other dog

thanks Rob,looks like paint in the future,as I have no place to store it inside.It's been sitting outdoors for the last 4 or 5 yrs. at least.

amen brother!...as nocluejoe would say "other dog quoting nocluejoe quoting bulldog man"

welcome back Bulldog Man. You hadn't been seen or heard from for so long I thought maybe you had transferred to an undisclosed location somewhere in the Pacific northwest!

That sure is a clean and neat shop, nice!

ain't that the truth!

Yeah, i've heard them CB Rambos, but like you say they're seldom actually seen. I heard a story some years ago about 2 drivers arguing on the Pa. turnpike-I have no idea if it's true or not, but I heard the same story several times-the one driver told the other one to pull over to fight. The driver didn't stop of course, but there just happened to be a Yellow Freight driver pulled over where the driver that wanted to fight had told the other driver to pull over, so the other driver pulled in and commenced to beating up on the Yellow Freight driver, who was out thumping his tires or something, and didn't even know what was going on.

Only got in one trip this week, was supposed to go to Negley, Ohio monday but went to Fremont instead. Had to untarp one pallet at a time in the pouring rain so it wouldn't get any wetter than it already was. Then I went to Brookfield to load and there was 4 trucks ahead of me at door 12. Got there at 3 o'clock and left at 8. Didn't really matter though. I unloaded about noon Wednesday in Roanoke and was done for the week until I went to Moneta today and loaded treated lumber for Erie, Pa. I wouldn't leave until late Sunday, or maybe Monday morning, because of the Cumberland county Christmas parade, but it's so slow i'm just gonna have to miss it this year and get on up to Erie. First one i've missed since I've had the mixer, and won a trophy every time. But times are tight, gotta go-can't eat those trophies! And speaking of the mixer, I started it Wednesday and it looked like there was a piece of clear plastic laying on the hood. I got out to get it off and unfortunately it was not a piece of plastic but the clear-coat peeling off in big sheets. My theory is that when I waxed it I waxed through the clear coat and a little moisture seeped in, then it froze and pulled it loose from the base coat. Never had any problem 'til I waxed it, so I assume that's what happened. Looks terrible now anyway. Might try to peel the clear-coat off and wax it, if that doesn't work too good I might have to repaint the hood. Someday, that is-right now I couldn't afford a can of krylon.

yessir, the 285 in the F-model I drove would "tote the mail" in it's day.I could go all the way up Christiansburg mountain in 4th gear with 25 tons of fertilizer on, in a van. Yes, the fuel was turned up a wee bit. I would climb most of the hills on rt. 8 coming from Butler Pa. back south to the turnpike in 3rd. gear with 48,000 lbs. of steel, and the one time I drove a 237 F-model up there to load I was in 2nd. gear on every hill it seemed like.

Yeah, i'm not anti-union BUT i've loaded at and delivered to many union steel plants and seen them in action (or maybe inaction is a better word!) so it's hard to feel much sympathy for them when they already make more than most of us for doing way less work. A truck driver called a radio talk show I was listening to a few weeks ago and his brother worked for Dana corp. and his father was retired from Dana. He said his father told him when they wanted a break somebody would throw a wrench in a machine or something so they could do nothing or 3 or 4 hours, while somebody fixed the machine. He also said his brother bid on jobs, and his job title was spill-cleanup-he just sat in a little office and read the paper until he had a spill cleanup to do, and that's the only thing he did.

Just saw on TV that the auto bailout didn't pass, mainly because the UAW wouldn't agree to take a pay cut down to the same pay as Honda and Toyota workers get. So apparently they'd rather just close the doors and lose their jobs altogether, along with many more related jobs like steel, steel haulers, parts, etc. I don't get it. When you figure in all the benefits with their wages they make around $75 an hour, or more in 2 hours than I make in a typical day, while non union workers at Honda and Toyota make about $35-$40 an hour- not too shabby. Reminded me of something I read in the paper monday- a professional athlete, I forgot who it was, said they needed to make millions to feed their families, and some comedian said "what the hell are they eating, Mercedes sedans?"

whew!..i'm glad to see this was the earlier post-when I first saw the title I thought "oh no, not again!..we're really gonna miss Rob on here, 'cause I know 'Momma's gonna kill him this time". But, as Rob would say "all is well".

you never know, some years ago the IH dealership sold an old rusty scout with a good 345 engine in it, and the guy that bought it sold the 345 to a local dairy or some company in Lynchburg that had 2 ton Internationals for about twice what he paid for the scout in the first place.

wish I could afford it,might be had pretty cheap, but man, times are tuff!

wow...

it is what it is, and what it is is a six speed.

