this is for the old timer's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Buckhorn was Travel Port's line of restaurants. Only Buckhorn restaurant on I-40 was in Candler, North Carolina. Now a T/A.

 

I'm just wondering what you mean by "old timers?" And what qualifies someone to an old timer? I'd have to say it was someone that started driving in the 60's or maybe early 70's.
I started in 01. Retired in 2016.

 

I don't know if I qualify myself as an "old timer", but I'm sure younger people would. Started in '75, and am on the back side of 60. I started very young, actually underage.

 

It's hard to imagine people born in 2000 are either 21 or 22 years old.

I think I need a nap. LMAO

 

Let's try to define it.
By the numbers if someone started driving OTR tractor trailers in 1965, They would have been born in 1945, and be 77 years old now. So lets make that an average, give or take 10 years. Beyond that, they are probably no longer with us, or young enough not to have been driving before the 3 great divides that have occurred in this business.
1. Deregulation 1980. I think the old timers here will agree that had a major impact.
2. The CDL requirement, which occurred in 1992
3. The completion of the interstate highway system. Originally targeted for 1972, in reality it didn't occur until 1990.

So I am right on the edge, started driving straight job delivery trucks at age 18 in 1971, bought my first tractor in 1976 at age 22.
But this sign is hanging in my kitchen. Keep it in mind

 

I wish I had a sticker like this for the door of my truck.

 

Anyone who started driving with a mechanical engine and 2 sticks is an old timer.

 

Well then I guess I qualify.
In 1974 and 1975 I was running Ford F-950 tandem dump trucks with 534 cid gas powered V-8 engines with a 5 speed main box and a 4 speed aux box.
Our boss was too cheap to buy the optional Cummins power, thought they were too much trouble.
The trucks averaged about 3 miles to the gallon.
Walking beam suspension. No AC.

 

Guess I qualify then.

 

Hey that's the truck my dad had, first truck I ever drove. 534 ford, as a kid I remember it being called a T950 .because of the tandem drive (?) but ours was a 5 and 3. Got rid of that and upgraded to a B63 Mack 262 cummings and a 5 x 4 jake brake too. Sad ending, my dad lost air going down a mountain haul road when I was a soph in high school. he lost his life.

The trucking bug bit me at a young age. My old man sure would have been in aw to have seen my, first, ordered from the dealer Pete 359, big ### cat, 13 speed, black lots of chrome. He always had bare bones work trucks and no money, and worked his fingers to the bone.