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hedon has contributed to 12 posts out of 3927 total posts
(0.31%) in 1,765 days (0.01 posts per day).
20 Most recent posts:
OMG! This is so cool! Stace and I were at the Flying J in Lebec, CA and I met this young lady who asked my opinion about some things she was buying. I gave her my opinion and she explained that she was a set designer for this movie they were making about this lady who ends up driving with a young kid.
She asked if maybe she could see the inside of our truck, and ended up spending a long time in the truck asking questions and taking pictures. I had forgotten all about it until you posted this. I hope she got the truck looking good.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
http://www.highwayhags.com
Hi Jennifer,
I would recommend U S Xpress for school, but they only have auto-shift trannies. The problem with that is you are stuck in a bad situation if you ever want to leave them as many companies have 10 speed transmissions and you won't have any experience shifting.
Have you checked to see if you are eligible for any type of grant or student loan? Many companies will pay your schooling after the fact if you come to them directly out of an independant school. One I can recommend highly if you can scrape the financing is Central Tech in Drumright, OK. Another is Crowder College in Neosho, MO.
As for the trainers being male or female, I had one of each. The male one first and although we didn't have a problem based on gender, we did have a problem based on the fact that he was an idiot and a horrible trainer. Thank goodness he had a family emergency and I got my second trainer who was excellent. I think she was just luck of the draw, and boy did I get lucky.
Whatever you decide to do, remember that as crappy a situation as training often is it won't last forever and at the end of it you'll have your own truck and can do things how you want.
Good luck and let us know what happens.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
http://www.highwayhags.com
Edited by hedon on Sep 11, 2008 at 11:31 PM
I agree with that 100%, Godiva. I will never bend even a little on safety issues when dealing with my company, so I'm with you on knowing the difference between safety-related and just irritating repair issues. You don't want to take a stand on something like the light in my bunk doesn't work or you will be fighting all the time.
About three years ago in January we drove around for two weeks with a missing bunk window that had broken. We just taped cardboard over the hole and waited until they could get us to their terminal to get it fixed. Very irritating but not safety related.
I think you're right that newbies need to fight hard on safety problems, give way if needed on non-safety repairs, and learn to understand the difference. It will make their lives much more peaceful out here.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
http://www.highwayhags.com
Lady Godiva,
That is all extremely good advice. I always say that companies come and go but my CDL is forever. And its mine. You never know where you will be working 18 months from now but if you have an incident caused by faulty equipment on your record it will stay with you where-ever you go.
We have had problems at a couple of our companies with our dispatcher trying to force us to run in an unsafe truck and so far asking for a conference call with the safety department has always made them see reason. I suppose the time will come when it won't work and we will have to go up the chain of command. But whatever it takes, we simply will not run in an unsafe truck.
We aren't job-hoppers, but I would rather quit a company rather than take a chance on hurting or killing innocent by-standers with a truck I knew was unsafe to drive. Can you imagine having that on your conscience? I couldn't deal with that.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
http://www.highwayhags.com
Hey Dawdles!
I had forgotten Tanker Yanker. I used to love the trucks that had "Yankin a tanker to pay the banker" lettered on the back of the cab.
Dang! I forgot Comic Book and Swindle Sheet, too. Actually, you have several I forgot. And I thought I had ours pretty complete when I finally posted it. I'll have to add all these. Thanks.
I think our dictionary is too long to post over here, but I will post a link if I can figure out how:
http://www.highwayhags.com/trucker-talk/
Obviously, you're welcome to use any of it that strikes your fancy.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
http://www.highwayhags.com
I say screw 'em. The men that is. Not literally though. Well... I mean... that would be up to you wouldn't it... I don't really have any recommendations on that front... that's kinda a personal decision... let's just move on.
Women are certainly every bit as capable of being good OTR drivers as men are. I don't think it has anything to do with gender at all. I think success is based mostly on personality types. If you are self-confident and able to learn new skills you can be a truck driver. It sounds like your original training simply wasn't adequate, so I admire your decision to go get some more.
