Old Age

I'm 62.
Started out on flatbed in the mid 70s. The work was there and I was able to tarp and chain without much effort.
After 5 yrs or so moved to dry van and reefer and slowly learned to hate warehouses.
With a couple of linehaul and freight jobs sandwiched in between I found private carriers to suit my needs. Most but not all have been union gigs.
Last ten has been tanker work and wish I'd have gotten on earlier but as I age it's apparent to me that this sector of our industry will allow us old timers the opportunity to retire with the dignity and benefits that 40+ plus of trucking offers w/o having to cripple ourselves doing what we did as younger drivers.
To those 60+ drivers that still do those labor intensive jobs more power to ya. I've heard it said if It don't kill you it can only make you stronger.. but I'm not so sure now...lol

 

Dennixx said:
"I've heard it said if It don't kill you it can only make you stronger.. but I'm not so sure now...lol"

Nope, not at "our" age. I take my 1.5 sometimes 2 days off and just lay around trying to get the aches and pains to go away so I can start another week......I can't even get anything done around the place......

 

A couple of things I did as I got older that eased things up some.
Switched from flat to step. Not only easier tieing down most step freight. It seems like not as much step freight requires tarps.
This is big one, I just left the tarps in the shop. Not so much so I wouldn't have to tarp, though that was nice, but because I got tired of hearing brokers tell me the tarp pay was in the rate. lol
I got to where I pretty much hauled long loads, I got to where if it loaded one day and unloaded the next, there had to be some serious money involved to mess with it. My favorite was to Alaska, maybe tie down once a week or even better depending.