A Trucker's Tale

by Ed Miller

  Later, just as I finished disking the field, Bus returned. He must have been watching me because he came out of the woods just as I was wrapping up, and he was itching to go home. He crawled up onto the drawbar, where’d I been that morning, and I drove us back to Obie’s house.

  When I was fifteen, Bus gave me some advice that I didn’t fully understand until years later. It happened one afternoon while we were stacking hay in the upper barn. We were talking about women, and my girlfriend, and Bus began pontificating about men and women having sex. He stated that when a man is finished with the session, most women are ready to go again, and that they are hard to satisfy. In a way that only Bus could explain this situation, he said, “Mista Ed, when it comes to women, I just want you to memba one thing . . . a woman can always look up longer than a man can look down!”

  Sarah Belle was a wonderful woman who often worked for my mama. She did laundry and ironed and babysat my siblings and me when we were very young. One time, when my brothers and I were all under ten, we rode with our dad for about five miles from his furniture warehouse to our home. We were in an H model Mack truck equipped with an air starter and as we bobtailed home along the two-lane country road, the tractor’s air starter produced loud, high-pitched sounds that could be heard for miles. While slowly rounding a curve, our father moved over a bit because Sarah Belle was walking along the side of the road. As she waved to us, our dad reached under his seat and pulled up the handle on the air starter. This sudden, ungodly noise scared poor Sarah Belle so badly that we watched in the side mirrors as she jumped over a ditch and climbed her way up a small hill beside the road. She later told us that after the initial surprise, she laughed about the episode so hard that she cried.

  Shortly after I secured my chauffeur’s license, Obie said he wanted me to go somewhere with him and instructed me to go up on the hill and pick any tractor I wanted to drive. I chose a single-axle H model Mack with a ten-speed, two-stick duplex transmission, did a pre-trip inspection to confirm all looked good, and then we bobtailed several miles away to see one of Obie's friends who owned a construction company. We borrowed a two-axle lowboy trailer from Obie's friend (a lowboy is designed to carry heavy equipment and vehicles, and ours was equipped with eight or ten chains and binders), and then headed west on I-40.

  We drove through Asheville and then southwest toward the Nantahala National Forest. The forest is in western North Carolina, and the road through it is about as mountainous as it gets. We traversed a treacherously curvy US Highway 74 for many miles, and then Obie instructed me to turn onto a wider-than-usual gravel road. The road wound through the woods for close to a mile, and then opened to reveal an immense rock quarry. I soon learned the purpose of our trip was to pick up a Caterpillar D6 bulldozer that Obie had purchased from his friend.

  Picking up a bulldozer is no simple feat. Moving heavy equipment on the highway typically requires a permit, sometimes escorts, and, most importantly, the tractor and trailer carrying it must be able to legally transport the weight of the equipment. Because we were driving a single-axle tractor and a two-axle lowboy, it was legal for us to carry a little more than a thirty thousand-pound payload, but the dozer was more than thirty-six thousand pounds—too heavy. We decided to go ahead anyway, and drove it onto the lowboy. We should have removed the bulldozer’s ten-foot-wide blade, and come back for it later, so we wouldn’t be over the eight-foot width limit, but we decided to leave it attached (although we did angle the blade as much as we could). Since the weight was illegal anyway, I guess Obie figured, What the hell, let’s go for it. Almost the only thing we did correctly was to use every available chain and binder to secure the dozer.

  All Mack trucks have a steel, miniature bulldog on the front hood, and as the tractor strained as we went up and down those mountain roads, I kept imagining Mack’s bulldog turning around and asking, Why are you treating me this way? But it was Obie’s show, so I told the bulldog to quit bitching and do his job. (I had heard my dad comment—many times—that you know you are pushing a Mack truck too hard when the bulldog turns around to look at you with tears in his eyes, so maybe I got this image from him, though he usually had too much speed, not too much weight.)

