Why did you get into trucking?

I have been attracted to big trucks for as long as I can remember. I never thought I would actually ever drive one, but the fascination has always been there. Add that to the fact that I have always been a gypsy spirit, both inherited and acquired, and that is why I recently got my CDL. After being raised a poor hillbilly, and then getting educated, I am searching for what I was meant to do.

 

I wasn't gonna post here since I got out of trucking and haven't gotten back in yet, awaiting a better economy...but you guys reminded me of summer evenings as a kid in Sweetwater Texas on the little Air Force station there next to the interstate...I-20 I think it was.
I'd listen to the big rigs and imagine the life, the living in the truck as I'd smell the diesel, rubber and grease on the night air. Thru the years, I've taken also to camping with motorcycles, small campers on my pickup, hiking with tents, and somehow this has sort of a relationship: my little cooking stuff, the shrunken amenities of comfort, the making of your evening setup and sleeping with the cover of your cab, tent, or camper taking care of you.
Trucking just sort of fell back into place there for me.
With my big garage shop filled with tools, house full of furniture, equipment, electronics, and US...it's hard to believe that at one of the happiest times of my life I had nothing but a harley, clothes, a toolkit, and a tent. Where I rented, the bike stayed in the back room or living room. Happiness doesn't come from all our crap, really.

 

I have ADHD-PTSD, couldn't sit still after Vietnam. You weren't one of the lsast cowboys. Good grief, NM, CO, TX, KS and WY, MT, etcetc have a lot of REAL COWBOYS, you aint one MR Truckie, youre just a driver. I was living on a Ranch in NM and started driving truck to get out of it. Cowboying for a living is boring, hard work, dirty and you can get hurt and by the time you're 55 you ahve arthritis in every joint. It's a myth. Horses hate you, cows hate you, and the weather is too hot too cold too dry or too wet or too snowy and all the animals do is try to die on you.

 

Wanted to drive since I was a kid. First attempt was back in 87. Went to school, down in Bridgeport CT. Before completing had a bad wreck, that nearly killed the wife and me (16 broken bones for her). Well after months of recovery, I never went back to finish.. Back in 05 was laid off from a job I had for 5 yrs making $64K a yr in a paper mill.. Wasn't able for find another job, to pay the mortgage and pay the bills. Went back to school and got my CDL in June 05 and so the adventure began.. I had to sell the house of 8yrs move from CT to Texas to live with the in laws for a few months, as we had no where else to go, after the bills were paid off. Did otr 1yr and now doing local.. Thinking about going back otr, once the youngest is out of school, and the house..

 

I was a tank driver in Viet Nam and got to drive a few small trucks.After I came home,I spent 12yrs in the National Gaurd with a combat engineer unit.There I learned to drive all the equipment including 10 ton lowbeds.
I started my present job in 1975 as a janitor.I took the job because of the potential for job advancement and security.
In 1981, I started driving our 40 ft.Motorcoach and filling in on driving a box truck or tractor trailer when somone was out.I also drove an armoured truck at night.
1991 I started driving tractor trailer full time.
I love driving anything especially something I haven't driven before.Truck driver is the perfect job for me.I'm my own boss ,I never get bored,and the money is great.

 

I can tell you never worked for CFI.

They had a driver that used to tie his truck up at night, until he snatched a lightpole over one morning LMMFAO

Trucking is the only industry that I know of, that does the cowboy thing on weekends.

Doctors don't do it..Lawyers don't do it...Waiters don't do it. etc etc etc

 

Let's see if I can keep this short, simple, to the point, and as real as possible.

My dad has been trucker all my life. When I was 3 or 4 years old, he took me on a run with him from just north of Champaign, IL to Effingham, IL. He admitted to me a few years ago that he wasn't especially looking forward to it since I was the "are we there yet" kid anytime we'd go anywhere in the old station wagon. He went on to say that after an hour or so, he knew I was going to one day follow in his tire tracks. He said I was beaming the whole way and never once griped about sitting in the old day cab Mack for so long (a whopping 4 or 5 hours total). In fact, he said I cried when it was time to get out of the truck.