I have personally had three different male family members/family friends give trucking a whirl and decide that ultimately it wasn't for them. My younger brother was a driver for years, but when they finally had their babies he wasn't about to miss them growing up. So he quit, but he would be the first to encourage you to give it a shot. The other two guys lasted about a month each. Both of them deciding that trucking was "crazy hard" and they weren't up to it. The funny thing is that one of them had been a Sheriff's Deputy and Volunteer Firefighter for years, but he couldn't handle trucking.
I don't know about the guys you meet, but I would imagine some of them are just trying to make sure you have a realistic picture of what trucking will be like. I try to do that myself. You see so much crap everywhere about how trucking is "like a paid vacation" that you feel the need to warn people how hard it is so they aren't blind-sided when they get out here. Maybe that's what some of them are doing.
The rest of them probably can't imagine a 61 year old woman being successful at something that their big, studly, hairy-chested, manly-man selves couldn't handle. Screw 'em. You can do it.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
www.highwayhags.com
Thanks, Leadbottom.
It took a long time to get out here because life got in the way, but I never lost sight of how much I had wanted to become a driver. And I guess waiting until I was 36 made me much more confident and able than I would have been at 12. 
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
www.highwayhags.com
Thanks, Storyteller.
I had actually written the story of why I became a trucker because Stace wanted it to be posted on our blog. But when I read through my earlier post, it sounded kinda flippant. As if driving were no big deal to me, when nothing could be farther from the truth. So I decided to post the story here, first. I'm glad you liked it.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
www.highwayhags.com
When I was a kid in the 70s truckers were still considered heros on the highways. Movies like Convoy and Smokey and the Bandit were big hits, and CBs were all the rage. My dad got the CB bug and, being a welder by trade, he erected a massive 30 foot tall antenna tower at the end of our house. We lived pretty close to I44 in Missouri, and dad's base unit was so powerful that we had a huge range of miles where we could talk to a driver going by on the interstate before he drove out of CB range.
Dad's preoccupation with the CB waned quickly so I had the chance to use it pretty much whenever I wanted. I remember night after night when everyone was watching tv how I would go into the room where the CB was to talk to the truckers. It was a different group of voices every night. Different but the same because they were all in motion. All moving purposefully into the distance. Quite a heady thought to a restless twelve year old who was stuck in place for the forseeable future.
They would tell me where they had come from and where they were going. What they were hauling and how much they would get paid when they delivered the load. They talked about their families back home. And where home was for them. What it was like there. After a couple of months, the guys who had regular runs started to call for me when they hit what they knew to be our range. They would ask how school had gone that day and if I had finished my homework yet. Some of them even remembered to ask about things like a test I had been nervous about and how it had gone. I didn't appreciate how special that was back then like I do now looking back on it.
But mostly they told stories. Trucking stories. About all the places they had been. And all the things they had seen. I loved their stories. They talked about driving in the swamps of Louisianna. They talked about driving around the great lakes in Michigan where you could hit a swarm of bugs so thick that in one instant you could no longer see out your windshield. About the vast wheat fields. The beauty of the desert at sunrise. The tunnels through the mountains and the great bridges across the bays out east. And the cities. Cities that were a towering wall of lights at night. Cities with every kind of person you could imagine living side by side. Cities with narrow streets so tight that the truck's mirrors rubbed the light-poles on both sides of the street when they drove by them.
They told the stories of the heroic truckers with whom they were proud to be associated. The driver who, losing his brakes coming down a steep hill, chose to turn his truck into an embankment rather than hit a bus full of widows and orphans. The driver who pulled an unconsious woman to safety from a burning car and then died when the gas tank blew up while he was going back for the box of puppies in the back seat. The countless stories of truck drivers helping stranded 4-wheelers on lonely roads.
But my favorite story was about a mysterious place called Cabbage Hill and the widowed woman who lived at the bottom of the hill called Sad Mary. It seems that Mary had this son, Bill, who was a truck driver. They were both quite happy. Mary worked at the truck stop at the bottom of Cabbage Hill. All the truckers loved Mary because she was so friendly and smiled a lot. And she went out of her way to make them feel at home when their own homes were so far away. When a driver would thank her for being kind, she always said she just hoped someone was doing the same for Bill wherever he was. When Bill did come home, Mary looked forward to spoiling him by cooking all his favorite foods, baking him pies, doing his laundry, etc.
