A New Adventure Every Day!

My next great adventure began in September of 1977. My old Scoutmaster, Michael B's dad, recommended me to a dad of another Troop 721 Scout who had a business delivering new trucks for the Duralite Truck Body Company in Baltimore. They built and installed boxes and other forms of hauling technologies onto truck chassis for companies all over the eastern United States. So I went to the DMV and got a Maryland Class B Learner's Permit to go with My Florida license. Next thing I knew, I was driving trucks to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, West Virginia, Virginia and Georgia. At first I was in hog heaven, experiencing A New Adventure Every Day! After a couple of months, however, I had come to dread every day, because the New Adventures were getting very old.


First I'll tell you about the "company," TR Transport. Ted Rutherford had a small trailer parked on the Duralite lot. If the gate to the lot was locked, we were shut out. He had power, a desk and a phone in there, and that was it. In November we showed up for work one day and it was gone! Ted's wife came along, gave us our driving orders and told us that Ted had taken the trailer deer hunting- he'd be back in a couple days. Hmmmm.


The usual thing was to drive a truck with a new box on it to, say, Lyndhurst, New Jersey, take a city bus to Newark and a train back to Baltimore. The best gigs were those few that involved a delivery to the customer and then driving a chassis back, because I got paid 10 cents a mile both ways. Our travel expenses were paid both ways regardless, but twenty bucks for twelve hours on the road just wasn't much, even in 1977.


Several of these adventures will require dedicated postings. Scamming In Atlanta; The Longest Day to Lyndhurst in a truck that didn't want to go; the Homeless In Hartford trip; the Birthday in Roanoke; The Final Trip From Hell to Garner Iowa in which just about everthing went wrong. These will fly on their own. For this posting I will mention some of the lesser adventures.


The most used routes for this "company" were Interstate 95 to the New Jersey Turnpike to somewhere usually very near our destination. I had memorized the Turnpike exit names and rest area names after about ten trips on the Green Stamp. Coming out of Delaware onto the Pike it was two lanes each direction. Long about Philadephia it grew to three. Soon after it split into the truck friendly three and the cars only three. Up near New York it split into the Lincoln Tunnel six, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge six and some other six. I don't really remember. What I do remember is that every time it grew, it became exponentially harder to drive. It seemed that the more options there were of where to drive, the more diluted the driving ability became.

A couple of little memories of the Pike: I was speeding along at about 65 (this was back in the Nationwide 55mph speed limit days) when a big station wagon whizzed by me and hauled ass down the road. I was able to read the sign on the side- "Department of Energy." Another day I was tooling along, reading the signs along the way: Center Lane Closed 1 Mile Ahead; Center Lane Closed 1/2 Mile Ahead; Center Lane Closed 1000 Feet. I was in the right lane watching a car blazing along in the center lane. Obviously not reading the signs. Traffic was very light- there were many wonderful opportunities to change lanes either way. I became nervous about the situation and slowed way down. The car drove right up to the cones and barriers, and screeched to a halt, skidding sideways across my lane, and stopped. I stopped easily and waited a minute or two for Dufus to fire up and get on his way. Idiot. I ran out of diesel on the Pike early one very cold December morning in an illegally licensed truck, no transporter tag (I'd lost it in Philly the day before) and not really licensed to drive it (I never had my Learner's Permit legitemized.) Despite my apprehensions, no charges were filed, indeed no questions were asked by the police. They got me fuel and a cup of coffee and sent me on my way.

I got sent to Richmond one day, down US 301. The boss gave me a hundred dollar bill for expenses. I stopped to get gas, and the station couldn't break the hundred. I used my own money. Next gas stop same thing. I bought gas in the amount of the money I had left. My next expense was the Eisenhower Bridge over the Potomac- a one dollar toll. Damn, I should have kept a dollar. I timidly handed over the hundred. She didn't bat an eye, but quickly whipped out $99.00 and said Thank You.

On my way to Atlanta one night, I was getting sleepy. I pulled off into a rest area, parked between two trucks in the truck parking area and went to sleep. The space I was in faced the direction of the Interstate 85 flow of traffic, looking right down the highway. Some time later I woke with a start! There I was between two trucks looking down the road! Heart hammering, I grabbed the wheel, hit the brakes and tried to get 'er under control. Oh Yeah. I was parked. I didn't get sleepy again all the way to A-town.

The four trips to Atlanta I drove were Avis trucks bound for Doraville. Each time I went directly to Doraville and found the place still wasn't open. I had to go on to Howell Mill Road to the Avis truck rental place there. This mirrored the three trips to New Haven, Connecticut, where the Avis place still wasn't open and I had to drive on to Hartford. One would think this wouldn't keep happening, but it did.

A chassis coming back to Baltimore for a box installation suddenly went to hot, with steam spewing out from under the hood. I pulled off the interstate and into a service station. The attendant looked under the hood and found that none of the hose clamps on the cooling system hoses had ever been tightened down. He fixed me up for free.

Right this moment I can't think of any more small adventures. I know I will sooner or later, but for now I guess I'll publish this and move on to the big five. Coming soon: Scamming In Atlanta.