The Old days are dying and the New drivers only smell like they have.

LOL....Those ol' half cabs with no a/c in the summer and a growling old Detroit combined with about 145" wb ,had to be the roughest rigs there have been since they took em' off wooden spokes and put em' on steel...I can't even fathom how bad your ### would be chapped from your cheeks rubbing together if you ran one from East St.Louie to L.A. and back pulling doubles in the summer...MY GOD!!! You'd be looking for some motor oil to pour in yer crack before you got out of St Clair county.

As for the newbies making it in one,thats a good one.No GPS,no 'puter,no radio,no a/c,no sleeper,a heater that made a ton of noise and blew out just enough heat to avoid full body frostbite OR so much heat that you would have to ride around in your underwear with the windows down,no sound deadening of any kind,almost no gauges excepting oil pressure ,ammeter and a speedo needle that bounced in 15 mph increments,one windsheild wiper and it wouldn't work west of the mississippi because the wind would lift it off the windshield and it would just hunch out in mid air etc etc etc.....

Heres the scenario as I can imagine it....A recent Swift school grad gets transported back in time to 1972....He gets a job with cherry PIE and his first run is coming out of Cheyenne headed for his first drop in SLC....He rolls out of the Bucking Horse Capital with a set of doubles grossed out and hits the big road westbound....after crushing a light pole at his first turn and a pickup trucks left front fender at the next turn,the big road is feeling good to him, even though he's fighting a 60 mph headwind as he climbs for the next 40 miles at 30 mph (since he trained in a auto,he's only been able to find two gears,the one he crushed the pole and truck with and the one he's in now).....2 hours later he hits the summit and is thinking,I'm burning up and this hunching back and forth in the seat is kinda making me butt numb, but hell this ain't tough....He starts on down the little ol' 8 mile hill on the other side and all of a sudden things just ain't workin' right for him,how come when I hold constant light pressure on my brakes they start smokin' out the sides like steam off an old freight train OR not enough and I take off like a bat out of hell he thinks to himself,and why can't I keep this SOB from wallering from one lane to the next and it didn't do it on the way UP the hill,things go bad to worse for our hero as the the tractor is now on the left shoulder,trailer on the centerline and the pup is on the right shoulder and every few SECONDS the tractor and the pup swap positions,after winding the old Detroit up to it's breaking point and being able to read the pups plate number in his rearview mirror his ride is finally over and he lands in a smoldering heap in the right hand ditch after skinning the concrete median dividing wall in a hundred spots.As he lays there in the ditch waiting on the meat wagon to haul him down to a horse doctor in Laramie,he replays the events that lead him to where he is now and he still can't figure it out.All he really knows for sure is that his ### cheeks seem to be chapped.

 

LOL... sounds kinda familiar. I started in one of these:



...spring suspension, manual steering with, hell, like a 26 inch steering wheel?? It was big, that's for sure! It'd beat your kidneys out going across 10 in Louisiana. Unfortunately too, the sleeper wasn't giant like the one pictured here, LOL—just enough room to lay sideways after you crawled up over the doghouse.

I remember the guy who was supposed to be training me, laying back in the sleeper while I took my first trip through St. Louis. I was scared sh**less trying to hold that old beast in the lane while traffic whizzed around me.

And here's another trip down memory-lane... remember having to make sure your multitude of stickers on the side of the cab were up to date? Or multiple license plates plastering the whole front of your Transtar?

 

Man i had tears running down my face that was just to funny.
I take it you remember them half trucks.

Lets get one of the 6 biggest company's top drivers and have us a race ye ha ride um half cab

 

Hey Barcode if you make it a White paint it white and cut that bumper down to a 3rd of what your showing that would be me 30 years ago reason for the small bumper was my boss would say it ain't makn me any money. will get 10 more pounds in that 48 footer of ours

 

LOL...I tip my hat to you as you are a true cowboy if you had to buck one of those bad girls out...Looking at that truck there reminds me of how stupid I really am...I see it and think"You know,them old things were kinda cool looking and just because that spring suspension was a "tad"rough,I wouldn't mind taking a trip in one....I hope my next wife is a psychologist and maybe with meds and the proper therapy I'll be well again...lol..

Yes I do remember the stickers and I also remember that most state DOT employees had better than 20/20 vision...I also remember some permits being marked in with a magic marker and a`prayer that who ever looked at it was either color blind or couldn't remember what color they were supposed to REALLY be..

 

I'm sorry, guys. But those half cabs were UGLY trucks!

(Hey, Muleskinner -- I found ya' one with a sleeper. Looks downright comfy, too! )

 

LOL... I have been guilty of the same thoughts. In fact, just down the road from me, a guy has an old Transtar parked in his yard with weeds growing up through the frame. Every time I drive past it, I think to myself, "I wonder if he wants to sell that old thing...? I wonder if it runs?"

Yep... certifiably crazy!

 

LMAO....How would you like to be so broke that if it cost 10 cents to crap you'd just have to go ahead and puke...You finally get a job thats gonna advance you a bit of money and pay you a decent wage for driving...You shake hands with the man and you are tickled to death as he leads you around the shop to show you your new coast to coast ride and there sits THAT THANG with nothing else on the lot to even give you a seconds worth of false hope.....KILL ME you would scream.LOL

 

ye ha put a 8 yard drum on the back and fill it with mud I'm headun for the site

 

LOL...You are as sick as me....look in my pics at that ugly azzed homemade looking Reo....I've got that #### truck just about traded for and I need it like I need a rectum on my forehead....It has NO redeeming qualities whatsoever,but my buddy bought it off a buddy who bought it new and I've known the old truck forever and I keep thinking...."I could make me a toter out of it for my camper"....Yeah right....my old lady is going to have a high speed rotational come apart when I come wheeling up in the yard with that grass killer.