Overdrive

August 2015

Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info

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Voices 10 | Overdrive | August 2015 My two brothers, sister and I grew up living several hundred yards from our grandparents, which was great because we could spend most of our free time at their house. Our grand- dad, Obie, was a self-made jack of all trades. He had a 168-acre farm, and through the years he had dairy cows, horses, chickens, pigs, dogs and cats. (He also had a huge bull, Jonathan, which he was very fond of, or at least he was until the day Jonathan chased Obie and my dad up a tree. Would you believe Jonathan left the farm within a few days?) We brothers learned at very early ages to drive and operate farm tractors, farm trucks, backhoes, bulldozers and tractor-trailers. Some- how, and thankfully, a few of us survived to become truckers. One of the farm trac- tors was a Farmall "M" model, and although it was equipped with an electric starter, it seemed (to me) that the battery was usually dead, which meant that it had to be cranked using a handle inserted into the front of the tractor, which turned the crankshaft. Using the handle always started the tractor, but the operator had to be careful. He had to hold the handle just right because this method of cranking some- times "kicked back," which resulted in broken fingers and arms. When I was five or six years old, I was standing close by watching Obie trying to crank the tractor by using the handle, when he stepped back, hitched up his britches and directed some choice cuss words at the tractor, followed by: "I wish you would blow up and go to torment!" I am sure I had heard swear words before, but this was real cussing, and I couldn't wait to get home and use what I had just learned. I stood in front of my little pedal tractor, pre- tended I was trying to crank it and tried out Obie's curse of the Farmall loud enough for the entire house to hear. Well, it took all of about 10 seconds for my mother to teach my backside that I should never use those words again. Believe me when I tell you that "watch- ing my mouth" was a very hard thing to do, since all the men, including my Dad, Obie, the men who worked for my dad, all of Obie's drivers – hell, it seemed that every grown man used several cuss words in every sentence. I practiced to myself enough that I could cuss with the best of them before I was out of elementary school. I remember having to go to the principal when I was in the fifth grade be- cause Mrs. Gray thought I had uttered an inappropri- ate word. It must have been some iteration of damn, since I remember writing it several million times on her chalkboard. Search "A trucker's tale" to find three excerpts from Miller's book published in late June. Learning to be a trucker – and to cuss like one Do a Google search to find out who the CEO is, send a brief e-mail to them… 'I will give your shipping facili - ty one more chance after arriving early and spending 3.5 hours there. Please be aware there are many other businesses that run efficiently, which means I do not go back into any shipper or receiv - er that repeatedly takes more than 2 hours. I am not alone with my state- ment, and you can expect to hear from more drivers.' Let' s go directly to the source professionally and unite. — Terry Hankins, via email A difference on detention: How to effect change This excerpt is edited from Baltimore-based former trucker (pictured) Ed Miller's "A trucker's tale" memoir, as yet unpublished.

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