what was it like

I remember when they busted the DOT cop in New Mexico for taking stuff from truckers. Watermelon loads were always 2 or 3 watermelons overweight. He was taking a car load of stuff home everyday. Much more produce than he could possibly use. He got greedy and was taking everything, canned goods or whatever he could get his hands on. His greed got him busted.

 

The only reason back then it seemed like fun,ect. was because I was young. NOW,it would just suck.

 

auto dialer haha that brings back memories

 

I bet many miss the days before "social disease."

 

He had water in the fuel filters. He had a fuse blown, or a flat. No road service back then. Spare tire fits all. Left side for the trailer, right for the truck. Kept a few sandwiches in a cooler. Seen many a man to hungry to make it, Perk up with a sandwich & a warm soda pop. Truck needs fuel to run, You need fuel to drive it. Back then we had "Mosquito" screens to keep from being bit to death. Put them in the windows and hope for the best.

 

Sounds like fun. Wish I was old enough to have done it back then.

 

I remember the dial phones, when you had a list of calls to make , it seemed like it took an eternity for the dial to return to the starting point. Sssssooo you would hurry the thing along a little bit by leaving your finger in the number hole and put reverse pressure on the dial to speed up the process..... like you were saving yourself a lot of time by doing that..... I always had a fear that someday the dial would unscrew and I would have torn it up forever. Then of course there were the times where you spotted a pay phone booth up ahead with a place to pull over, you felt like you hit the mother load, only to step in the booth and some fool had torn the receiver and cord off and taken them.

 

yea years ago you would normally call in once a day and you was own you own bought fuel were you wanted keeping in mind that you understood road taxes for each state and what places had the best prices and the best quality fuel if you needed something fixed that you could not you found the shop and got it fixed those phones banks is were you spent the day calling brokers looking for the load you wanted and stayed caught up on the news of the road it was a lot of fun driving back then and a lot more respect back then of coarse equipment is 500% better now than then. but all that started to change when cdl and ifta started and before the mega carriers.i remember you only saw a swift truck was like 5 western states now look at them hopes this helps you some.happy trails

 

don't forget the old mountain passes with no Jake brake or brakes on steering axle or power steering

 

I remember some put pennies in the steering axle brakes to prevent the brakes from working; the theory being steering axle brakes were dangerous and would get you killed.