Then Mary's birthday came around but Bill wasn't home yet. Bill had never missed her birthday before, but this time there was a horrible snow storm and Cabbage was just too dangerous to risk coming down. Mary knew it and resigned herself to celebrating her birthday at the truckstop with her friends. Late that evening a driver pushed in the door shaking snow off his coat and looking for Mary. His face was white and he was trembling. "Oh Mary, I'm so sorry. Bill was trying to push through the snow to celebrate your birthday and he lost control on Cabbage. I think he lost his brakes. I saw him go over the guardrail."
Mary stood utterly still. That was the same way she had lost her husband years before. Lost him to Cabbage. They looked for Bill's truck but it was days before the snow let up enough to find him. He had rolled 27 times into the bottom of a ravine. That's when Mary became Sad Mary. She worked in the truckstop like always, but the men would often see her stop and look up at the hill that had taken first her husband then her son. She had nobody to take care of anymore. She didn't smile. She didn't laugh. She didn't care.
Well... well... I loved that story. I would get choked up and think about how very sad Sad Mary must be now. And secretly I swore to myself that I would become a truck driver. And I would drive through city streets that rubbed my mirrors. I would brave the swarms of bugs and the creepy swamps. I would save stranded motorists on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. But mostly I would conquor Cabbage Hill. I would drive down that hill through drifts of snow six feet high. With my brakes on fire. I would pull into the truck stop, find Sad Mary, and ask her to do my laundry. And maybe bake me a pie. A gooseberry pie. And she wouldn't be sad anymore.
Those truckers probably had no idea how much they meant to me. I'm sure talking to me was just a way for them to pass a few minutes of their day. But I was a bored kid stuck in a small town. To me their tall-tales and our conversations were tiny glimpses of this huge world just down the road. A great big world that you made your own. Where you depended on yourself and you knew you could handle any situation. Because you were a truck driver. Where you made lots of money and lived really well. Because you were a truck driver. Where you did the right thing. You treated people right. You had self-confidence and self-respect. And the respect of the people you met. Because you were a truck driver.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
www.highwayhags.com
Hmmm,
Trying to describe a fried pie... Well it is a little like a Hostess pie. But that's similar to comparing a spotlight to the sun.
I think fried pies probably came about because cooks had left-overs when making regular pies. So they took their extra pie crust and filling sealed it up and dropped it in the hot oil. Those southern cooks will fry anything. lol
If you get it when its hot and fresh the crust is nice and crispy. My mom would very occasionally make large dried-peach fried pies for supper with a large glass of milk. Horrible nutritional value, but probably we kids' favorite supper of the year.
My only complaint about Nick's pies is I wish they were more crispy. Other than that the peach one is a blast to the past for me. Stace prefers the chocolate.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
www.highwayhags.com
Stace and my absolute favorite stop has to be Nick's in Arkansas. Its at I 40 exit 183. Go about 4 or 5 blocks south and its on the left hand side. Pull in the first drive because you can get blocked in if you enter through the exit.
Nick's has the best catfish I've ever tasted and their ribs are excellent as well. Actually everything we've ever tried there has been wonderful. They excel in down-home southern cooking.
Oh!! And fried pies! Real honest to goodness old-time fried pies that melt in your mouth.
Mmmm. Hope we get across I 40 soon.
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
www.highwayhags.com
I was lucky when I started out. Everyone who knew me thought trucking was a good choice for me. If there was any resistance from the guys in school or co-workers when I started I didn't really notice it. Must not have been that bad. In all fairness though, I don't look much like your average female so maybe that has made my path easier. I think its often easier for guys to relate to a woman who looks a lot like them.
Anyway, I was a solo female driver for two years. Then I became part of an even smaller minority. For the past five years, I have been half of the extremely elusive two-female team. We are rarely sighted. 
Hedon
Our World. Seen through a bug splattered windshield.
www.highwayhags.com
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