I had run into some legal trouble driving for SHOWCO when we were in Michigan in late 1978. I was on a Black Sabbath tour. I was snagged having too much fun in public. The trouble was enough of a head’s up that I decided to take a break from Rock n Roll and go back home to Maryland where life was less fast lane and more slow lane.
A friend hooked me up with a smallish freight hauler out of Salisbury on the Eastern Shore. The carrier was Wheatley Trucking. They delivered mostly processed food stuffs and fresh produce on the back hauls up and down the Atlantic seaboard.
Being the low man on the totem pole, I was issued a very tired International Transtar with a 250 Cummins engine that was barely able to get out of its own way. The steering wheel had 8 inches of dead play from center. There was serious side to side motion when I checked the front wheels. It was filthy. But it meant I had a job, so I cleaned it up and drove it.
The other negative of being the "new guy" was I picked up the runs none of the other drivers wanted. Mostly they were loads that were not skidded and had to be loaded by hand. At the big distribution centers like Hunts Point, I could hire some help to load or unload, but since the per mile pay was so lousy, I often just toughed it out alone.
I only mention my experience with Wheatley because of two specific back hauls I suffered through. The first one came in my third week.
I had delivered canned soup to Hunts Point in the Bronx. My back haul was a load of potatoes to be picked up in Aroostook County, Maine over 600 miles from Hunt's Point. Empty miles were not paid at the same rate as loaded miles. I whined some about the distance and managed to talk them out of a cent or two more per mile. Dispatch though contended the loaded miles coming back would be excellent. I never did see excellent miles at any point with Wheatley.
I headed to Maine to find Aroostook County. I had an address and a phone number but that was it. At that time much of Aroostook County had few official towns. They were designated as unorganized townships (TWP with a number). I ended up lost on a dirt road that ran from nowhere to more nowhere and offered nowhere to turn around. So I backed up for what seemed like miles though it probably wasn't. I don’t know why a truck backing up covers more ground relative to truck moving forward.
I finally spotted a local Mainer in overalls who was quite helpful and got me back on track. I found the farm. Farmer guy was waiting at the gate. I was going to have to back in from the black top he told me. The ground around the barn was too soft to circle. I was sure to get stuck. I looked at his home and barn about a 1/4 mile away in the middle of a harvested potato field and realized that of course I will have to back in. That was how my day, my week , my life was going at the moment. I backed in to a makeshift dock at his barn around 3:00 PM. Farmer guy points to a huge pile of potatoes packed in 25 pound bags and says, "There's your load bub. I would help you but I'm off to fix the potato harvester. I can't stop the harvest now. And by the way, the load needs to be in Hunt's Point by 3:00 PM tomorrow afternoon."
And off he went to do his farmer guy stuff while I hopped up in the trailer to ready my pallets and pallet jack.
I have to say looking at that pile of potatoes in 25 pound bags was one of the most dejection filled moments in my life to that point. But I bore down, hustled and had all those potatoes on skids and the doors of the trailer closed by 10:00 PM. I then collapsed in the sleeper, waking in a panic around 1:00 AM. Then it was off to Dysarts in Bangor for some grub and fuel and then hammer time it to NYC. I landed at Hunt's Point with 30 minutes to spare.
The off load ended up being an anticlimactic event. Normally I would have muscled the load off with my pallet jack. Instead, I hired a fellow for $30 to fork lift that load out of my life while I collapsed in the sleeper for forty winks.
Sweet Potatoes from North Carolina
The final straw and last bit of evidence that I was not meant to haul food stuffs of any kind, either raw or processed, came on the last day I drove for Wheatley. I was to pick up my back haul that trip in the form of loose sweet potatoes loaded by a conveyer belt in Tabor City, North Carolina. Then all I had to do was bring the load the 400 or so miles back to the yard in Salisbury, Maryland on the Eastern Shore. Drop the trailer, park the truck and head back to Baltimore for a much needed 3 day break.
