The Dump in mass

I am not much on languages, but one french term sticks out.

Nourris-moi, je me fiche de quoi (Feed me I don't care what, which is really dangerous in french...)

When it comes to payment waving that good American dollar helps ALOT.

 

Mike's Truck Stop Rt 1 Wrentham MA to be accurate.

Had a few great nights there with drivers who knew how to drink beer, build a bonfire, and grilled up some big slabs of beef back in the late 1980's.

I do not know anything about vandalism there, but crossing the highway on foot was not always for the faint of heart.

I started running New England in 1985, and the Mass 10 was still pumping fuel, but the rest of the stop was closed.

Someone above mentioned a stop near Springfield on US 20 - it was an ancient truck stop in Palmer MA, although we called it Wilbraham.

 

There is one more up there, Sturbridge. Now if I can just remember that #### place. I think I stayed there twice. The first time was a fiasco and the second was a experiment to see if its any better. Only to see those fillies come around. Ugh. Thats probably why I don't remember much of there. Nothing BAD mind you, just ... ugh.

One more issue. A thousand pretrips do not kill a trucker. But it will certainly KILL someone out there on the big road if you miss the smallest detail. Thats why the first one was a fiasco after I discovered a pulled kingpin. Came out from under there dirty and greasy top to bottom. Someone fired a hose at me in the 90 degree heat then hit me with the dawn dish soap and watered me down. That helped. SHEESH.

Boss, you got a fix it list.

One sliced airline at trailer, two sliced trailer gladhand lines. Two sliced battery cables. One air tank missing valving at the bottom, no air build up any time soon. As luck would have it you don't have source for those valves within 1000 miles unless you find another tractor just like that one... (Spares anyone?) and a sliced coolant line up top. Nothing too much of a leak then but certainly will when you get moving.

I forget the repair bill its something that turned into a whole lot of profanity.

Thats one of the risks of sending a tenderfoot at 21 out on own without a trainer to hold hand for a week or two in those places.

I never did find that knifer.

 

in my fridge, i'm keeping it cold...........for one of us.........can't remember which one.........

 

i think that was Howell's...??

(i think it was on the Rte 1 by-pass??) cannot fully recall

i had been there a time or 2, or 3 but no more than 4

 

Maybe. I don't recall. And that is a increasing problem with age. I am working on that.

Someone mentioned Dysarts. Now there is another place of special memories.

If anyone ever gets sent to Maine to load Poland Bottle Water, all they have to do is drive uphill until they see the plant.

HE HE HE.

 

what is very annoying, is the google searching of things long gone. with all the information google has stored in thier archives, one would think simple search phrases like. "former truck stops Rte 1 Mass" would at least conjure up something.

so much for America's great search engine.

 

i had been to Poland Springs a few times as well..

at that Howell's truck stop, that was my first time ever, to have a slice of Rhubarb pie. from that day on, anywhere in this country, i'd order that for dessert, or peach cobbler, apple cobbler, pear cobbler......the deserts never ended, and i really did not put on any weight, as i'd have one (or 2) meals a day, someday's, no meal at all....not a good thing to do, but it's what i did.

 

If you ever see the Dutch Country in some of the diners there, near paradise on US30 or Lancaster proper you are going to be fed in a way that you should have been fed from scratch a long time ago.

 

I quit searching that way. I use google earth instead. I'll "Fly" to a known spot from memory and then work from there street by street if need be. Some or most of my stories begin at a known interchange or spot where a problem came up in trucking.

I used to have a batch of REALLY private secret hideaways at the Tuscorora-Manassas-Toms-Creek etc.

ALL of them have been paved under, built over, developed into assisted living and god only knows what else.

Eventually the stories have no value as the actual places no longer exist in time.