Going Back To Indy

So after I got empty Friday and got the trailer all cleaned up, I was dispatched to go pick up two picks of produce over around Pharr,TX and take it back to Indianapolis Sunday afternoon, then leave out of there Sunday night with a multi drop grocery store run over in Illinois. So I arrived at my first pick up around 12:30 PM and they said they had one order, but the other order they were waiting on to come over from Mexico around 2:30, So I went back to my truck and waited. About 3:30 I went back in to check on my load and they said they had it on the lot, just waiting to unload it and sort it. So about 4:30 I called my next pick up and they said they were closing at 6:00, so I ran over there and got that loaded one order, went a few miles down the road loaded the second order and returned to the original shipper, thinking surely by now they'd have me a door. By this time the trucks were lined up all around the block, not uncommon, happens every evening on this street. So they still did not have it ready, so eventually I left and went to the local truck stop and parked, finally they called and I'm thinking I'm going to get a door, but NO, they tell me now I must wait until tomorrow because something was wrong, they didn't get what they were supposed to.

So I spent the night there and 10:30 next morning I went back and checked in, the lady says they have it now , they're unloading it, she'll have me a dock in twenty minutes. So a couple hours later I went back in again and I'm like what the heck is going on here, she says they had to restack the load, and now it would be another hour. So FINALLY late afternoon they got me in a dock and I was loaded up and on my way. Although now it was going to be to late to make the 1400 mile trip by Sunday night, so I would just have to go ahead and deliver on Monday morning. So that's what I did, showed up first thing Monday morning here at our main customer in Indianapolis.

On the way back I stayed the night at an old abandoned truck stop. Sad to see the old mom and pop truck stops shut down, but there is something cool about old run down stuff. So the next morning as I'm walking around taking pictures these two girls pull up in a car, they're like we only got 12 miles of gas left, can we buy fuel here? I said no, I'm pretty sure this place is closed down!

Finishing up Texas trip

So I got up yesterday and I knew I had a lot of work to do if I wanted to get finished up by Friday. I arrived at my first stop, a furniture store in Lott,TX around 7:30 AM and I was out of there pretty quickly, I continued on to a sausage company in Snook,TX and dropped one pallet of food, then onto Houston to deliver doors.

From there I had two more stops to take care of, furniture in New Braunfels and one door going to San Antonio. So I called the furniture store and found out they would be staying late, plenty of time for my three hour run from Houston which made my ETA about 4:30 PM. But Sears Home Improvement in San Antonio would only be there until 5:00 and their one door was buried in the front of the trailer behind furniture. So I pulled off into a truck stop real quick, moved the furniture out of the way and slid the door down and strapped it to the wall again and headed for San Antonio. I called ahead and let them know I was coming and I arrived about 4:30, and they were waiting for me with the door open! 

So with that out of the way I headed up to New Braunfels, dropped this furniture off real quick and then went next door for a good ol' fashioned Texas BBQ dinner! Man those ribs were delicious! Then I headed back for San Antonio to the Petro truck stop and Blue Beacon truck wash, sat in line for probably over an hour but finally got the truck all shined up. It sure is pretty when its clean! Then I made my way on down towards McAlllen,TX for my final drop this morning, one pallet of food in Donna,TX. I made it all the down to the Loves just North of town and went to bed. Got up this morning and met the customer at 08:30 at a local flea market, they sell stuff there from November through April every year. So I finally got it all completed by Friday, even after getting off to a slow start. This is what a typical trailer looks like after finishing one of these LTL west loads. So we got it all cleaned up and pads folded, and ready for our next haul of produce.

Texas Trip

Well I didn't make it into Texarkana at all on Monday, I was hoping to at least get that stop off, but again I overslept and so I had to wait until Tuesday morning to get started. I showed up about 10:30 and got the pallet off and moved on to Kemp, TX and delivered another pallet of food, then I made it to Garland and got those doors unloaded before they closed. That was the end of the day however, as I wasn't in time to make it to my next stop in Frisco to unload furniture. So I went to sleep there on the street and got up around 10 pm and went a few miles to the local Planet Fitness and got my workout in and I showered there and headed to bed in their parking lot.

I got up this morning about 6 am and headed on up to Frisco and parked in the lot of the shopping center and waited for the store to open at 10 am, the two helpers showed up and we unloaded the furniture real quick. I already had all the chairs unwrapped and lined up ready to go, that sped up the process quite a bit. I knew I was getting behind on this load and I had a lot of work to catch up today.
I cant believe the prices people pay for this amish furniture, I mean they were selling common night stands for $1000, and dressers for $3000! It's amazing this stuff sells fast too, well I'm glad somebody can afford it. So I got out of there and headed back into Dallas and delivered three stops of doors to local windows and doors dealers, and then one in Arlington and one in Ft Worth and finally a pallet of food to a store in Ft Worth, so I called the next furniture stop in Granbury just over half hour away and let them know I was coming with eight chairs, and I was able to get in there and get unloaded just before they went home, which really helped me along my way now.

It's a beautiful little down on the square, challenging for a truck though in the middle of the afternoon.