Sounded easy enough. And it should have been. But as I was cursed, it turned into a nightmare. I landed in Tabor City at dark thirty in the A.M.. I had been told if the dock was empty I could back in and hit the rack. Someone would wake me when it was time to load.
Around 8:00 AM or so someone pounded on my door. I woke up, rubbed the sleep crap out of my eyes and walked in the door next to my truck. There waiting to load my trailer was the coolest looking set up of multi conveyor belts stretching off into the dark nether regions of the warehouse. A guy wearing a hard hat asked me how much of load I wanted. I remember that I was still groggy and mumbled something about Oh whatever is the usual. Load er up. I cannot remember if he looked at me funny, but in retrospect I am sure he did. He punched the big green button and my trailer started to fill up with sweet potatoes.
Figuring they had control, I walked back to my truck and went back to sleep.
Again, someone pounding on my door brought me back to the present. I crawled out of the sleeper and while I was putting on my shoes, another fellow without a hard hat but wearing a tie hopped up on the step of the truck and pushed a clipboard in my direction. I signed off, took my receipt and fired up that awesome 250 Cummins engine and warmed her up. After my my pre-trip inspection, I climbed back in the cab, released the brakes and slipped the transmission into first.
I expected some resistance as the truck was now loaded and backed in a downhill loading position against the dock. But when I tried to pull away it was as if I had been nailed in place. The truck and trailer were not moving, no way, no how, not anytime soon.
I jumped out of the truck and headed toward the door. Standing in the door was the guy wearing the hard hat and the guy wearing the tie. And both of them were laughing. It did not take an Einstein to know it was me they were laughing at.
I passed them both and looked into the back of the trailer. There were loose sweet potatoes piled to within a foot of the ceiling near the front and tapering down to about six feet high near the rear.. I immediately understood what had happened. I was overloaded and not just a little overloaded, I was in deep overloaded trouble.
I looked at the two jerks who loaded me. They were still grinning hard, snickering and just having a good ole boy laugh at my expense.
“So how much weight do you two clowns figure I have on now?”
Hard hat guy says, “Well, we don’t know exactly but you are at least 40,000 extra pounds over that line there.” And he pointed to a faded black line at waist high that apparently marked the standard 40,000 pound load.
And then he follows up with, “You may have the record. If you can get the load back to Wheatley, we’ll know then.”
“Can I use your phone”, were the last words I spoke to those chuckleheads.
When I called dispatch up in Maryland, there was silence on the other end of the phone after I described how many sweet potatoes were on my trailer. I heard some muffled cursing, some heated verbal exchanges and then nice and calm as if it was just another day on the planet,”Driver, do you think you can make back here with the load?”
“If I can pull it off the dock I might.”
“Okay, call me back when you get it off the dock and on flat ground.”
It took some doing, some serious smoke and bucking, but I managed to inch that trailer off the dock and onto the level black top surrounding their warehouse. Once I had the doors closed, instead of stopping and calling my dispatch, I kept going out onto the two lane country road and headed north. It took that underpowered 250 Cummins engine several miles on the flat to break 50 mph. About 10 miles into it, I spotted a restaurant with diesel pumps out back. I pulled up to the pumps, got out and went in to grab some breakfast and call Wheatley back.
The dispatcher was apologetic. This situation had occurred before in Tabor City. He forgot I was brand new in produce. The yahoos there thought it was funny to seriously overload inattentive drivers. And I was certainly inattentive. I had no clue and naively trusted the people who were in charge.
Anyway, I spent many minutes on the phone getting instructions on how to bring the load back to Salisbury without getting caught. I was to travel all back roads to Norfolk and then jump on the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel. The scale there would be no problem he assured me. At this point I had lost confidence in any reassurances.
It took me 16 hours to make it back to Salisbury. The back roads of North Carolina and Virginia had towns strategically placed so that as soon as I broke 50 mph, I had to start gearing down for the next little burg. And so it went, 5 miles to gain some speed and a couple of miles of downshifting and light braking to slow down.
Before I hit the scale at the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel, I considered parking the truck and catching a bus I was so angry. But I drove up onto the scale. It seemed an eternity but then I heard over the speaker, “You’re Okay driver, move along.”
