01/14/2024
When is was 11, the first thing I drove was a D9 Cat dozer. My dad put me up on it and taught me how to run grade with it. The same year, I dug about a 1000 yard trench for a water line to a migrant camp with a backhoe by myself. Pop showed me how to do it, told me how deep and wide to dig it, and drive away and left me there, expecting me to get it done, and I didn’t stop until I was finished.
When I was growing up, if something broke, we fixed it. When I turned 16, dad bought me a worn out 63 Mercury Comet wagon for $175 bucks, and told me that if I was gonna drive cars, I was gonna have to learn how to fix them, and this car was how I was gonna start. I replaced everything from the radiator back, sometimes twice. Redid the whole interior, put new suspension under it, and did a lot of body work to it. I was drag racing with it and knocked a coupe synchronizers out of the transmission one time. I was out drinking the night before and got sicker than a dog. Pop woke me up at 6am next morning and said we were gonna go down to the shop at the farm and pull the tr**ny out and rebuild it—hangover and all, and it was a doozy. I went and threw up a couple times while we are working on it, but we got er done and got it all back together.
We raced motocross back then and I got so good at tearing the motor out of my Maico 250, splitting the cases, fixing the tr**ny, and putting it back together again that I could do it in an hour.
I bought a Mac Tool franchise when I was 19. The company got new leadership and went on a drive to put new franchises on and back ordered about 80% of our tools, giving them all to the new franchises, and I had to face angry mechanics who needed warranty replacements and I couldn’t get them. It was intimidating as a young fella, but I had no choice. I learned to face it. I started getting dealerships for other brands of tools to keep myself going. It was depressing, but I worked as hard as I could to keep going. Some days I would service shops all three shifts in order to build a customer base. Some days I couldn’t make it home without falling asleep over the wheel of that big walk-in van. Eventually, it got so bad that I went under, despite running myself ragged trying to stay afloat. My first failure.
I got into the logging business, long before the days of grapple skidders and feller bunchers. My uncle used to say, “Boys, this work will put muscles in your s**t.” It did. We used to joke about finding a steep bank on the way home, and backing our butts up to it and have s**t races to see whose turd made it to the top of the bank first.
Dragging heavy winch cable, full of choker sliders and chokers, through brush, up steep hills was tough work. So was cutting and limbing huge oak trees. The thing that often put me about over the edge was working my way out through the top of a white oak I just dropped, only to discover it stirred up a nest of yellow jackets out of the ground. This was far from a one time occurrence. There wasn’t anything easy about that job, but when you went to bed that night you slept well, and no one could call you lazy.
After a while, I bought an old circular hand sawmill, an old 01 Frick. Why, I don’t know. Man, that was hard work, full of problems. Thing about killed me a half dozen times. Then I got into some ticks in the woods one day and contracted Lyme. Back in those days they didn’t diagnose it and didn’t know how to treat it. Some days I was okay, and others I was sick as a dog. My wife finally got tired of it and deserted the boys and me.
I got better, sold the mill, sold the property and bought my first road tractor. I tried putting a driver in it, and the first thing he did was gamble the fuel advance money away out in IL. Next thing you know I had to drive it myself. Back then I had $750 a month cell bills trying to coach the boys through it all and make sure they got their homework done and got to school. They learned how to cook, wash clothes, clean house, and both graduated from college on the Deans list. It was far from a perfect situation, but we did what we had to do and I kept preaching perseverance, determination, and faith in God, and they’ve done well.
I used to get loaded out in Monroe, Mi after emptying out at 5 AM, after making it out there on three hours sleep on an exit ramp most of the time, and I’d put the hammer down and drive 7 hours back home so I wouldn’t miss my son’s soccer game or wrestling match. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t legal, but back then, you didn’t give up. God gave you responsibilities, and you did the best you could. My first driver manager, Alan Posey, told me, “The only thing we have to sell is service.” I never forgot that. The only time I ever missed an appointment was if I broke down, and one time a cop forced me to get off the road when I was driving in a foot and a half of snow, and the plows hadn’t been through. The first thing I did was to call my receiver and my broker to tell them, and if I had a load to pick up later, I let them know so they could get someone else in case I didn’t make it. They always remembered it. Usually gave me the load anyway, but I built a great reputation on communication and service, because, like old Alan said, it was the only thing I had to sell.
I don’t drive anymore, but I can tell ya that this piece of crap in the White House, who is lining the pockets of 8 million people who he’s left in here, many who hate our country, and are looking for a free ride, is making me work harder and longer days than I did when I was driving, just trying to keep my men working. The economy is shot to hell, and all he does is lie about it. We’re blessed with some good freight, but the general freight spot market is the worst I’ve seen it, for the longest period I’ve ever seen it. I’ve watched over half my guys park or sell their trucks and get a job, and it makes me sick to my stomach when I see that. It threatens everyone else’s work in the company. No matter how bad it got, it never got so bad that they couldn’t bring home twice what they could make working for someone else. The industry has always been a cycle. You just suck it up and keeping rolling.
I’ll tell ya, I dont cotton to quitters, I don’t tolerate liars and thieves, and while I will bend over backwards to help my fellowman out when he’s going through hard times, because, Lord knows, I’ve been there many times, I hold fast to the Bible where it says that if a man won’t work, he won’t eat. I’m not gonna feed leeches, and this administration is breedin em like cockroaches. These filthy, lowlife politicians want us to fail. There’s no doubt in my mind they do.
Everytime another one of us gives up and quits, they win and the rest of us lose. We gotta stick together, and help each other through this, and never forget the incredible hard work and sacrifices our founding fathers made to give us a shot at this Godmade thing we call freedom. Why anyone would think that tyranny is better than freedom is just plain stupid. There is only one or the other, so if they’re not satisfied with freedom the way it is, that’s because evil people are taking it away from us a little bit at a time. So the answer isn’t to give it all to them; the answer is to start taking back what has been taken from us. Because freedom ain’t and never was or will be free.
I ain’t gonna lie to anyone and tell them I got easy money here, but if you’re not making it where you are, I can tell you that I will do everything within my ability to keep you from failing, if you’re willing to work hard and fight to keep our country going forward.
That’s who I am, who we are as a company, and what America is supposed to be all about.
If you’re struggling keeping your truck going, and you’re willing to pull your weight, PM me and I’ll see what I can do to help. Unlike the liar-in-chief who lies to us when he says, “We’re all in this together,” those of us who are out here trying to make America great again really are all in it together. United we stand, divided we fall. Let’s keep this ship sailing.
