other dog

the "double diamonds". Couldn't find any McLean Mack pictures, mostly GMCs, some Whites,and Internationals.

I've probably been 3 trucks behind you on the W.V. Turnpike before and didn't know it

Hello Double Diamond,I don't have a clue in answer to your question,but Rob has never been known to be wrong about anything...so far I just saw "Double Diamond" and you already answered my question. That sure brings back some memories,haven't heard double diamond for a while. How long did you drive for McLean? I remember when they closed the doors-they were about the last company I would have expected to shut down at the time.

it's in Appomattox,Va. - at least I hope it still is!

I have a 64,65,or 66 scout half cab you can have if you want to move it-the man I bought it from took the distributor out of it,it was running before that.I had another '66 I was gonna fix,but that was right before my wife got sick,and it's been sitting at H.H.Moore trucking about 4 years now. They were sold to P.G.T. recently,and Larry Moore told me I needed to move it,and I was thinking of selling it for scrap of course,but i'd rather see somebody get some use out of it,and as far as I know the front end,rear end and transfer case are fine,the engine (152 cu.in. 4 cyl,half a 304) should be OK,and the body wasn't too bad either-it's just been setting for a long time now.

...or maybe he would-I keep telling him the truck doesn't have any power and won't get out of it's own way, but Jeff doesn't seem to believe me-now i've got pictures to prove it! thanks Paul

no,i'd never heard that one,that's good! i'd heard the "slow wagon in fast traffic",but that's about it. ..good one

very well said-I think it's time to stop screwing around and be drilling off the coast of Florida-we can't even drill for oil within 12 miles of shore,but the Chinese can drill 14 miles offshore?!! That's what they're doing right now,just off the coast of Cuba. We should be drilling in A.N.W.R. in Alaska too, and putting a nuclear power plant on every corner-like a 7-11 store, but Democrats and tree huggers won't let us-where IS this gonna end? They say "well,the offshore oil and A.N.W.R. oil wouldn't help now,that's 5 or 10 years down the road before we'd see any benefit from it any way". Well,I think we should've been drilling there 10 years ago then, and since we didn't, we should start tomorrow. I guess if some foreign countries can't defeat us militarily they figure they can destroy the U.S. economy,and that seems to be what they're trying to do. I paid $4.59 a gallon for fuel in Ohio yesterday,and saw it as high as $4.70-something in Pa!

they've been posted for a while-check my albums for the tractor show pictures

A few more random photos from the road...the very narrow street in Wheeling,W.V. I delivered a load of 60' beams on, a big Mack truck, Summit racing in Tallmadge,Oh, a B-model near Zelienople,Pa, A yellow fire truck near Sharon,Pa. (it's for sale!), a huge oversize load, a Swift truck that pulled over on the shoulder-except there was no shoulder there, and the old KB-5 that sat in front of the truckstop in Hubbard,Oh. Now it's parked across the road with a "for sale" sign in the window-$7500.

that was mighty nice of you Joe,i'm sure that driver appreciated it. I had a load of paneling one time with stops in Covington, Pearisburg,and Dublin,Va. Got to the last stop in Dublin a little before 5 o'clock at a Lowes store and they said "sorry,we'll get you in the morning" but one guy said "i'll unload him,it's only a partial load,and I was just gonna go home and shoot some basketball anyway". Never did forget that,and it was years ago.

you're welcome . Jobyna's going to Wal-Mart now to get the pictures,i'm gonna put the tractor show pics in a new album.

where IS up there,if anywhere?

Speaking of work,i'm still hard at it. I've been to Zelienople,Pa. and back twice this week. Sounds easy enough,but there ain't no easy runs. It's a titanic struggle to get 46,000 lbs. up the road several times a week. Got to Roanoke with 48,000 lbs,3 Metalsa coils, around 6:30 or 7 o'clock Thursday night and figured on getting unloaded and being home early,but sometimes it doesn't pay to figure on anything. I got unloaded about 3:30 am Friday, got to the shop at 5 am and slept until 8,then went to Dillwyn and loaded kyanite for Fremont,Oh. to leave Sunday with. Then I drove the mixer over to Stonewall and parked it. The annual Stonewall Antique Power show is this weekend,and it almost snuck up on me. Came home,after the usual grocery store stop,and cut the grass and replanted some corn and beans that didn't come up. Went over to Wal-Mart in Altavista and dropped a roll of film off too,so I should have pictures to post this afternoon. Took some of a Mack fire truck that's for sale near Sharon or Wheatland,Pa. and we're gonna ride over to the tractor show for a little while and look around so I might take a picture or two there. Hard to say what might be there,or what kind of turnout they'll have this year because gas is so expensive.When I left there yesterday the only antique vehicles there was a 1965 b-53 Mack concrete mixer and a Ford pickup,but lots of tractors were coming in. It's good to have a distraction from just hearing of gloom and doom all the time,so in honor of no clue joe-I must be off...film at eleven.