I looked over to the window of the scale house and the guy looking at me had a very odd look on his face. It was a kind of grin but his eyes had widened like he could not believe what he was seeing.
I made it the rest of the way to Salisbury without incident, landing there about two in the morning. Instead of dropping the trailer as instructed, I left the tractor and trailer blocking their scale and left a note on the driver’s seat, “I quit.”
A week later I became a Teamster hauling Lever Brothers product coast to coast on a weekly schedule. Best money I ever made as a truck driver.
I headed to Maine to find Aroostook County. I had an address and a phone number but that was it. At that time much of Aroostook County had few official towns. They were designated as unorganized townships (TWP with a number). I ended up lost on a dirt road that ran from nowhere to more nowhere and offered nowhere to turn around. So I backed up for what seemed like miles though it probably wasn't. I don’t know why a truck backing up covers more ground relative to truck moving forward.
I finally spotted a local Mainer in overalls who was quite helpful and got me back on track. I found the farm. Farmer guy was waiting at the gate. I was going to have to back in from the black top he told me. The ground around the barn was too soft to circle. I was sure to get stuck. I looked at his home and barn about a 1/4 mile away in the middle of a harvested potato field and realized that of course I will have to back in. That was how my day, my week , my life was going at the moment. I backed in to a makeshift dock at his barn around 3:00 PM. Farmer guy points to a huge pile of potatoes packed in 25 pound bags and says, "There's your load bub. I would help you but I'm off to fix the potato harvester. I can't stop the harvest now. And by the way, the load needs to be in Hunt's Point by 3:00 PM tomorrow afternoon."
And off he went to do his farmer guy stuff while I hopped up in the trailer to ready my pallets and pallet jack.
I have to say looking at that pile of potatoes in 25 pound bags was one of the most dejection filled moments in my life to that point. But I bore down, hustled and had all those potatoes on skids and the doors of the trailer closed by 10:00 PM. I then collapsed in the sleeper, waking in a panic around 1:00 AM. Then it was off to Dysarts in Bangor for some grub and fuel and then hammer time it to NYC. I landed at Hunt's Point with 30 minutes to spare.
The off load ended up being an anticlimactic event. Normally I would have muscled the load off with my pallet jack. Instead, I hired a fellow for $30 to fork lift that load out of my life while I collapsed in the sleeper for forty winks.
Sweet Potatoes from North Carolina
The final straw and last bit of evidence that I was not meant to haul food stuffs of any kind, either raw or processed, came on the last day I drove for Wheatley. I was to pick up my back haul that trip in the form of loose sweet potatoes loaded by a conveyer belt in Tabor City, North Carolina. Then all I had to do was bring the load the 400 or so miles back to the yard in Salisbury, Maryland on the Eastern Shore. Drop the trailer, park the truck and head back to Baltimore for a much needed 3 day break.
Sounded easy enough. And it should have been. But as I was cursed, it turned into a nightmare. I landed in Tabor City at dark thirty in the A.M.. I had been told if the dock was empty I could back in and hit the rack. Someone would wake me when it was time to load.
Around 8:00 AM or so someone pounded on my door. I woke up, rubbed the sleep crap out of my eyes and walked in the door next to my truck. There waiting to load my trailer was the coolest looking set up of multi conveyor belts stretching off into the dark nether regions of the warehouse. A guy wearing a hard hat asked me how much of load I wanted. I remember that I was still groggy and mumbled something about Oh whatever is the usual. Load er up. I cannot remember if he looked at me funny, but in retrospect I am sure he did. He punched the big green button and my trailer started to fill up with sweet potatoes.
Figuring they had control, I walked back to my truck and went back to sleep.
Again, someone pounding on my door brought me back to the present. I crawled out of the sleeper and while I was putting on my shoes, another fellow without a hard hat but wearing a tie hopped up on the step of the truck and pushed a clipboard in my direction. I signed off, took my receipt and fired up that awesome 250 Cummins engine and warmed her up. After my my pre-trip inspection, I climbed back in the cab, released the brakes and slipped the transmission into first.
