Once When A Company Hired Me

Sounds like I would have liked the good ole days

 

Almost exact same with my brother-in-law. He was laid off from his job; walked into a trucking company and they hired him on the spot. Told him the tractor was already hooked to a loaded trailer and to take it from Nashville to Montgomery, AL. He had never driven before and had the truck jumping and jerking all the way to the highway, but made the trip with no other issues. Driving trucks is not rocket science.

 

1984, walked in, the boss guy had the receptionist copy (DITTO, lol) my Combination License, put my blank application and the other trivial stuff in a folder, and sent me , I went to the truck wash and picked up my new home (1979 Pete). From then on life was not so good, lol.
Bobtailed to Jakes TS in Bend,OR (the one with the hot little college girl window washers) drove around the back row, found my trailer (the one that the last driver left there). It was a flatbed, but looked more like a porcupine, because the 1"x4"pine load had walked forwards and backwards. This farm boy beat them studs back into the units with my little buddy bar, tightened the straps.

Oops forgot to mention, my brother inlaw was there! He got us the job, and for you young guys, I also forgot to mention, the flat bed was 40' long, so 80k of anykind of lumber was a fairly top heavy load.

~next slide~

This is me in the sleeper waking up because I feel like I am in an airplane thats gonna ditch within the next few seconds, I flip open the sleeper flap just in time to see my brother inlaw pulling both trlr and tractor brake valves, Standing on the brake pedal, and you probably know what I saw as I looked over to the rear view mirrors.

~we had a quick conversation right then about possible work arounds while the last few seconds of our lives were going in slow motion~

I looked up and we were on the shoulder (we were ditching!) , this was MT Shasta, but after finally stopping, and scraping the smouldering brake lining material out of the brake drums (hey we did have a little common sense), so the truck didnt burn to the ground, I looked and turned around and told him, "hey look, we are at the bottom of the hill".
Yeah we were pulled off on that wide spot at the bottom of the hill just before the I-5 curves to the left and you cross that short bridge Southbound.

After all the old farts stopped trashing us on the CB at the 49'r because flatbeds cant back up for **** we discovered we had 3 drums with the brakes cammed over and one or two inner seals leaking on the drives.
And I lied! The old farts will never leave you alone! One thing all drivers have in common is, I think we hold one another to high standards, if you don’t size up now, you soon will!

My "instructor" was an OO who sat us two kids down at in a cafe and asked both of us if we had a CDL, I told him no, and my friend told him yes. Randy laughed and said "I know he is lying, and I know you arent, so meet me at the truck in the morning and we will find out if your a Trucker! ~Randy Pillers~ Rest Easy Brother!

ETA: Oh yeah, and I loaned the Brother inlaw 50.00 just so I knew I wouldnt have to see him again!

 

I always wished I was born in 1852 so I coulda picked up that beautiful 1858 Remington cap and ball and registered my vote against Pinkertons, Yankee Government and capitalism while drinking red eye straight from the bottle!

Ended up driving a truck...

 

Rocket scientist rely on computers!

 

I was on a flight from Beijing to San Francisco one time and sat beside a man that had purchased the patents for some rifle from the 1800's. Seems like it was a Winchester used by stage coach guards. He opened a factory in China making exact replicas of the rifle. He said the first 30 or so out of the molds didn't meet his standards so were rejected and he destroyed them. He said the rifles had to be exactly as they were when manufactured in the 1800's. Finally got his little factory up and running as he wanted. Really enjoyed the flight with him; smart guy and a retired doctor from MN.

 

He just as well dumped out a perfectly good beer as far as Im concerned, lol. Gee know Im getting a headache, Gnight China!

 

Awesome comments...... And this is why we have DOT everywhere and I have a nagging Bendx Wingman on the front of my truck. The old days of doing some "ROAD DOPE" and running for 24 hours are long gone thank god. You can blame all of this big brother crap on guys like you. To be honest when I hear these "old trucker" stories I think of that Rob Lowe commercial when he plays the football guy ( Peaked in High School ). CSA has changed the way companies can do business out there. Some of it good, some not so good. But get used to it. I noticed you also posted the same comment on a JB thread. Good luck getting hired there. They do not care if you were driving for 60 years backwards. If your background is not clean... bye-bye.

 

Always a party pooper in the crowd....