drive time for cdl

Hey everyone...
Maybe someone can help me out.
Ive been wanting to get back out on the highway for many years.The road calls me and I cant get back out there soon enough.
I'll give you a brief history ...
I was born in Chico Ca, lived the first 5 years of my life in Switzerland, When we returned to the states we moved to NY and at 14 I couldnt take it there any longer and went back to Old Shasta, Ca.
I lived there for many years doing construction, or working in the surrounding forests. When times would get bad economically there we would go over the mountain and find work over in Reno.
One of my gauranteed jobs was always working for Sid at Sierra Sids on I-80 beiing a diesel jockey. Back then I got more offers of running with drivers but being young and in love i never took up the offers further then riding back over the mountain to go visit home in Old Shasta. surely some treacherous routes going over the mountains there and the snow can pile up real fast.
In any case my early years were spent working on a huge dairy farm and then spent almost 3 years working for a small family run carnival in switzerland where we were in a different town each week and went all throughout Switzerland, and small parts of France, Italy and Germany.
Again those years were all spent on the road also.
After returning to the states I again went into construction doing alot of building up in the Lake Tahoe area. In spring of 1984 after working some of the winter months at Sids I had a crew up on the mountain beginninng to clear land for a big complex we were getting ready to build when I got injured on the job. That injury left me in traction and on crutches for 2 years and in that time i went to college for lack of anything better to do.
In college i studied enviromental science and forestry and did actually quite well considering I never finished high school and studied and recieved my GED while laying in traction.
Well the whole time i am in college I am also waiting on a law suit to settle for the accident and when it did i did pretty good. I immediately quit school and bought a '78 Dodge van an dwent off and lived on Grateful Dead tour and went more or less where ever the band went.
The van turned into a bus and soon i had 10 acres in Chico, Ca on which i had 13 buses ranging in years from 1926, 1927, 1932, 1948 ,1954 to name a few.
These buses varied in length and how they operated. Clutches and trannies operated differently then they do today.
Some of these buses I restored to mint condition and they were very much road worthy and with my mechanical abilities I kept them out there.
In these buses I traveled all over the U.S. and at every truck stop across the US i would have many interested drivers coming to see the classic bus>
I would talk to the drivers, go in for some pie and coffee tell my story adn listen to theirs. I loved being out on the road.
I met my girlfriend on the road doing the same and always would say that my real dream was to drive and live on the road where i feel most at home. At one point i even went to driving school for a month. It was actually a 2 month course in West Sacramento and we both enrolled. For roughly 3 + weeks I sat there and endured the most ridiculous questions on how to read maps and anything else one could think of.
No one in this class had so much as driven out of town let alone to start running long haul.
Well when we werent on tour with the Dead or following Jerry Garcia around the US we would then go back home and go running again to friends we had met while on the road.
Now these years were supplemented by the law suit I had won for the accident but we also would find our selves doing a little moving around of marijuana. Actually it wasnt even my idea but I also didnt stop it but my girlfriend not having collected a large law suit felt like she needed to pull her own weight and was involved in this pot thing. I remember always telling her that i would kick myself in the ### every single day behind bars as i looked out of my cell window onto some highway watching trucks go by if we ever got caught. I would tell her that my real dream was to take my law suit money and buy a beautiful rig and go hauling.
Well it happened, trouble came and came down hard. I ended up doing almost 10 years of my life inside federal prisons and another 5 on parole.
I was released from prison in '98 and completed my parole in 2003.
I am now a 46 year old man. I am very responsible and honest, smart and hard working.
Since getting out I have run my own construction company here in NY on Long Island. I am licensed and insured aand my company name has remained the same and is clear of any complaints.
My drivers license is clean and I have no tickets to my name whatso ever.
I also have never been involved in a motor vehicle accident.
When i got out I met a wonderful woman and we got married.She has a son and I a duaghter.
My daughter graduates from college this spring and her son graduates the following year.
Since the day I met my wife she has heard alot about my dreams of driving and she knows that I am most content when I am out on the road.
With the way the economy has been home construction has become unreliable and is also physically very demanding on the body.
Well the way things are, and since the banks wont help people with loans construction has virtually come to a halt and after thinking things over adn discussing them with my wife she is fine with me going out on the road and realizes what it will entail.
the beauty of this is that my wifes parents live right next door to us along with her sister so she has alot of faily around regardless.
Now my hopes are that an O.O. out there can make the same offer that has been made to me before by so many drivers and take me outthere adn let me run some miles for ya and then take me to get my cdl.
Till I get my license bviously we would run team after which Ill run your second truck or get on with your company if they let me
I have excellent credit so I would be able to purchase if I need to and I have money so Im not looking for free meals and such.
I am very clean and organized and I do not smoke. I also do not drink.
I have had some hard years but i have also completely turned my life around and have become a responsible adult .
I would make a good asseet for anyone if they were willing to take a chance on me and if it didnt work out I will fly myself back to whereever i need to go.
Thanks in advance for your time
Chris Hartmann