I expected some resistance as the truck was now loaded and backed in a downhill loading position against the dock. But when I tried to pull away it was as if I had been nailed in place. The truck and trailer were not moving, no way, no how, not anytime soon.
I jumped out of the truck and headed toward the door. Standing in the door was the guy wearing the hard hat and the guy wearing the tie. And both of them were laughing. It did not take an Einstein to know it was me they were laughing at.
I passed them both and looked into the back of the trailer. There were loose sweet potatoes piled to within a foot of the ceiling near the front and tapering down to about six feet high near the rear.. I immediately understood what had happened. I was overloaded and not just a little overloaded, I was in deep overloaded trouble.
I looked at the two jerks who loaded me. They were still grinning hard, snickering and just having a good ole boy laugh at my expense.
“So how much weight do you two clowns figure I have on now?”
Hard hat guy says, “Well, we don’t know exactly but you are at least 40,000 extra pounds over that line there.” And he pointed to a faded black line at waist high that apparently marked the standard 40,000 pound load.
And then he follows up with, “You may have the record. If you can get the load back to Wheatley, we’ll know then.”
“Can I use your phone”, were the last words I spoke to those chuckleheads.
When I called dispatch up in Maryland, there was silence on the other end of the phone after I described how many sweet potatoes were on my trailer. I heard some muffled cursing, some heated verbal exchanges and then nice and calm as if it was just another day on the planet,”Driver, do you think you can make back here with the load?”
“If I can pull it off the dock I might.”
“Okay, call me back when you get it off the dock and on flat ground.”
It took some doing, some serious smoke and bucking, but I managed to inch that trailer off the dock and onto the level black top surrounding their warehouse. Once I had the doors closed, instead of stopping and calling my dispatch, I kept going out onto the two lane country road and headed north. It took that underpowered 250 Cummins engine several miles on the flat to break 50 mph. About 10 miles into it, I spotted a restaurant with diesel pumps out back. I pulled up to the pumps, got out and went in to grab some breakfast and call Wheatley back.
The dispatcher was apologetic. This situation had occurred before in Tabor City. He forgot I was brand new in produce. The yahoos there thought it was funny to seriously overload inattentive drivers. And I was certainly inattentive. I had no clue and naively trusted the people who were in charge.
Anyway, I spent many minutes on the phone getting instructions on how to bring the load back to Salisbury without getting caught. I was to travel all back roads to Norfolk and then jump on the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel. The scale there would be no problem he assured me. At this point I had lost confidence in any reassurances.
It took me 16 hours to make it back to Salisbury. The back roads of North Carolina and Virginia had towns strategically placed so that as soon as I broke 50 mph, I had to start gearing down for the next little burg. And so it went, 5 miles to gain some speed and a couple of miles of downshifting and light braking to slow down.
Before I hit the scale at the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel, I considered parking the truck and catching a bus I was so angry. But I drove up onto the scale. It seemed an eternity but then I heard over the speaker, “You’re Okay driver, move along.”
I looked over to the window of the scale house and the guy looking at me had a very odd look on his face. It was a kind of grin but his eyes had widened like he could not believe what he was seeing.
I made it the rest of the way to Salisbury without incident, landing there about two in the morning. Instead of dropping the trailer as instructed, I left the tractor and trailer blocking their scale and left a note on the driver’s seat, “I quit.”
A week later I became a Teamster hauling Lever Brothers product coast to coast on a weekly schedule. Best money I ever made as a truck driver.
Post Script –In the end, the scale weight at Wheatley was over 110,000 pounds GVW. Based on the legal GVW limit at the time of 72,500 pounds, I was seriously overweight. I never did it again.
Keep it 'tween the ditches ........................................
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4 comments:
holyshit. I would have seriously punched someone.
Heard plenty about Hunts Point, never did get a load there.
What adventure. Union are good, protect the workers.
Coffee is on and stay safe
You need to write a book
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