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  • Class A CDL

    I met a long lost relative the other day..reminded how short life can be, me being disabled myself. This relative, I thought he could do anything.
    aged a lot. been 20 something years.
    we lobster fished when I was 15, that was 25 years ago. he had 7 strokes and he is looking at the big nap. This startled me into another dimensia.
    my younger brother is caught up in a mess so deep, he won't be taking over dads trucking before his retirement.

    me?
    I gained 35 pounds back, still looking like a wired junky...but I tried something today.

    I got in my dads kenworth w900 when no one was looking and tried the clutch out. my leg is very very bad. I have known the routines of trucking since I was 10...I turned 40 this year.

    the clutch was easy. my sube at stage 1 is more of a blippy kicker than that milky smooth w900 today.

    So, I grabbed a cdl book and an application, this will only take a few weeks...

    after 17 years impossibled.
    I was also reading my military record could aid in haz mat of the national security kind. I may take a bigger leap than intended.. whatever.

    my brother, father, uncle and I standing in the same place after 20 something years..
    we all came to maine together, built our own road, installed our own sewer and maintained the water..

    there we were all caught up in some very real dead ends.
    Scary.

    I am just going to step up to know I can keep trying.

    I got my 99 cent leg brace from salvation army.
    Last edited by Barry Donovan; August 25, 2013, 06:15 PM.
    Previously boxer3main
    the death rate and fairy tales cannot kill the nature left behind.

  • #2
    W900s are the Cadillac of trucks. Freightliners being the Hondas, and 379s a silverado.

    I hate to pry, but id love to know about your leg? A friend of mine, age 63, was in a bad car wreck three years ago in a car, had hip surgery..was a driver since 18. did pt with my coach and finally passed his physical couple months ago.
    Si vis pacem, para bellum

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    • #3
      Barry, lots of work for CDL guys by me in gasland. The companies pay full benefits too. Pick and choose your job.
      Tom
      Overdrive is overrated


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      • #4
        Good news Barry, best of luck to ya!
        Ed, Mary, & 'Earl'
        HRPT LongHaulers, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.


        Inside every old person is a young person wondering, "what the hell happened?"

        The man at the top of the mountain didn't fall there. -Vince Lombardi

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        • #5
          Best of luck Barry! Its tough to start over,you'll do it.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by kyhunter89 View Post
            W900s are the Cadillac of trucks. Freightliners being the Hondas, and 379s a silverado.

            I hate to pry, but id love to know about your leg? A friend of mine, age 63, was in a bad car wreck three years ago in a car, had hip surgery..was a driver since 18. did pt with my coach and finally passed his physical couple months ago.
            my leg was also a wreck. Supposed to be just a foot, went right back to military work. that ended up bad news. a plate, 8 screws and some pins...installed somewhere in long names of bones I do not know. I just say ankle, but it was worse. My heel chunked beyond my ankle..upward. little pieces, 17 hours under sorting it out. Amputation was a much easier option.

            to this day, looking up a custom brace has the adult xtra small a half inch too big. (it was damn near done at the ankle). As time went along, the fluids and shock absorbers god given had all been beaten badly all the way to my hip. Never diagnosed.. then the doctor died. Accepting flesh by a big meats diet and about 10 years after the second operation to remove the metal..
            I am ready to try.

            A funny coincidence.. the first kick on my left leg that lead to injury was one of my dads old cabovers with a ceramic mechanical clutch. 1981 international. Extremely hard fired cummins. I was 10 driving around a parking lot... like an innocent groin pull an athelete would get.

            Originally posted by Huskinhano View Post
            Barry, lots of work for CDL guys by me in gasland. The companies pay full benefits too. Pick and choose your job.
            I am thinking that train wreck locally may have some more drivers for sometime as well. I already learned the pay scale and routines from one of dads friends.

            Originally posted by oletrux4evr View Post
            Good news Barry, best of luck to ya!
            I hope it all goes well too.
            I was at a point where my record in the military would have been just a pre trip inspection in the outside world..
            that is all faded away but my security ability (integrity).

            that never fades away, and a lot like my dads path, it has only gotten easier than ever.
            Last edited by Barry Donovan; August 25, 2013, 07:03 PM.
            Previously boxer3main
            the death rate and fairy tales cannot kill the nature left behind.

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            • #7
              Good luck Barry, the cheering you hear to the west of you is me
              Doing it all wrong since 1966

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              • #8
                Good luck, hope to hear some "On the Road Stories".
                Neal

                Drag Week 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by SuperBuickGuy View Post
                  Good luck Barry, the cheering you hear to the west of you is me
                  thinking a bit ahead..
                  I need to move or die. West is an option.

                  I am currently on section 6..
                  I must have read that 1 hundred times since I was a kid.
                  you know what?

                  they added an ABS section, auto slack adjusters..all else is as prehistoric trucking like a wooly mammoth that never died.

                  I hope its not a group gathering, big pee pee contest, come test time.

                  I am very quiet about the 30 years of road going tales in other words.
                  Previously boxer3main
                  the death rate and fairy tales cannot kill the nature left behind.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Hope you can make it! The echo you hear from SBG is me!
                    Like you, I am a mother trucker's kid!
                    Always wanted to drive, even had a CDL... Damn state took it away, I was not driving professionally.. And trucks had no inside mirror for the deaf, as my license requires..
                    You should be fine!
                    As someone said.. PT might help... On your own or professionally..

