Where is everyone #5

Check!

 

Lookin good.

Looks like your at the Shell station.

 

Got any pics of that 351? I'd like to see it when you get a chance.

 

Yes Sir I will dig some out. Course I will have to take pics of pics. Mama was a believer in the Polaroid camera lol

 

I figured you’d know it. Got me some Taco Bell for breakfast.
Sittin in the mud at El Reno now, waitin my turn to get light.

 

Fist time I can recall is in the jumpseat of the IH loadstar that pulled the lowboy. Sneaking a d8 down the gravel roads from the shop dad was working at to our place. Holding my breath running three ton bridges. Watching dad shift trying to understand how that other lever with the squeeze handle worked. Ran that road with him many times....

First time on a dozer was a couple years before that. My parents were building the house they still live in and the hoe broke that was digging the basement so grandpa brought over his dozer. I can remember sitting beside him on that big 'ol bench trying not to get wacked in the head with the blade arm. He'd do the old one arm seat belt on the way down in the hole and me being scared to death coming up the other side....I was sure we was going over backwards.

 

Unlike many of you, I did not have the advantage of growing up in or around the industry. My first experience with any kind of truck was when I talked my parents into allowing me to go away for the summer and work on a farm, when I was 14.
The farmer had a lapse of good judgement and put me in his 49 Ford 2 ton, with the 2 speed rear ends that had the pull knob in the dash to change ratios. I learned to double clutch in that truck, and that if all went well by the fourth or fifth time you pushed on the brake pedal you might actually have some brakes. I hauled grain about 5 miles into town to the grain elevator with that truck, and no lives were lost (somehow by the grace of God)! I worked there for three summers throughout high school.

My next opportunity was while working on a ranch in Northern Idaho. The ranch owner had purchased hay from Washington, and a local logger who was on a seasonal shut down from logging had removed the bunks from his truck and was hauling hay with a flatbed and pup. We were unloading the hay (by hand of course) and needed to move the truck ahead. He let me move it forward about 20 feet!!!!! It was a beautiful 70s A model KW.

Fast forward a couple of years and I found myself working for a construction contractor, who taught me to drive his 1970 Pete, 318, 5 & 4, Hendrickson rubber biscuit walking beam, pulling a Fruehauf non detach load over the rear lowboy. I have been inflicted with this disease ever since.

 

When you've got Braums across the way? LOL

They say that Ruby's Inn just down from Wal mart is pretty good, never tried it though. They've got truck parking across the street.

 

I'm headed for Londonderry New Hampshire. Getting my practice in with dragging this van. I got about 800 total miles pulling a van, so hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon!

Hahahaha

 

Makes you wonder what kind of memories a kid now a days is going to talk about when he gets in his 40's or so. How good he was at playing on a phone? LOL. Some will have those kind of memories you had JD but so many more will not. Sad state of affairs for sure.

Kids from today miss out on so much, it's such a different world, I'm glad I grew up when I did and how I did, born in '62, last of the baby boomers.