“How long have you been driving?” he inquired with a gentle earnestness.
“This is my first delivery,” I admitted.
As it turned out, he was the Receiving supervisor at True Value and a 40-year trucking veteran. “I don’t mean to tell you your business,” he humbly advanced, “but would you like me to help you out?”
I was embarrassed, but I knew I’d gotten in over my head. I politely allowed the friendly old fellow to take over. I’ll admit that it dashed my confidence when he maneuvered the truck out of the mess I’d made with precision and ease. Back at the receiving docks, he even had one of his guys to assist me in untarping and unstrapping my load. When the work was complete, I thanked him for his help and apologized for my rookie mistake. He just smiled and said, “Don’t worry, it’ll get better.”
“I hope so,” I answered with a sigh.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I would meet other kind and endearing people, like this man, in my travels and I would meet others who were not. Nonetheless, I knew that a new adventure lay before me. Despite the blunders of today, my mood was upbeat again. I may have taken a couple of wrong turns and hit a few potholes along the way, but I had successfully made my first delivery. Today had offered the lesson that in trucking, as in life, the path to our destination is rarely a straight one.
Week 1: Coon Dogs and the Lizard Man
The first delivery of my first full solo week was to Simpsonville, South Carolina. This one, thankfully, went very smoothly; the directions were accurate, it was easy to get to, and they unloaded me quickly. This trend, however, would prove to be of the one-in-a-row variety. My next pickup was at International Paper in Newberry, South Carolina.
Newberry, I learned, is home to a witness who reported a sighting of a reptilian monster in 2005 called The Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp. The Lizard Man is described as being seven feet tall with green, scaly skin and glowing red eyes.[1] The woman in Newberry reported to the police that she had seen two creatures resembling the Lizard Man near her home. The responding officer, in an effort to calm the frightened woman, told her the creatures “just like to check on humans from time to time.” While I cannot claim a Lizard Man sighting in Newberry, I still had a bizarre experience of my own there.
My directions said to go 4 miles past the first light in Newberry and the shipper would be on the right. What they should have said was to go POINT FOUR (.4) miles after the light. I saw International Paper on the right, just as I zoomed past.
Newberry is a town with narrow streets and many of them are one-way. It was undoubtedly not designed with trucks pulling 48-foot trailers in mind. I finally spotted a road that (almost) appeared to have adequate width to make a left turn, so I gave it a shot. I had to back up a few times and go up on a grassy embankment to avoid taking out a stop sign, but I finally made it back to the interstate and re-entered Newberry to try again.
Déjà vu! I turned into the wrong gate again and the only way out would be to do a blindside backing maneuver into the street similar to the one in Greenwood. I could not believe this! I was starting to feel like God’s Hacky sack!
I panicked for a while and looked around, in hopes of seeing another elderly white-haired man. I slowly began to calm myself and then resolved to do what I had to. After a few failed attempts, I managed to get out of there no worse for the wear. While I was fuming at myself for making the same mistake twice, I was happy that I’d been able to clean up my own mess this time. Nevertheless, I determined that a goal worth striving for might be to NOT get into these predicaments in the first place.
I picked up lumber in Newberry, which delivered to Littleville, Alabama. Littleville, mercifully, went very smoothly. On the way to Littleville, I saw a sign for the Coon Dog Cemetery on Highway 72ALT near Tuscumbia, Alabama. At first, I thought it was a joke, but it is a legitimate burial site exclusively for coon dogs.
A man named Key Underwood established the Coon Dog Cemetery in 1937 in tribute to his faithful coon dog, Troop. It is the only cemetery of its kind in the world. Today, more than 185 coon dogs from all across the United States rest in this northwest Alabama memorial.