  I felt certain that we were in serious trouble when we reached the very open North Carolina weigh station on US 70 at Swannanoa, mostly due to us being overweight, too wide, not having enough axles, and having no permits. As I pulled into the facility, Obie told me to park to the side. He hopped out of the truck, hitched up his britches, and strode into the office like he owned the place. Twenty minutes later, he walked over, climbed into the truck, and said, “Don’t go over the scale. Just stay to the right of it and let’s go home!” I never learned what this “bypass” cost Obie, but I have always wished I’d been a fly on the scale-house wall while Obie was stating his case. It turned out that all my worrying was for nothing.

  I was a happy camper for the next ten miles, but then we reached the top of Black Mountain on I-40. The road there is treacherous and unfriendly for six miles, terrorizing all truck drivers who happen upon it. Even though I kept the truck in a very low gear, we hadn’t traveled more than a half-mile down the mountain before the brakes on both tractor and trailer were smoking. Obie told me to keep my foot on the brake pedal, continue to apply pressure, and not take it off, as this would have allowed air to reach the very hot brake shoes and possibly cause them to catch fire. The farther down Black Mountain we went, the more smoke poured out from the brakes. And the smoke screen was so dense that the no driver could see well enough to pass us—they had no idea what lay ahead. After what seemed like hours, we finally made it past that last curve at the bottom of the mountain, and Obie instructed me to take the Old Fort exit. I’m sure the good folks of Old Fort remembered us for quite some time after that visit, because the smoke-shrouded truck left the smell of burned brake shoes in its wake as we traveled down Main Street.

  When we finally arrived in Obie’s driveway, I shut off the truck, and then Obie looked over at me and nodded his head. It was as much of a pat on the back as I would ever get from him, and it was all I needed.

  Forty-plus years ago, there were no signs giving instructions on the mountain, trucks did not have to pull over at the top of it, and there were no truck escape ramps. Today, North Carolina law requires all eastbound trucks to pull over and stop at the top of the mountain to inspect their vehicle’s brakes for proper functioning; the speed limit for trucks is thirty-five miles per hour; four sand-filled truck escape ramps punctuate the road at one-mile intervals; and most of the time, at least one of North Carolina’s finest parks somewhere down the mountain to monitor—and strictly enforce—the speed limit. The truck escape ramps were built in 1979, just a few years after Obie and I were there, following an incident in which a tractor trailer’s brakes stopped working when it was coming down the mountain. Its driver managed to steer it to the final curve, but then it shot through the median in excess of one hundred miles per hour and wiped out a carload of Western Carolina University kids.

  One afternoon soon after the safety features were in place, I drove by after a rig had gone into one of the sand-filled ramps. It did such a good job that the tractor had come to an extremely abrupt halt, but, unfortunately, the trailer’s momentum kept it going fast enough to tear the fifth wheel off the tractor’s frame and slam into the cab. The trailer broke the locking mechanism on the back of the cab and the two hinges that connected to the frame on the front of the truck. When I got there, the driver was standing beside the cab of the International CO-4070, which was cleanly sitting upright on the sand in front of the trailer, as though a forklift had placed it there. I think the Department of Transportation experimented with several different sand and gravel mixes, but they finally got it right.

  Under Obie’s tutelage, my siblings and I learned much of what we needed to help us lead happy, fulfilling lives. He instilled a sense of pride in us when we did something correctly, and t
aught us how to make things work, to fix what was broken, and even rebuild when necessary. Earl certainly used this life skill when he drove his VW Beetle home from the Marine Corps base in Parris Island, South Carolina, and wound up with an expired motor. Fortuitously, it died just as he was passing a gas station, and he was able to roll it into the parking lot. He asked the owner if there was an auto parts store in the vicinity, and, quite unexpectedly, the owner gave my brother directions to the store and tossed him the keys to his pickup truck. Utilizing tools supplied by the gas station owner, Earl dropped the motor from the frame, rebuilt it, reinstalled it, and drove on that same motor back to western North Carolina.