Old Bill sent me this story he posted the other day. http://www.timegoesby.net/elderstorytellin...ers-then-a.html It's all true, but there are other differences in then and now besides the trucks themselves. Drivers are different now than when I first started, not nearly as long ago as when Bill started driving. Drivers used to cut the headlights off to signal it was clear to come back over, now they do nothing or hit you with the high-beams and blind you, which is worse than the doing nothing.They used to even back it down it down a little to help you pass, now they "hammer down"if you try to pass, just like 4-wheelers do. If I pass another truck I always blink my marker lights to say "thank you". More often than not if someone passes me they'll have the right turn signal on before they're halfway by then cut back in before you even have a chance to give them the lights, and if you do give them the lights they don't respond. A lot of times if you move over on the interstate to let a truck off a ramp they won't even let you back over and they'll pass on the right, just like a 4-wheeler does. I passed a truck on the West Virginia turnpike one night then ran up behind another slow truck climbing a hill and there was a long line of cars in the left lane,so I couldn't get out to pass. The truck i'd passed before fell in behind them, but didn't offer to let me out. The next truck behind him did, and I thanked him, and the first truck. He got on the radio and told me "eff you,I don't owe you any favors,it's every man for himself". That pretty much sums up the whole attitude of today's truck driver. And a lot of times ,especially when you go by a truckstop, you'll hear drivers cussing each other and arguing on the CB radio. New drivers might not know what to do in a given situation, or ask a question about something, and instead of trying to help them other drivers will get on the radio and ridicule them for not knowing. We all had to start somewhere, right? And nobody started out knowing it all, just a lot of "truck drivers" do after their 2 weeks of training. Just my rant for the day.

That IS a real trailer Larry. You've got every right to be proud of your outfit,that's a sharp looking unit!

better take off to the bank around 3:15 so you'll get there before Paul and James,then you know yours will be good.

Hi geon! where are you from, if anywhere?

your checks from Mack are in the mail...might want to wait 'til Friday to cash 'em. Tuff times ya' know.

Hey,I might see you over in the woods somewhere.

stories?..ok, I was sitting at home minding my own bidness when I happened to notice it was snowing. I started reaching for my mike to ask where the next motel or truckstop was, then I realized I was at home. I took a couple of pictures of it from the front porch and back porch, and put my parka and snowshoes on and walked out to the road and took the last one, after they had closed the road. The rest of the story...since the road was closed due to the heavy snow, I invited everybody that was stranded over for coffee. By this morning the road was open again, and all the traffic was gone. This picture of the road was taken from the same spot as the other one of course, looking both ways. And that's my story

No, actually they're not broken. One has a little round crack in it where a rock hit it, but it's down in the corner and doesn't bother me at all. The only problem with them is the guy that washes trucks on the weekends must have used acid to clean the stainless steel visor and let it run down on the windshield, because they have streaks in them that just won't come off. It's not too bad except at night when it's raining and I meet oncoming traffic-then I can't see a thing. I just happened to mention it at the shop the other day, and they've got a man coming Monday to put them in. I would have been happy to just get one on the drivers side, but they're replacing both of them.

Looks like i'm behind a little, haven't said anything since before Thanksgiving. I left Sunday and went to Orchard Park,N.Y. I must say that New York does an excellent job on the roads when there's snow, at least in that area (rt.219 from Pa. to Buffalo). Another driver went to Orchard Park last week to deliver Friday, but he broke down somewhere near Bradford, Pa. and had to have the truck towed to Bradford. He said the wrecker was an old Mack, but I don't now if he meant AC old, b-model old, or r-model old. Big Jim's truck broke down in Ohio the week before last and needed a camshaft, so he left it at the Freightliner dealer in Monroeville and rented a car to drive home to Reynoldsville,Pa. He went to Monroeville and picked his truck up when it was repaired then went to Lantz Corners, Pa. and picked up the Orchard Park load and delivered it. Meanwhile, I delivered in Ochard Park Monday and went to Brookfield, Ohio and loaded coils for Roanoke. Dropped in Roanoke Tuesday and went to the shop and had my truck serviced. Todd told me I could go on home and he had an Orlando load out of N.B.Handy for tomorrow. Sunny Florida is nice this time of year, except when I went in Wednesday Orlando had been moved to Ohio, to a place formerly known as Negley, and the load changed to a load of kyanite. So I unloaded in Orlando-I mean Negley-Thursday morning and went up to Masury and loaded more coils for Roanoke. They said they couldn't unload them until after 1pm, so I lollygagged around and got there at 11:30 and untarped, and they said it would be many hours before they could unload me so I ended up taking them to a warehouse in Roanoke and unloading them. They've got another Negley load for Monday, but they're gonna put a couple of new windshields in the truck Monday morning, so i'll load and go Monday. Jeff's new truck came in last week. A pretty red 386 Peterbilt. He said I could take it or keep what I got, it didn't matter to him. I think i'll just keep what I got. Now the title fits anyway.