Zero motor freight anyone remember or drive for these guys?

where you at now

 

in my days , nov83-nov85 zero had a terminal just no. of the old cowboy stadium . all the down time was spent in the nearby texas-size TT-bars . we used to stay at the anchor motel on harry hines blvd where there were more hookers than regular customers

 

i see that 10 years later, nothing had changed . during my last week, i got a load in new orleans for n. texas , i think . stopped to party in lafayette, la on my birthday . got up late when i was supposed to be delivering already, called in to tell them i was out of hours and i was told to let them know AHEAD of time when i was going to run out of hours next time . i answered there would be no next time since it was my last run and it still did not register with that dispatcher that i was not doing what he wanted anymore . i am still smiliing about it .

 

almost retired . driving a school bus for the last few years before social security . after driving for so many small companies, while "fixing" the paperwork so we never ran out of hours, my last job was as a "cold weenie" (for not mentioning a company name) and i never managed to abide by large company rules .

 

My husband and I drove team for Zero leased from W H Kale. Mr. Kale was like a father to us. When my hubby died of heart attack Mr. Kale called me 6 mo later and asked if I was ready to go back to work. Heck yea!! Loved bringing "Mikey" cookies from mom every time he sent us out with load to Sacramento area. Spent the weekend at parent's place in Nevada City. "Cherry Picker" would leave a note on windshield saying hi every time. Love Bobbie in mechanics bay at Zero, fun guy. He'd holler "DeHart"!! as I came in. I was Cajun Lady and hubby Coonass Cowboy. Second hubby 10 yrs later was King Bee. Then we left to drive for US Xpress in 1990. The Dallas yard was fun for a quick stop.

 

Really old thread, but my time at Zero was long ago.
I drove for Bunny Tricks, leased to Zero in the 1977-1980 timeframe. Took a year off after a divorce and drove for a CA firm hauling produce from CA to Montreal and fifth wheels, glue, or cable backhauls.
Bunny was a great boss, and made the time tolerable. Freightliner cabovers, 40 and 42 foot reefers and dry boxes, 55 mph, 55 foot length, 73,680 lb limits, and a book full of permits and Rights. It is much better today.
Taught 4 different women to drive when women drivers were almost non existent. That is also much better today.
Retired now, hearing aids from the noisy cabovers, bad back from humping too many tons of frozen stuff, but good memories of seeing the beautiful USA one mile at a time.

 

Zero did the California stuff mostly and McCurdy (Houston based) did mostly PacNW. A different world then. No way today's breed of driver could survive if they had to time travel back to that era and live with no more than was available then.

But it was good times because it was what it was. Most aspects of trucking today are far better then "the Zero Motor Freight days", but there were aspects of that era that I greatly miss.

 

I drove for Zero in 1975 out of the Dallas terminal as a second driver for an owner/operator known as Tuffy (Henry Gibbard) who lives in Goldthwaite. The company was then known as Zero Refrigerated Lines and I started at six cents per mile. Henry was a great guy and taught me a ton of important stuff about trucking (it was my first job after truck school).

A typical trip would start with a load of edible oils products from Safeway in Denison, Texas. We would haul it to Safeway in Anaheim, then pick up a load at Kal Kan in Studio City and haul it to Safeway in Seattle. Next we would load spuds at Tri Cities and haul them back down to Texas and start all over again. We were doing a turn every week. Of course, everything that went on or off that truck had our fingerprints it.

The truck was a ‘73 Freightliner with a 350 Cummins and a 13 speed that Henry had bought from Butch Schuman, a cattle hauler also from Goldthwaite. Running the mountains out west was a real adventure and memories of my first time down the Grapevine and Cabbage Hill still raise a sweat whenever I think about them.

I had a good experience at Zero.

 

I was just considering a rebirth in the trucking industry and how i could get someone to be a reference for experience i gained at Zero Motor Freight. I drove on a team from San Antonio to LA, CA, IL, Dallas etc. The memories i have reloading my trailer for weight distribution, reefer problems, and team members that would stop at the scale house and ask If Yankees were considered illegal aliens was part of the reasons i left, but i gained a lot of time in the drivers seat. and a steady paycheck.