Remember when?

My memories are the same, although the location was Grand Rapids, Michigan. My bedroom was on the second floor and faced 28th Street which was about a mile south at the Eastern Ave. traffic light. In the 1950s, 28th St. was the bypass around the south side of town. Later, 44th St. became the preferred truck route. Now, state route M-6 is the new limited access bypass.

If I was not listening under the covers to R&B on powerful AM radio stations out of Nashville or Cincinnati, I was listening to trucks take off from the traffic light. It seems that they had straight pipes, and shifted slowly, floating the gears. I resolved to drive like that some day. Of course, there were still a lot of gas jobs on the road in the 1950s.

 

I drove those twin stick tranny's and I thought they were fun. Most would have a 5X4 that would give you 20 gears but there was alot of combo's like 5X3, 5X5, and so on. Alot of trucks back then ran a 220 cummings. It didn't have a turbo on it but when the did come out with the turbo it boosted the power to 290. That engine was in service for along time.

I remembering my Dad telling me what the drivers would do pulling the grapevine (or the ridge route as they called it) out in California during the summer. Once they were in the right pulling gear they would pull the throttle handle out and open the door and stand on the running board to get cooler. He said you could just about run as fast as they would go. They would stand there with one arm steering the truck and smoking with the other. They also had hand singles they would use for drivers going the other way since CB's were a long way off. I remeber one was a peace sign that you would turn around a few times and that would mean a cop is up ahead.

I took my Dad for a ride one time in the gasoline tanker and he just could not get over that the truck had cruise control. Of course then he would ask questions like "do you get paid for this job" and so on. I loved him for all he taught me. RIP Pop.

 

Remember passing trucks on two-lane highways? Remember how your parents flashed the headlights and honked the horn to get a tired truck driver's attention while passing? Remember how it was in truck driver's school when you had to pass another truck on a curvy two-lane highway? They say that truckers used light signals to help each other pass at night. The first truck to pass a slow poke would hang out over the center line flashing his left signal as long as it was safe for another truck to pass the slow poke.

If the scales were open at night, a driver would turn on his dome light and hold up a log book. Holding a hand over one eye indicated the other trucker had a burned out headlight.

 

ahhh Blackpowder...that took me back almost 30 years....when we first eased out of farming into trucking.... my bro-in-law started driving a crackerbox for the neighbor's..........yea and we too listened to the trucks out on the highway on them summer nights...........we used to have one COE Freightliner with an 8V92.....we called it the "baby"........it had been featured in "Overdrive" magazine she had a sound all her own.......I remember one sumer night beinging "alerted" by a familiar whine off on the highway......I ran to the window and watched a truck make it assent watched it round the curve and then turn on it blinker to get off the highway........yup it was my truck and it was headed home.......I miss those grain haulin days.......