I stopped by a CB shop Tuesday,and was so impressed I thought i'd mention it here. CB shops have kind've popped up all over,most big truckstops have one,but a really good one where they know their stuff about radios,antennas,and coaxial cable,and don't have to look it up in the manual to know how to peak and tune a particular radio,and treat you right for a fair price-well,they're not so common. The one at the Broad River Truckstop on I-85 in South Carolina, just south of the N.C. line is a good one. And the 12 Volt CB Shop in Barkeyville,Pa. where I stopped Tuesday is too. I spent $37 dollars on my Cobra 29 at Hubbard,Ohio at a CB shop basically to get the light bulb fixed in the meter. It would quit on me periodically and i'd have to reach up and rap it on the bottom with my knuckles once in a while,and it would go back to working. The guy fixed it for me (he claimed) and 5 miles down the road it was doing the same thing.I was loaded with coils so I wasn't about to go back,so I ordered a new Connex 3300 since the Cobra was 5 years old anyway. When I put the Connex in the truck my swr was high with my Wilson fiberglass antenna,lowest I could get it was 2.5- 1.1 is perfect,up to 1.5 is OK,or so i've always heard. So I called the 12 volt shop when I saw their add in a truck paper,and they talked radios and antennas for a long time,and told me I should get a stainless steel whip antenna for that radio,and I hadn't even bought anything from them. So I got a Wilson 2000 antenna,couldn't get the standing wave under 3.0,cut some of it off,still couldn't get it down,so I put the fiberglass one back on. When I loaded in Sharon,Pa.Tuesday I went across I-80 so I could stop at Barkeyville. The man there, who kinda looked like Frank Beard,ZZ Top's drummer,came out and took a look and said "take that fiberglass antenna off,move the mount to the horizontal bar on the mirror bracket,and tilt the antenna forward to about a 45 degree angle,and i'll come back and check it". OK, I did all that,put the stainless steel one back on,he came back out and hooked up his swr meter-hooked the antenna coax to it and plugged something in the cigarette lighter plug,nothing going to the radio-in fact,he never even turned the radio on! He said "I can tune it,but you've got a lot of resistance in your coax". I said,or maybe just thought "you can tell all that-the radio ain't hooked to anything-it's not even turned on!" Anyhow,long story short,he made me a new coax and I put it in,he came back out and checked it,snipped a little more off the antenna and said "that oughta do it". The 45 degree tilt was so it wouldn't reflect off the stacks on the truck and give a false reading-I never knew! Charged me $31 for everything. I was waiting to unload in Roanoke last night and checked the standing wave with my meter just for curiosity,a pretty good meter by the way,and it was 1.1 on channel 40,1.1 on channel 1,and 1.1 on channel 20. Perfect!

ain't no doubt about that!

...nothing to apoligize about for being young! Sometimes I wish I were a little -well,never mind that,that's another story. Anyway ,glad to have you-it's good to see a young person interested in something besides video games, ,especially trucks

indeed!

I was kind of in the same boat when I first put insurance on the mixer- the only insurance I could get locally was a regular commercial policy,like I was working the truck every day.I had this the first year,then I called Gulfway Insurers. They always had an add in "Wheels of Time" and they specialize in antique vehicles and race cars. I got insurance for about half what the other policy cost,and they have no milage limit. You could check them out at www.racensur.com

I agree with Paul-Lowes and Home Depot are the Schneider and J.B.Hunt of the building supply binness. I've never driven for a large national carrier,but done pretty well with a "small regional carrier", and I'm pretty sure they'd be easier to get along with...or not.

Got up and read the paper this morning...not much there to be happy about. Tornados and storms,gas keeps going up,Kyle Busch won the race. Then I called Ma and them,it is mother's day. Told her I found the biggest tomato plant in the garden broken off yesterday,with no evidence of dog or human tracks around it. Saw no crop circle either,so it probably wasn't UFO related,and she said it could be the dreaded cutworm. I don't know how it got broken off,but I went out and dusted everything with Sevin dust,and now it's pouring rain. That's ok,I can dust it again,i'm glad to get the rain. We got little or none all last summer. I put some lime and fertilizer on the garden yesterday so the rain should dissolve that.Should have put lime on it when I first tilled it,but didn't. Don't want any blossom end rot on your tomaters you know. I planted another tomato yesterday too,because I didn't have a mr. stripey and saw them at Wal-Mart,and I planted a New Mexico Big Jim pepper,just because it was called a Big Jim. Every once in a while I actually do a little work around here!..but very little I suppose. Took a couple of pictures yesterday-one of the peach trees, they're both loaded with peaches this year. A late frost killed all of them last year. The apple, pear,and cherry trees are also filled. And two dogs ( the big dog isn't mine ) saying "what do we do now,there's a fence around the garden?"

got another junk story-when I left Thursday with that load of lumber I was going north on 29 in Lynchburg when I heard some drivers going south talking about a load that was apparently about to fall off. One driver said "if he runs over a dead possum he's gonna lose that load". Then I saw what they were talking about-there was a small SUV,like an S10 Blazer or a BroncoII, pulling a trailer with a car on it, a bush hog on the trunk lid of the car, and a small lawn tractor sitting on top of the bush hog. They had one 2" ratchet strap thrown over the whole pile to hold it down.

I don't know,sometimes it's hard to get her to shut up now- WHAP!!! ouch!..

oh...no wonder. Perhaps you should have cut it a few weeks ago. I just got a push mower,but the yard's not very big.It does have a 550 cat on it though. Or a 5.5 Briggs and Stratton,I don't remember because i'm always getting the two confused. I've been looking for a picture of my goat,I know I have at least one,but I can't find it. His name was Dale and I had him for several years. He was a good pet,gentle as a dog. He liked to butt you sometimes,but only in a playful manner.Loved beer and cigarettes though. He'd eat cigarettes as fast as you'd hand them to him,and I poured him a beer in a bowl and he sucked it up in about 3 seconds so I poured him another one,same thing,so I poured him another one,same thing,so I figured three was enough for him and I might want one myself later. Every time he'd get loose he'd run to the front of the house and eat the flowers that were planted there. I kept him on a long tie out chain hooked to his collar with a loop on the end that I just dropped over a stake,that way he could go around in a circle without getting tangled up.When he ate everything in that spot i'd just move the stake to a different spot.