Dashboard Confidential – November 2021
The internet is quite incredible. Looking around through the World Wide Web at the vast choices of trucking websites and Facebook pages that feature trucks, trucking, truck drivers, truck business, trucks for pleasure, trucks for work, trucks for pulling your RV trailer. If it has wheels, it has a following. Custom trucks, old trucks, trucks stuck under low bridges, trucks in ditches. Why, there are even web pages for trucks from several companies with a bad track record of having wrecks – as if seeing other people’s misery makes you feel better about yourself.
And, as with everything on the internet, there are so many experts who are quick to convict anyone unfortunate enough to be featured in whichever boo-boo fest pictured. I call it being convicted in the court of public abuse. Even if the boo-boo was not the fault of the poor sap someone caught on their cellphone camera, there is always plenty of blame to go around. Again, that seems to me to be a shallow form of entertainment.
In addition to the new truck lovers, there is a large following of vintage iron fans (including myself) who admire equipment from days gone by. It is equally amazing to me how much has been forgotten about how crappy some of that equipment really was. Legions of adoring fans swear that the mid-1960s GMC Cracker Box was such an incredible truck. I drove one for many miles, and I am here to say they were horrible. Loud, noisy, poorly insulated, doors that didn’t seal properly and, my favorite (not), a spring ride ratchet driver’s seat that would take your finger off trying to adjust it.
One of the worst riding clunkers I ever rode saddle in.
A “cabover Falcon,” Ford 9000 was equally bad. Rough riding, a shift linkage prone to breaking, a terrible blind spot, and who could forget a 238 Detroit engine with all the power of a washing machine. Ran pretty well downhill. Uphill, not so much. Where’s the romance in that?
On a slightly fonder note, I do recall my long hood Brockway as my favorite from “back in the day.” Old guys say that like it’s a badge of courage. However, if truck manufacturers today made trucks with the same quality as my Brockway, it would be a different world. Solid, tight door seals, excellent heater, good visibility with a darn good ride, and yet they had style and just looked cool. You knew what that truck was, and the husky on the hood let you know it.
And of course, with all this web-based reminiscing of the road, there is always the lovefest about how wonderful trucking used to be. Some folks, I think, have long-term memory loss. It was certainly different and, in some ways, it was better “back then,” but for the most part, not really. True, there was a camaraderie that is a ghost of the past, but that is true of many professions today. Likely it’s more because of how the “Me Generation” was raised. Something was lost in the teachings, I think, but that is just my opinion.
But what about the “romance of the road? All those travelogues, postcards and trucker magazines describing the freedom of the road, great places to eat. Television programs showed the good-looking driver and his chimp companion in the cool looking KW Aerodyne being chased around the hot tub at the Atlanta truck stop by bikini clad beauties. I had an ’80 Aerodyne and loved it, stopped regularly at that same truck stop, and was never surrounded by beauties. I guess I missed out.
Never found that hot tub either.
And that “romance of the road” thing. It’s more like having a mistress. She will cause you to lose your priorities, if you aren’t careful. The mistress called the road has ruined more marriages and relationships than one would care to admit. Every driver out here knows someone who came home to an empty house, because she couldn’t take being alone anymore. All because of a truck. Because of the next adventure over the next horizon. Because of the next good-paying load. So many of us have sacrificed much to do what we do to try to earn a living for our families. We miss birthdays, anniversaries, kids’ ball games, but the mistress called the road doesn’t care.
I am coming up on the 50-year mark of driving big trucks. I have, like many, given up a lot of my personal life to do what I do. After all these years, I still love it. Every day. Some days, I love it more than others. But I still do it because I love it. I humbly remind myself that this gig has cost me a GMC, nine Kenworths, two wives and 11 girlfriends. While some may call me jaded, I have a firm grip on reality and call ’em as I see ’em. I offer this up to anyone just getting into the trucking industry as a caveat. There is money to be made, countless incredible sunsets and sunrises, interesting people and places to look forward to. But fair warning: the mistress has no heart.
Happy trails. LL