While I may have had an initial chuckle, I learned that the memory of a loyal coonhound is no joke to an avid coon hunter. When a columnist interviewed Underwood in 1985 and asked why he didn’t allow other kinds of dogs to be buried there, his reply was:
“You must not know much about coon hunters and their dogs if you think we would contaminate this burial place with poodles and lap dogs.”[2]
From Littleville, I went to Jackson, Tennessee to load steel beams. The massive girders being ferried around by giant magnets appeared quite intimidating. I was glad that I got to stay in the truck the whole time. Afterward, having never tarped steel beams before, I wasn’t quite sure how to attack the problem. Fortunately, another company driver out of Savannah spotted my dilemma and was good enough to assist me.
“I remember what it was like.” he laughed.
I’ve heard many old-timers complain that trucking is not a brotherhood as it once was. I’m sure that is true but, in my own experience, I’ve found that most drivers are willing to help one another if the situation calls for it. On the other hand, I have encountered the "every man for himself" attitude as well. But the majority of drivers are honest, hardworking men and women who are willing to lend a hand.
After tarping the steel, I was worn out. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I would be taking this load to Jacksonville, Florida tomorrow.
Aside from having to wait for over two hours to be unloaded, Jacksonville went well. From there, I went to Georgia Pacific in Savannah to pick up a load of drywall. This one tested my mettle because, not only did I have to back into a tiny dock with my still-limited backing skills, it was also pouring rain, transforming the entire yard into an enormous mud pit. By the time I had secured my load in this veritable pigpen, I probably looked like a creature that had emerged from Scape Ore Swamp in Newberry. As I sloshed back to the cab covered in mud, for a brief instant, I missed my comfortable TV job. I was covered in mud and muck, my feet were wet, and I had sprouted a world-class blister on my right hand. One of the bungee cords had popped off and snapped me in the forehead, so I was wearing an impressive knot as well. As the rain continued to pound down, to my utter astonishment, I began to feel invigorated—even euphoric! I couldn’t wrap my mind around it but, for the first time in years, I felt… alive.
I returned to the terminal for a much-needed shower. The muck and grime of the day’s labor washed away and along with it, any inclination of returning to my former life. This was still extremely hard on me, but I realized that I was embracing the challenge. Knowing that, the blisters and bumps, along with my weary frame, didn’t hurt so much anymore.
My final delivery of the first week went to Alexandria, Alabama. My driver manager tried to give me another run after that, but I told him I was exhausted after my first week and needed to go home. He didn’t put up much of a fight and, three hours later, I was back in Scottsboro having completed my first week. The second week, however, would once again cause me to question whether I had made the right decision in becoming a trucker.
Week 2: Accident on I-85
The beginning and the end of the second week truly made me question whether I wanted to be a truck driver. I left on Sunday evening to make a delivery in Greenville, South Carolina. I was driving on I-85 at 10pm, about twenty miles east of Carnesville, Georgia when I felt a jarring BANG on the left side of my trailer. My eyes leaped to the mirror to see an automobile hanging in the air at a 45-degree angle before it was swept into a cyclonic whirl. It was a surreal sensation to then watch it flip backward into the nocturnal distance as its headlights blinked away into lifelessness.
The thoughts that enter your mind during a time of shock are often ridiculous. When I lived in upstate New York, I recall going into a skid in my Chevy Nova on an icy winter morning. As my car slid toward a log fence, I remember thinking, j
ust before the moment of impact; I wonder if my insurance covers this?
After the car had slammed into my trailer on I-85, I had two thoughts: the first was predictable. Holy Shit! The second was: Maybe no one noticed. I was so shaken that nowhere on the side of the road looked like a safe place to pull over, so I rolled to the next truck stop. I got out to see the horrific aftermath: bent landing gear a torn mud flap, a dolly crank handle that was twisted into a pretzel, and assorted fiberglass and plastic debris from the car that hit me which was now lodged in the trailer. Yes, someone would notice!
I knew I had to call the authorities, but I first walked into the truck stop in an effort to calm myself to the point where I’d stop shaking. I should have stopped immediately, as soon as the accident happened, but my state of disarray caused me to make the wrong decision. I finally calmed myself and resolved to do the right thing. I went back to the truck and called the police and the company home office. After waiting for over an hour for two officers to arrive, they eventually instructed me to return to the scene of the accident.
