Drivers who can actually drive. In all terrain and all weather. Drivers who can fix things. Simple things. Marker lights and radiator hoses and such. Bosses who started with one truck and worked their way up. They know how it is. Dispatchers who used to drive. The good ones, not the kiss butt whiny babies who flunked out as a driver.. Mechanics who can fix things. Really fix them, not just throw parts at a problem. Bosses who realize that a guy with a big red tool box and a snotty attitude isn't always a real mechanic. 6x4 transmissions. If you can't drive one, learn. If you can't learn, go home. Cafes with real food served on real plates. No styrofoam. Free coffee with fuel. A pot of coffee always brewing in the drivers room or the shop. Friday afternoon choir practice with cold beer after the work was done. Pickups backed up in a circle, tailgates down, big cooler of beer in the center.
Might have been Art and Dot's, about 5 miles south of Horse Cave, KY. On 31W, peeled off to right sort of up hill. Probably room for 8 or 10. Could stand in front of the restaurant and look down on 31W passing traffic. Art and Dot both worked their.
Those were the times. We will not pass that way again... Sad too, made everyone feel good about their life.
There are still places where that type of work environment exists. They just don't make a lot of noise about it.