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Deaf Bob View Post
                      Hope you can make it! The echo you hear from SBG is me!
                      Like you, I am a mother trucker's kid!
                      Always wanted to drive, even had a CDL... Damn state took it away, I was not driving professionally.. And trucks had no inside mirror for the deaf, as my license requires..
                      You should be fine!
                      As someone said.. PT might help... On your own or professionally..
                      the CDL did a lot of folks in.

                      my first memories are one eyed whiskey drinking drunks.. with a license.

                      ever hear the common nicnkname "pistol pete". I'd swear I met the original.

                      I was looking through the book, seems a hearing problem would not be a problem today, gauges and sight for everything....hand on the shift is the biggest gauge of all (I am sure you know anyway).

                      I guess I do not need luck, even amputees are allowed...good to have some go forward comments.
                      Previously boxer3main
                      the death rate and fairy tales cannot kill the nature left behind.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by boxer3main View Post
                        the CDL did a lot of folks in.

                        my first memories are one eyed whiskey drinking drunks.. with a license.

                        ever hear the common nicnkname "pistol pete". I'd swear I met the original.

                        I was looking through the book, seems a hearing problem would not be a problem today, gauges and sight for everything....hand on the shift is the biggest gauge of all (I am sure you know anyway).

                        I guess I do not need luck, even amputees are allowed...good to have some go forward comments.

                        Hmmm.. Pistol Pete! Man! Been years since I heard of him... We had one around here.. Always drunk.. Liked to scare the crap out of me by taking his glass eye out and wet it in his mouth "to get the dust off" then take a swig..
                        Yeah.. The gyppo loggers and truckers were hard drinkin bastards!

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Deaf Bob View Post
                          Hmmm.. Pistol Pete! Man! Been years since I heard of him... We had one around here.. Always drunk.. Liked to scare the crap out of me by taking his glass eye out and wet it in his mouth "to get the dust off" then take a swig..
                          Yeah.. The gyppo loggers and truckers were hard drinkin bastards!
                          haha.
                          the pistol pete I met had one glass eye.
                          not sure how conservative things were in his time, but he killed somebody with agun..that made him a bad ass.
                          the twist was the court let him walk.

                          the eye thing came later..

                          the school bus at the bottom of a hill and his rig could not stop. He intentionally hit thr banking on the side of the road to to tip the rig over.

                          it then slid all the way down, sparks flying due to the steel load on the pavement.
                          he got caught up in something, lost an eye....just feet away from the bus. So now he has killed somebody and then saved a bus load of kids. the tale was spectacular just to talk about... it apparently got around. some years later, I saw the tag on front of a truck "pistol pete". A mimick or reverberation of hearing it someplace before and never getting the story.. like a clone emerging from subconscious. I knew then it was a real legend... he did not ask for that either.

                          the trucks then evolved to crazy things like "power steering" and pumping air out of the brakes instead of in, to allow them to work.

                          I am pretty sure he saw the first of air ride too. Come to think of it, my dad and I saw the first of those (it is not all that old), I remember my dad talking of that with him.

                          I think my dad came to be known due to an abusive boss. cali and back in a time just not quite right.. all by himself. Way beyond hours.
                          They only got serious since the CDL laws of the 80s.

                          anyway, I assumed the tale to be a large one, bits have been repeated in famous places...because it was true.

                          he died on the side of the road, checking something on his rig. I rode with him once, he had whiskey and notrogylcerin heart somethings.

                          you could smell the rot coming out of his head...right at the eye.

                          Some coincidental modern formal facts..
                          if you read in the cdl book, you must have a 20/40 in "your best eye" (you do not have to have both to this day).. some say it was because of the pistol pete... he lived and died a natural martyr for trucking.

                          the limited hours for a work day adds my dad into the silent mystery of legends...(he too does not know what he has done just by existing)
                          Last edited by Barry Donovan; August 26, 2013, 04:45 PM.
                          Previously boxer3main
                          the death rate and fairy tales cannot kill the nature left behind.

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                          • #14
                            Remember when trucks had cool handles on them.. One local was called " The Blue Mule"
                            Pic of aa ass and kicking with the horseshoes painted on the doghouse up front.. Don't see that no more!
                            Used to always know who was driving what..

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Deaf Bob View Post
                              Remember when trucks had cool handles on them.. One local was called " The Blue Mule"
                              Pic of aa ass and kicking with the horseshoes painted on the doghouse up front.. Don't see that no more!
                              Used to always know who was driving what..
                              yeah, there was some silly pride.
                              no worse than the eagle on a trans am becoming well known. no on calls that silly, even today.
                              It had its place in time, like people that changed it.. or kept a piece of it.

                              a lot of what I do is because of time that hangs on, to never be old.

                              me in trucking is more silent than my dad. I do not want to be known at all.
                              me and my peg leg.


                              today, its as if men nickname to pretend smaller instead of bigger.
                              no poking fun at peewee, that is actually a modern thing.
                              Previously boxer3main
                              the death rate and fairy tales cannot kill the nature left behind.

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