 

thanks for the responses
listen at no time was I suggesting that to do this we shou ld go out and break laws as RickG is suggesting
if I am in possession of a cdl lerners permit would that make it illegal to run with a licensed driver?
an old friend of mine Kenny Wannamaker a O.O. pulling reefers out of oklahoma is as honest and hard working as the day is long and he made the offer to me years ago when i just wasnt ready to go
i cant imagine he would have done it illegal but then maybe he had other plans
unfortunately to many years have past and i no longer know where he is
i dont want to come across as better then anyone else and therefore dont have to jump through hoops to get to my ultimate goal BUT.....i also dont think i need a month in a classroom to get it
i also dont want to waste 8 weeks on the road with some guy with a bad attitude who barks orders at me from the sleeper
from what i read on this forum alot of guys who end up going through training have tales of it being a nightmare with another human out on the road
it also doenst sound like for the mosty part that they are coming away better from this experience eitheer
trainees complain they cant back up and trainers never help them
trainers dont do the PTI, do illegal maneuvers etc etc
i have traveled every interstate in the united states from end to end
I spent every summer growing up on my uncles farm where i was pulling singles, doubles, to the scales with produce
not to mention operating #### near every type of agricultural machine there is
from there i spent almost 3 years working at a traveling carnival working my way all through Switzerland, and parts of Italy, France, and Germany
we had 3 tractors and 35 trailers which we pulled through some of the most dangerous mountain passes in the world
i have an antique bus collection in california with my oldest bus being a 1936 white, a 1937 Crown on Ford chassis and a 1948 White bus
in total there are 13 with some of them being road worthy for any cross country adventure inc. the 37 crown and 48 white
these buses arent anything like drivning todays cadillac to say the least
ok so i dont have experience pulling 53' trailers behind a pete but i got me catching on real fast
i have trailer experience and the concept of backing i believe to have down
on the farm i was always moving trailers around, equally so a the carnival and as of late i am a contractor and regularly pull excavators around long island, queens and brooklyn
now as for my felony convictions...this dates back to 1990 and since then i havent so much as gotten a ticket for jay walking
previous to that at no time did i have my cdl or was a truck involved in the crime
the crime was also considered "victimless" which is exactly how it is worded in all the papers (in other words no one was hurt by anything that i did)
no firearms were used or in my possession
i seriously doubt that this should have any bearing on whether or not i get a cdl
currently i am licensed, insured and BONDED under my name as a general contractor and they did a back ground check on me and i was also honest about everything
so i am looking to get rolling with this an ddo it in a smart way
i very much would like to learn and learn things the correct way
i dont want to get a trainer who either doesnt want to train me or is a big wind bag who is primarily interested in hearing himself talk
when its all said and done and im ready to handle the road on my own I would then like to start making a decent living
i am a 46 year old man with a family and need to make a certain amount to keep things afloat.
whether this means buying my own truck and leasing to a company or whatever comes along that is what i willl then do
i am a smart guy and i do make #### happen
my construction company i have now has always done quite well and i also do beautiful work ( have loads of pics if anyone is interested )
everything i do i do well
i have always wanted to drive and really love it out on the road
i am finally at a point in my life where i can make it happen but im also going to do it right, i am going to make money doing it and i am going to enjoy myself
hard work i am not afraid of
the right thing will come along
as i stated before i could be an asset for anyone and am also interested in buying my own truck if that is what it takes
i am currently financially stable enough to get this career change up and going and realize it isnt overnight where ill be making any kind of dough
i will not go the swift or werner route and let them abuse me though
those companys really should be ashamed at themsleves for even taking advantage of some of these people that they take advantage of
if you read some of the letters that were written in to the truckers forum from some of these guys and if they are truly real these letters then these companies really do deserve to rot in hell for what they are doing to people
thats a whole nother story though and a sad one at that and one that i will not go down myself
thanks again for everyones time

 

Hey Neil
Thanks for this info.
Not every day you run into someone who knows the area up there let alone lived there
I love it up there and look forward to the day im not stuck out east here
I had a place up in French Gulch for years and my sister in law lived in Whiskeytown.
I lived all over up there growing up and went as far south as chico but when the town got crazy with college kids we moved up to Butte Meadows which is another real small town.
Growing up when times got tough they would load us in the truck and take us to Reno where inevitably no matter how bad things would get the family would find work and even when work wasnt to had right away some how, some way the folks always managed to keep us fed in that town
Anyway I dont want to be long winded ....