When I arrived back at the scene, no one was there. I wondered whether I was in the right place until I saw broken glass alongside the road. I called the police again and finally got in contact with the investigating officer. He told me that the investigation was over, and he didn’t need to see me unless I wanted to see him. I politely informed him that I did not. The home office seemed satisfied when I relayed this to them, and I never heard anything more about the matter.
I learned two things from this misadventure: first; safety out here requires being careful and being lucky and, second; I needed to keep my head screwed on straight in a time of crisis. I had made the wrong initial decision, but I had gotten lucky—next time, I might not.
Though there was nothing I could have done to prevent what happened, I hoped that no one was injured. I never found out what caused the accident because the officer didn’t tell me, and I didn’t want to risk annoying him by asking pesky questions. I returned to the truck stop and removed the two largest pieces of fiberglass from my trailer. I didn’t know what kind of car had struck me; the only thing I knew for sure was…it was red.
After delivering to Greenville, I picked up a load in Kinards, South Carolina and took it to Marianna, Florida. The next few days went smoothly and I put the events of Sunday night behind me. Jacksonville is where a fresh, steaming pile of despair waited to squish between my bare rookie toes.
I was to pick up a "drop & hook" load from Celotex, which was adjacent to the Jacksonville terminal. After I dropped my empty trailer and then hooked up to the pre-loaded one, I intended to shut down for the night at the terminal. But when I moved the truck forward, I heard a sickening, crunching sound that prompted me to stop immediately and look in my mirror. My load leaned and swayed precariously to and fro like a drunken sailor. The look of stunned horror on my face could not have been more profound if I’d suddenly discovered an electric eel clamped onto my crotch.
The "yard dog", or on-site driver for Celotex, had left the dollies up too high when he dropped the trailer. Consequently, when I thought I had hooked up to the load, my trailer kingpin had actually traveled past the fifth wheel and snagged onto something on the underside of the trailer. But it wasn’t actually hooked to anything. With more experience, I would have recognized that something was amiss from the "feel", but I was still a rookie who was, apparently, intent on compiling an impressive resume of mistakes. In hindsight, I could have dollied the landing gear to its full height and then used my ratchet bar to manipulate the fifth wheel past the kingpin. But I had not learned this trick yet and I was too upset to formulate a logical solution. I called the home office and they sent a tow truck.
The two hours I spent waiting for the tow truck provided ample opportunity for me to once again question whether I was cut out for this. For all I knew, this would mark the end of my brief trucking career. I had, however, learned another hard and valuable lesson. Thereafter, I visually inspected the lineup of the kingpin to the fifth wheel when I hooked up to a trailer. I still adhere today to this practice…I don’t care what other drivers do.
When the tow truck corrected the problem, I took my truck to the terminal shop to ensure that there was no damage to the fifth wheel. The shop technician was a tall, crusty-tempered man named Jack. His face was plastered with the expression of a man who had just found half a cockroach in his breakfast biscuit. He looked to be around 60, and his leathery features appeared to be those of a former boxer who had suffered a broken nose at least a dozen times.
To be sure, Jack was being an asshole of colossal proportions, but instead of countering his verbal diatribe with an attack of my own, I just kept being nice to him. His unpleasantness slowly began to subside, and his disdainful glare was gradually replaced by glances of casual indifference. The fifth wheel was fine, but he found another problem that would require me to leave my truck in the shop overnight. To my utter surprise, Jack called a nearby Econolodge and arranged a motel room for me. He was actually being nice to me now!
After enjoying the comfort of a real bed, I returned to the terminal the next morning to pick up my truck, but it wouldn’t be ready until after lunch. My delivery was due in Stockbridge, Georgia this evening but, owing to the delays, I would not make it. I informed dispatch and they told me to drop the load at the Atlanta terminal.
