Ok old timers, a back in the day question.

Got this on my fore arm. I don't drive OTR anymore though, I now know exactly what roads I'll be on every night.

 

When I was in the Army a few guys got a truck tattoed on their arm with an FTA in the trailer, double meaning of course, mainly meaning F___ The Army, but when asked they always said it meant Future Truckers of America.

The stupidest one I have ever seen however was on a nice young farm kid from Wiscosnin, he came to my unit in Germany as a fresh faced straight off the farm 18 year old that we probably ruined. We were all young, in Germany and partying very hard... Back in the Early 80's. Kids name was Morris, so naturally his nickname was Morris the C____... It stated with C and ended with T, but was not Cat... So anyway he got a tattoo of a Drunken Cat hanging off a streetlight pole on his for arm and around it was "Morris, I'm A Drinker, I'm a Driver". I told him I hope he planned to wear long sleeve shirts to every interview he ever went on.

Sadly though, it turned out to be prophetic. I lost touch with him over the years, and then a few years back reconnected with a guy in Facebook, who told me a number of years ago Morris had a DUI accident in his POV that left him paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair, he died a few years later from complications from the accident.

 

When I went to school a former Marine and another older guy always used to give me a hard time in good humor of course.
One day they told me my handle on the road would be Fonzie.
I said that sounded lame, they said there wasn't a #### thing I could do about it. That's the name I got haha

 

Image by HotH2o posted Sep 27, 2015 at 8:29 AM

 

Ah ####!

You shall now and forever be The Fonz on ttr.

 

That one was done by a girl eating a candy bar....

 

I think the biggest tradition is you have to have a beard, long hair, and look and act like a ratbag. Then go around telling everybody how you were a Navy SEAL. There must have been several million of those. Oh, and you have to spend all your time trying to pick up girls and #####ing about everything.

 

So it's symbolism you want, eh? First of all, I, and this is just my opinion, think tatoo's are ridiculous. I feel people that do that, have serious "look at me" issues. I can't imagine doing that to my skin, but our symbolism, was that KW ( or Peterbilt) belt buckle, and the belt with your name across the back, the "chain-drive" wallet, and the company hat ( which I never wore), and can't forget the H-D decal in the wing window.

 

When I joined the Navy, we were actually encouraged to get tattoos. That's all changed now though. I had two different company commanders in boot camp and they were both covered in tattoos. We had a day off during boot camp to go into San Diego and when we returned to the base the first thing the company commander asked is, "OK, who got tattoos today? Step forward and let me check them out."
Got one in Hong Kong and another in Rotterdam, Holland and another in Panama. Good times and no regrets. "Join the Navy and get stewed, screwed and tattooed in every port." Lots of fun and good memories. Wasn't a gungho bone in my body either. It wasn't unusual to see commissioned officers with tattoos back then.

 

I suppose. Here in good ol' , traditional backward N. Mid-west, stuff like that was frowned upon. I can't even say what my parents and grandparents said about tatoo's. I'm a little more tolerant, as if you want to do that, go right ahead, but I'd never do that.