They also had the dealer in Sioux Falls. Not sure when that one opened, I only know dad’s 1980 was picked up there.
I think top hands got 0.20 as company. Trust me you did not need much. When I started late 80's you could get a full petro breakfast style meal spread for about 3.75 plus coffee bottomless in any of the lounges that had room for your rig. A street vendor about two blocks from GM comes to mind, a food truck, roach coach etc. Plust a little diner there. Things in those days were a different life, or a different time. How different? Well one example would be say Joppa Maryland. Full of children. You could at any time day or night enter a home for protection, help, police or whatever you need and they will help you. Usually they knew who you were and what home you belonged to. Nobody locked their doors and so on. Strangers were tracked very fast.
Extremely easy to get a job and license. I started with a chauffeurs license,before you had the letter class stuff. Grandfathered into everything else. Never knew of anyone going to a truck driving school,don't remember if they even had them back then. You were supposed to have a medical card,but you could get blank ones at the the truck stop,and certify yourself,no one ever checked that stuff back then. ICC was running things,a lot easier for the drivers than the federal DOT now. If you had a marker light out on a trailer,most scales would tell you,"hey,next time you stop for coffee,put a bulb in that thing". Nowadays,stuff like that rings a cash register for the states. Just a different time,glad I lived through it,best memories,relaxed trucking. Thanks,Little later,cleaning it up.
One of probably the very last of that era DOT inspectors pulled us around back as to check logs etc. Mind you this was my first OTR time with sleeper berth involved and team driver to boot. So my logs were very... bad. Not just bad but really bad. No one really had a idea just how bad it was. Presented that book to DOT man. He looks at it. Eyebrows go up glance at me and then at other driver and said wtf is this paper from that kid... let me say this by the time I finish my smoke break... We did not hear the rest we were at 70+ and gone. What did happen from that day for a month was incessant log school in the right seat. (Non airride in those days on that side but a airride for the GM glass) first he taught me the right way, then the wrong way then other ways. And I put the rest together myself. We never crossed that scale again despite being a distinctive rig in our time there. Some of that teaching did well for what it was.
I re-watched Smokey and the Bandit for the lack of better things to do when staying overnight in Richmond, VA. I gotta say that the sleepers back then were spartan style to say the least.
Here's what the interior of my 77 looked like. Sleeper was a 34" wide crawl through the back window hole. About 32" wide on the inside. Just a box,with doors on each end,no heat or AC in there. If it's hot,try and line the sleeper up with a cross breeze,open the doors,and enjoy the air. In the winter,a mummy sleeping bag,crawl in it,and zip it up over your head,and stay warm. Whole lot of years cross country trucking like that.