  Learning to be a trucker incorporated a lot of trial and error, and more often than not, our trials ended in error. One morning, Obie told me to bobtail the five miles to our furniture warehouse to retrieve a certain trailer that needed repairs. Rather than take the shorter route along a curvy two-lane country road to town, I took another route, so I could access the three-lane US 70. I can’t say for certain why it was that I wanted to take US 70, but it was likely so that I could drive a little faster than I would have been able to on the curvy road. When I reached a stop sign, I pulled up behind a fellow in a pickup truck who was also going to drive east on US 70. When traffic cleared, we both began to merge onto the highway, traveling about forty-five miles per hour. After we had driven close to one mile, I glanced at my side mirrors and then looked back straight ahead, only to see the pickup rapidly slowing in front of me. I applied the brakes—hell, I locked them up—but my bobtailing tractor didn’t even slow down. (The antilock braking system was still on the drawing board.)

  While sliding, I turned the wheel to the right and damned nearly missed the pickup, but the left front of my tractor caught the right rear of the truck. The rear of my tractor spun around and destroyed the mailbox of a nearby muffler shop, and the impact shot the pickup to the left with such force that it flew across two oncoming lanes of traffic. Somehow, by the grace of God, he missed every car. After a massive sigh of relief, I jumped out of the tractor and ran across the road to check on the driver. He had gotten out of his truck and was inspecting the damage. He said the truck belonged to his brother and that he would go inside the service station to call him to come have a look at the damage. I asked him if he was physically okay, and he said that the impact had not been too hard and that he would be just fine.

  I then crossed back over the highway to where my tractor was sitting sideways in front of the muffler shop. The shop’s owner, whom I knew, told me he put the mailbox in the back of his shop after I hit it. He said no one needed to know that I had destroyed federal property.

  A North Carolina highway patrolman soon arrived, gathered the facts, and then issued me a citation for following too close to the pickup. He seemed to understand my side, but said he was bound by law to give me a ticket. The pickup driver’s brother arrived while the patrolman was writing my ticket, and I watched as the brothers carried on a very serious and very animated conversation. They were still discussing the issue when I followed the patrolman across the road to them. Speaking on his brother’s behalf, the pickup truck’s owner said that the driver had neck and back injuries. The driver, who had been fine until his brother’s arrival, suddenly suffered from great pain. An ambulance showed up to haul him to the hospital for what turned into a two-week stay. I wasn’t surprised, though, when a nurse friend of mine who worked at the hospital informed me that there was nothing physically wrong with him, but he’d insisted on staying anyway. Knowing most everyone in our small town had its advantages.

  Obie surprised the hell out of me by saying, “Oh hell. These things happen.” When my court date came along several months later, Obie surprised me again when he gave me a blank check to use to pay whatever fine I would incur.

  When I took the stand, I went through the events up to the moment I turned to observe the pickup stopping in front of me. I also testified that I did not observe any brake lights or signal lights on the pickup. The patrolman corroborated the fact that neither sets of lights on the pickup were in working order. It was decided that I was not at fault, and acquitted. (The judge and his wife frequently played bridge with my parents, but who’s to say if that made a difference.) When I handed Obie back his check, all he could do was grin and say, “I’ll be damned.”

  Months later we learned that Obie’s insurance company had settled with the pickup truck driver for $5,000. This was for the driver’s alleged pain and suffering. His brother’s pickup must not have experienced as much pain and suffering because the owner never fixed the minimal damage, and we often saw it around our small town. From then on, I always drove slower and was more alert when I was driving trucks, especially while bobtailing, but I was only eighteen at the time, and there were things about trucking and life that I had to learn the hard way.

