After my first heart attack (Feb. 18, 2001) I was off work for 13 months. When the doctor finally released me to go back to work I started looking for a new job, because I did not want to work for the guy I worked for before, because when I had my heart attack he stranded me in Pittsburgh, PA.
As it turns out it is very difficult to find a new trucking job when you've been off work for 13 months due to a major heart attack. I was preparing myself to go back to work at my old job, when I was contacted by an Owner Operator who had 3 trucks leased to Vermillion Bros. in Keokuk, IA. He had old trucks but they were in good mechanical condition, so I jumped at the chance.
I picked up my truck and noticed right off the bat that there was a 2X4 holding the dash up. he promised to fix that as soon as I got back and he did. The following day, I bobtailed over to Keokuk and picked up my loaded trailer. It was a load of Potatoes from Idaho that some other driver had already used all of the miles up on it going to Toledo. They were going to a food bank. I hooked up and headed east and picked up my nephew Randy.
It was a pretty good old truck. 1987 Freightliner FLD 120 with a 425 Kitty Kat an 18 speed, with 3.55s in the rear. Other then the 2X4 it was in good shape and had a fresh major on engine and transmission.
Randy and I stopped at the truckstop in Morris IL (Now a TA) and fueled up. While we were there, we decided to eat. The restaurant there sells a 4 pound burger called the Ethel for almost $25. Randy decided he would try the Ethel and get his picture on the wall. He ate most of it, and it cost me $25. Then he puked. I should have known then that this was going to be a very long trip.
The trip to Toledo was uneventful. When we got there we discovered that since the Federal Government was paying for these taters, they needed to be inspected by a USDA inspector. The inspector couldn't get there until the next afternoon, so we spent the night, in a bad section of town... but the people were nice. There was a long procession of women who knocked on the door all night to check on us and make sure we weren't lonely. We weren't.
The next day, the Inspector showed up 1 hour early! We unloaded my taters, one pallet at a time, and he would pull a bag off of each pallet. He rejected the whole load. Turns out these taters had been stored in a vacuum for the last 7 or 8 years. By then it was late in the afternoon and Vermilion was unable to get in touch with the folks they needed to so we spent another night in the truck, on the curb, in the very same bad neighborhood we were in the night before...again, the nice, scary ladies knocked at the door.
Morning came and went and they finally decided to sell my taters to an outfit that sells hog feed just west of Toledo. We fired the old truck up and away we went. We got there just as they were closing and they stayed open late for us. Finally, thing s are improving. The owner came out and pulled a bag, cut into one of the taters, and said, "Stop unloading the truck". My heart sank. I called the company and they said to park there for the night, that they were working some kind of deal with the owner. So we shut the doors and the owner of the company took us to town and bought us dinner. Not one person came to see if we were lonely that night.
Morning comes again, and I am sick of these potatoes. I want them gone. The owner of this company comes out, wakes us up and says, "call your company" so I did. I was instructed to unload my taters (Yippie!), keep my mouth shut and do as I was told. The owner of the Hog Feed place was my boss until the job was finished. That was pretty odd, but by now.......
So, we unloaded my Taters, The Hog Feed place, re-bagged them with bags that had a brand name on them, loaded them on pallets, put them back on my trailer and told me to take them to a Safeway Distribution Center in Maryland.
Safeway, was very happy to have them.......
So ends, Part 1 of the Great Potato Adventure... Part 2, The Trip home to follow when I have more time.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by W3MIV