The delay was longer than expected and I didn’t get to Atlanta until midnight. I picked up another load at the terminal for a Monday delivery and started heading toward Bridgeport for my "weekend" off. I stopped at a rest area in Resaca, Georgia for a quick respite. When I sat down on the sleeper, my exhausted body convinced me to stay there. I went to bed and rolled into Bridgeport on Saturday morning. This week of hellish misadventure was finally over.
Week 3: School of Hard Knocks
I left on Sunday night to take my load to Greenwood, Mississippi—the site of my very first delivery. Greenwood is known as the Cotton Capital of the world. It also boasts a rich history of the Delta Blues. The legendary Robert Johnson has three memorial gravestones in the Greenwood area and The King of the Blues, B.B. King, performed his first live broadcast on Greenwood’s WGRM radio station in 1940. Greenwood is also one of the few places in the world where you can stand between two rivers flowing in the opposite direction: the Yazoo River and the Tallahatchie River.[3]
One of the recruiting pitches of some trucking companies is: Get paid to see America. In truth, it is extremely rare to get an opportunity to behave like a tourist. You are performing a job and, if you want to make any money, you won’t be donning Mickey Mouse ears at Disney World. Even when the occasion presents itself, I typically prefer to relax, watch a movie, and catch up on my sleep. More often than not, truckers are at a loading dock, in an industrial district, at a truck stop, or parked at a rest area or terminal when they shut off the engine…no matter what city they are in.
The delivery in Greenwood went fine this time and, since I had driven the previous night, I went to the Pilot truck stop in Winona, Mississippi to shut down for the evening. I would be picking up at the Georgia Pacific plant in New Augusta, Mississippi in the morning.
When I arrived in New Augusta, the shipping department could not locate my pickup number. This was because dispatch had sent me to the wrong Georgia Pacific plant in the WRONG CITY! They should have sent me to Bay Springs. Drivers and dispatchers often share a forced relationship, and blunders like this do nothing to promote a more harmonious union. By the time I got to Bay Springs, I had probably expended every expletive in the English language, and maybe even the two or three Spanish ones I know.
I picked up a load of lumber in Bay Springs to deliver to Franklin, Tennessee. The trip went nicely and then I was off to Erlanger, Kentucky to pick up a load of ladders. When I got to the weigh station in Simpson County, Kentucky, I was pulled aside for a full DOT inspection. The officer checked everything and, after almost an hour of incessant probing, all he found was a minor defe
ct with one of the trailer air hoses. Fortunately, he did not give me a citation for it and I was on my way again.
When I got to Erlanger, the guard instructed me to drop my empty trailer in a dock and then get my pre-loaded one. My backing skills were slowly improving, but I totally fouled up my effort to get to the loading dock. My rattled nerves caused me to ferry back and forth in a vain struggle for what seemed like an eternity. Another flatbed driver witnessed my strife and came over to offer his assistance. By this time, I was so distraught that I was glad to accept his offer. He made it look easy and, after I thanked him, I made a vow that this would be the last time another driver would have to bail me out of a pickle barrel.
At first sight of the towering mass of ladders I’d be hauling to Frostproof, Florida, I might have been as awe-stricken as the ancient Babylonians peering heavenward at the Tower of Babel. As a rookie, this was the first load of ladders I’d ever encountered and I was having trouble getting past my initial reaction: Damn they were stacked high!
After overcoming my shock and awe, I began throwing my straps across the mountainous heap. I got one of the straps lodged in a pile of ladders and had to climb up and perform a series of contortionist moves to remove it. Then, I missed a throw and the metal end of the strap fell from high above and whacked my forehead, causing me to take a couple of wobbly steps as sparkly little fireflies appeared at the edges of my vision. My knot from Savannah had healed, but this was going to give me a much more impressive one—hell, I was going to have a horn!
I finally secured the load and then I headed back toward Bridgeport. This load was scheduled in Frostproof on Monday, so I left it at the terminal over the weekend. I made it back to Bridgeport and, somehow, I now had three weeks of solo trucking under my belt.
Week 4: Hooterville
Spirit of the Road Page 3