  Part Two

  Military Trucking

  In 1966, conventional wisdom dictated that I study hard and stay in college, but those were the days of the Vietnam War, student protests, and the free-spirited culture that would soon lead to Woodstock—an opportune time, I thought, to release myself from the antiquated shackles of attendance and hit the beach, which was a short ninety-mile ride from the school. In July 1967, the college suggested, via letter, that I take the next semester off to reassess my desire to do well when I returned to classes.

  During my imposed hiatus I returned home and while at the barbershop one morning, I noticed a poster depicting military construction workers on bulldozers and other heavy equipment. The men resembled John Wayne or Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson: strong, courageous, pinnacles of masculinity. It was a Navy poster, an ad for young men to join the Seabees. I presented myself to the Naval recruiter the next morning to inquire about joining.

  He asked when I would be drafted, and I told him I wasn’t sure, but that it would probably be in the next few months. He said that I should go find out, so I walked down the hallway and entered the local Selective Service office. Mrs. McIntyre, a friend of my mother’s, clerked the front desk, and I asked if she knew when I would be drafted. She took a moment to collect herself, and then said, “Honey, do you see that pile of letters on that desk? Well, they are going out tomorrow, and I am truly sorry, but your name is on one of them.”

  I politely thanked Mrs. McIntyre, walked out into the hallway, marched back down the hall, entered the recruiter’s office, and asked where to sign. He told me that they would put me in the regular Navy if they couldn’t successfully billet me as a Seabee and I told him hell no. I’d rather become an Army ground-pounder, a member of the infantry, than be stuck in an ocean a thousand miles from land. He assured me that he would take care of my request, and I soon enlisted in the United States Naval Construction Battalions, the Navy Seabees, the unit of the military comprised of builders, mechanics, electricians, engineers, equipment operators, steelworkers, and utilities workers.

  Because I grew up around trucks, farm equipment, and other heavy equipment, I was able to enter the Direct Procurement Petty Officer (DPPO) program, which recruits workers with existing technical skills and starts them at a pay grade that is higher than other entry level positions. I was assigned the title of Equipment Operator (EO), indicating my occupational specialty, and my rate on entrance was as a Petty Officer Third Class, which has an E-4 pay grade. In the Navy, enlisted personnel have rates, not ranks. A person’s rate is determined by their pay grade and reflected in the number of chevrons, the V-shape markings, on the person’s rating badge, which is worn on the sleeve of their uniform. The rating badge also shows their occupational specialty, indicated by the symbol above the chevrons. Those who didn’t enter the Seabees under the DPPO program referred to us as IPOs, or Instant Petty Officers.

  I am certain that having a trucking background saved my life when I served in the military. If I hadn’t become a Seabee, my Vietnam experience would have most likely entailed wading through leech-in
fested water and worse. But I had the good fortune to join the Seabees, and I thank God every day that my name did not become one of the 58,318 inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.

  Several days after I signed on the Navy’s dotted line, I was sent to Fort Jackson, an Army base close to Columbia, South Carolina, where I was inducted into the armed forces. I can’t say that I enjoyed parading around naked with hundreds of other guys while we suffered the ignominious examinations of every orifice during our physicals. One doctor asked if I had any physical limitations, and I told him that two years earlier my right eye sustained a broken floor of the orbit and five broken bones had to be removed and replaced with a plastic plate that now supported the floor of my eye. He asked if I could see okay or if I had blurred vision. I said I was fine, so he declared me “fit as a fiddle” and I was shuffled off to the next specialty doctor. It was very late in the day when they completed poking, prodding, listening, and embarrassing us, and sent us to eat what can only be described as tasteless vittles with a bunch of Army recruits.

  I lay awake that evening questioning my reluctance to have read more while in school. I wondered if all the fun I had in high school was worthwhile or if I should have studied beyond the bare minimum. I questioned the year in college that I had wasted at the beach and many other choices I made prior to my induction at Fort Jackson. But feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to do a bit of good and I would never avoid the draft by fleeing to Canada, so I thought, Just suck it up. You made this mess of shit, so lie in it! The thought gave me some ease and I soon fell asleep.