Whats the worst load?

I had to tailgate 73 couches that were stacked to the ceiling in the 110 degree texas heat.....:smt101

 

The sheepskins is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. I hauled a load of brazillian lumber that came out of a container, thats not so bad right, well two things 1. Each bundle was banded to pallets with only two plastic bands which meant every bundle had shifted majorly. 2. Each bundle was covered in some kind of Boweevils or something nasty looking bugs that I wasnt about to touch. They told me I had to tarp this junk and I quickly replied "Are you willing to climb all over these shifted pallets with bugs all over it?" Needless to say it went untarped.

 

Years ago I hauled carpet. They would cram them rolls in there like sardines. Might have 20-30 drops per day. Most places did not have docks or forktrucks. Had to fingerprint everything. It was a real pain just to tailgate that stuff. Had a rope, meat hook, and a 2 wheel dolly and a little 4 wheel dolly. Sometimes I had to tie a rope to a lightpole in big parking lots like plazas where paint stores was with no forktrucks. Would drag the rolls off. I used to have a strong back with that job. Notice I said used to have! That job about done me in.

 

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While team driving for Tri-State Motor Transit, I hauled a load of unstable explosives from Hanford Works, WA to the burial caves at Paducah, KY. The weight of the load consisted of drums of anti-freeze. In each drum, a leather sack of explosives was suspended in the anti-freeze on three coil springs. At Paducah, we were not allowed in the gate until each drum was opened to verify that the sacks were still suspended.

 

I hauled molten aluminum in crucibles from a smelter in Benton Harbor to various automotive casting plants in Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. At Hydromatic in Toledo, the driver is required to unload. We were provided with a leather jacket, chaps, and spats. I bought my own welder's gloves , hard hat and heavy face shield. The driver prepares a trough similar to that on a cement mixer although the seams are filled with ceramic mud. Then, a handle is attached to the plug and the plug is loosened with a heavy hammer. The driver pulls the plug and steps back quickly because the hot metal shoots out of the crucible like water out of a fire hose. The driver prepares the cone-shaped plug with a new asbestos sock, and when the first furnace is full, he plugs the crucible and pulls the rig forward to the second furnace.

 

The most hazardous load that I hauled in tankers was a load of caustic phosphate. While unloading, I wore a rubber suit. The Bill of Lading required the unloading location to have an outdoor shower or a hose with the water running at all times.

 

While team driving for Tri-State Motor Transit, I hauled low-level radioactive waste from a Yankee Atomic Electric plant at Rowe, MA to a burial ground at West Valley, NY. The waste was in a lead lined cask on a drop-deck. We wore pocket dosemeters and film badges that had to be filed with our personnel department after delivery. Before departing West Valley, we had to place our hands and boots in a radiation detector in the guard shack. There was a story at Tri-State about another driver who was required to leave his boots at West Valley due to radiation contamination. The company bought him a new pair of boots.

 

Grand Coulee Dam was the scene of a construction project in 1969 when I drove for Tri-State. We unloaded dynamite into quonset huts with portable roller conveyors. The fumes in the trailer gave me a sick headache that only hurt when I bent over. Of course, I was bent over for several hours while finger-printing the boxes of dynamite onto the conveyor.

 

While pulling a reefer, I had a load of margarine to Viking Foods in Muskegon. The floor load had to be finger-printed onto their large, heavy, wet freezer pallets. Unstacking the pallets and dragging them into the trailer probably caused my hernias, although I could not prove it because there was no sudden, excruciating pain. As an independent contractor, I paid my own workman's compensation insurance premium (1% of the gross revenue). Then, the insurance company refused to pay. My other health policy paid for the operation, and I took six weeks to recover.