From that day on, I always dreamed of being a driver. "Smokey and the Bandit" came out, and I couldn't wait to see it in the theater. "BJ and The Bear" was my 2nd favorite TV show (Dukes of Hazard was my first). Jerry Reed's "Smokey and the Bandit" soundtrack was my first album (the old vynyl ones) and I about drove my mom and my sisters nuts wanting to listen to it.

I also had a huge collection of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars as a kid, and there were plenty of semis in that collection. I even had a larger Ertl brand tractor trailer that I was able to sit on the trailer of and deliver loads all over the country without ever leaving the hallway, kitchen, or living room of our house. This toy wasn't designed to be sat on, so as I grew up it stopped being a rider toy. I do believe the small guaged steel axles were pretty bent on it by the time I finally stopped "driving" that truck. This was also years after my parents divorced and my dad moved to Tennessee.

Some time later my mom and step dad bought a small farmstead near I-55 north of Bloomington, IL. During the summer, when school was out and my chores were done, I'd ride my bike down to the overpass and watch all the traffic buzz by under me. I'd pump my arm up and down at every truck that went by. A lot of them would honk back, but some wouldn't. To this day, I always honk at a kid when he/she gives me the universal honk sign. I remember feeling all broken hearted when they wouldn't honk back. More than that, I would always be fascinated by where those trucks had been and what they had seen.

By the time I was 16 and had my operator's license, I was already very fluent with pulling and backing a trailer from the days of living on the farm. There were several times that I pulled our livestock trailer loaded with hogs to the market with just my learner's permit and my mom in the passenger seat of the pick up truck. I couldn't wait to put those skills to work by driving a big truck. However, my mom couldn't wait for me to go to college and stay as far away from driving a truck as possible. She always told me I was "too smart" to be a truck driver. To this day, my oldest sister still says the same thing. I still say they're both nuts. However, my college fund was lost in the market crash of '87 (or was it '88?), and I was going to have to pay my own way through college. I was enrolled in a junior college for one semester, but just couldn't picture myself living the life that would have been with a college degree working in some cubicle or other type of office.

I worked in numerous warehouses and factories loading trucks and working on assembly lines. I even managed to work my way into a few office positions, but was never truly happy. On weekends, I'd often just go for a drive with no particular destination in mind just to relax. Sometimes I'd end up going three or four hundred miles before turning around. Unfortunately, I wouldn't always obey the law and earned a few too many driving awards over the years, including two suspensions for driving without insurance. When I tried to hire on with Schneider in '98, they informed me that I wasn't quite their calibur of driver and that I needed to wait a few years for things to fall off my record. That led me to going back to school for a medical profession.

Finally, after that stint in the medical field that didn't pan out as I'd hoped, I found myself in a position to be able to go to a CDL school. An acquaintance of mine told me about the school he was going to attend in the St. Louis area and the rest is history.

The very first time I drove my trainer's truck, I drove 10 hours from Mt. Vernon, MO to Eaton, OH grinning from ear to ear.

Nowadays I have those days where I get frustrated and am relatively unhappy, however as I often say, my worst day trucking is still better than my best day in a factory or warehouse or office or sleep disorder lab.


So much for short and simple, but I can assure you this is very real.

 

I am currently a school teacher in the state budget crisis. I already accepted an $18,000.00 cut to get out of CA and now they want another 6% salary cut and 14% reduction in force. I have been teaching 13 years, still paying student loans for a $48,000 yr job that may not exist after June. Glorified as teaching may be, I am expendable. My husband has been unemployed for the past 5 months. Construction industry is at a standstill. We want to be together (married for 26 years) and want to team drive. We want to get into trucking as a team. He has a worthless CDL (all endorsements and hazmat) without recent experience. I need to train. We want to be owner/operators. Any recommendations or warnings?