff and sometimes I do new york city helping another account in the winchester area out it is a challenge but the pay is good and they let me off for family doctor appointments and so on without any complaints .

 

My story isn't as long as some longer than others but here goes...Grew up in NC , as a kid spent most of my summer vacations with an aunt and uncle , they along with their 5 kids ran a small dairy farm just outside of Max Meadows Va. That is down I81 just a little south of Wytheville. When I was around 16 or so I would ride along with my uncle when he delivered milk to the dairy in High Point NC, I think it was a Borden Dairy then , but I went with him to help keep him awake on the ride home. Of course you know that after a couple of trips I was figuring that I could just slide behind the wheel of that old tractor and have at it like a pro... So I kept bugging my uncle to let me have a turn...He was reluctant at 1st , but I finally wore him down and he gave me a shot , helping me navigate that duplex til I was moving along in high gear.....talk about cool! Well...I was hooked and by the end of that summer he was sleeping most of the way back every trip. It went on as usual for the next 2 years and by the time I graduated from high school , I was delivering the milk to High Point myself. Once I graduated I volunteered for the Army and off to Viet Nam I went...in the meantime my older brother who had gone before me was KIA in "68 and the next year I was wounded...spent the next 19 months recuperating and learning to walk again. Came home and figured I would go back to Va. and help my uncle out til something I liked better came along. It didn't , but I met the most wonderful red-headed gal and actually talked her into getting married. We moved back to NC and I got a job driving a dump truck for a friends Dad and all was well.

I ran into an Army buddy and he was telling me about the trucking job he had , and the money was alot more than what I was doing but it was OTR. I went and talked to his boss, and he let me take a ride with the safety guy and offered me a job riding team with my pal and I took it. After about 3 years my wife was hinting right much about not liking to be a single parent so I went back to the dump truck job...all the while looking for a local deal. God answered our prayers one day by sending a pal along that worked for GSF , in Greensboro, NC. they deliver McDonald's resturaunts , great pay , great ins. home most nights (at least after you got some bid seniority) He got me an interview and the rest is history. I wound up working there for over 30 years, and I can tell you it was a blessing....Gave my wife the chance to stay home raise the boys, and then go back to school and get her masters in nursing and eventually, achieve her goal of becoming a CRNA.

I retired in Nov. of 2011 and she will at the end of 2014 if all goes as planned....the trucking industry can and will eat its own sometimes...but IF I had to start all over again...I would not change a thing. 1 other thing before I'm done...THANKS uncle ......without you it would have never happened. RIP

 

OMG We llllllove 81 in VA!!! Have a picture of our dream house that's near the Blue Ridge Parkway .... It's the screen saver on our main computer.

 

Welcome Home, "tonythetruckingdude" !!

Bien Hoa '72-'73.

 

I've had a chance to think things out and see them from a different perspective .
Th industry is going from bad to worse for old hands . They are removing one liberty after another with regulations that really have no basis invoving safety at all . Managers want us under their thumb and EOBR's let them see every move we make .
That's unacceptable to me and I know to others . We became drivers so we could go out and do our jobs and take pride in what we accomplished on our own 0000
. Those days are over . We are told what routes to take , how much we can idle , and how SLOW we should go .
For the newbies it's a different story . They can't miss what they never had . They come into the industry aat this stage of the game , they are told this is the way it is , and they readily accept it . If they are happy with it , fine for them . They can have it .
I can see many carriers lowering their hiring standards as more experienced drivers leave.

 

Indeed, Im in Monmouth county NJ and have to move to Toms River area because its literally twice as expensive 1 county up. But eventually NJ will be soo expensive even South Jersey will be too expensive and VA is about as far south this yank wants to go.