So I left there and headed to the Flying J here in Waco, got a shower and dinner at Dennys and settled in for the night. My first stop in the morning is just down the road from here at a furniture store in Lott, TX. Then I will make my way on into Houston, over to San Antonio and finish up in Donna, TX just outside McAllen.


It's been a sad day in my family, about 1 pm EST I got a call from my mom saying that my grandpa has passed away, it was no surprise he was nearly ninety years old and has been in bad health for awhile now. Just a few weeks ago the hospital sent him home because there was nothing more they could do because his heart was to weak for any operations, so he went home with hospice care, so we all knew he was dieing. My grandpa spent many years on the road as a heavy hauler, he moved construction equipment, he loved trucking, He told me several years back he'd still be on the road if he could. Back in the late 70s he was in his company yard chaining down a load of pipe on a flatbed when the load shifted and rolled off the deck, he was not able to get completely out of the way in time and his leg was severely injured. He had to live the rest of his life with a walker and he was not able to work again. I always looked up to my grandpa and I wanted to be like him. He loved trucking, watching Andy Griffith and westerns on TV, and southern gospel music. So I would say I have turned out a lot like he was. He will be greatly missed, my grandma is still with us, but she too is not in very good health. They were married for over sixty years, so I'm sure this is not going to be easy for her to handle.

Nostalgic

I've been feeling particularly nostalgic as of late, even started a collection of toy trucks I bought from Ebay to recreate parts of my career. Some of these are very special to me, as they represent such cherished memories, especially the Navajo W900 and the Jamestown Classic XL.  That one I had to kind of create myself, I ordered the red Classic XL, and a DHL tractor and trailer, then put them together. The Classic has a bit of a stretched out frame, but it's not bad.

 I miss those days, those trucks, those times. I mean I must come from a different era of truckers, cause even back in 2002 when I started there was a lot of brotherhood out here on the road, and I adopted the whole "chicken hauler" persona for myself. We all had CB's, we talked to each other to pass the time, we had fun on the road and in the truck stops. Now I noticed over time things started to change gradually, until one day I woke up and realized it was all but GONE!
Nobody seems to have there CBs on anymore for information, and heaven forbid you ask someone if a scale is open or closed, you'll get the "why you worried about it if you run legal" rant.  Truckers will tell you they don't turn there radios on because of to much "BS" , but I don't get that argument, I mean there's really not much BS anymore, there just isn't anything! It's dead air!

OK now back in the day, there was a ton of BS on the radio, I mean especially around truck stops in major cities, but hell it was just people goofing off and having fun, there was usually no harm intended. So if you didn't want to hear it, you turned your radio DOWN ( never off) until you were away from the noise, then you turned it back up! So what is the problem really, I'd say technology may have had a lot to do with it, people finding other ways to cure there boredom, and just the general type of people who are coming into trucking. I guess they are not the chrome loving, chicken lights and CB radio big strollin' kind of guys and gals anymore.

It's sad because the professional courtesy and brotherhood has gone right out the window, I mean back in the day hardly a driver passed that didn't wave a hand at you. Now days they don't even look at you, or you'll see them with there face buried in there cell phones or other gadgets. Truckers used to flash there lights to let you over, it's just what we did. Now days they'll flash their damn brights at you 90% of the time, if they flash at all, which I would much rather they did not if that's the best they can do. I don't mean to gripe and moan like a grumpy old truck driver, just pointing out my observations as of late.

So get back to 2006 and I'm at TA Ontario, CA just hanging out and I look over next to me and I see a big flashy purple Freightliner Classic XL says "Jamestown Ohio" on the door, and I was in love! So I started talking to the guy, found out it was a company truck, and that his company operated a whole fleet of Classics, 379s and W9's , and I was hooked! Now here's what being young and dumb will do for you, I was 25 years old, making .35 cents per mile. This company was paying .24 cents per mile (all be it hub miles, but still) No benefits, no tax withholding, but they had some damn fast, shiny trucks! So I was going by gawd! I called them Monday and sent back my application on my way home back to Ohio, and when I got there I turned in my old POS ex-werner century class, and hopped in my pickup and I was on the way to Jamestown!

So they started me out in an old Freightliner Columbia because that's all they had available at the time, but I didn't mind, I knew if I showed them what I could do and bide my time, sooner or later I would get what I came for.

Buddy I tell you what I felt like I was a big time chicken hauler, my truck was wide open speed and I was shuttling that airfreight like a wild man. ZOOM ZOOM!! Just racking up the miles, making over $1000 weekly even at .24 cpm.  So one day I was in the yard fast asleep over in the corner getting some sleep before my next hot run....

There came a knock on my door, so I stumbled out of the sleeper and rolled down the window and the safety man was standing there, so I'm like oh no, what have I done?!? But he says "you know we've been impressed with your performance, you're a damn hard runner and you show a lot of pride in your truck. You see that red Classic over there, it's yours if you want it." Well hell you didn't have to tell me twice! I threw my stuff in that truck so fast! It was a little grimy and dirty, but I of course quickly remedied that problem. It was dubbed "Flight 837" which a previous driver had hand painted on the sleeper. While they had a lot of Classic XL trucks, only 2 were bought with all the extra lights and chrome on the rear. Mud flap hanger lights, and center rear panel and chrome on the frame up to the 5th wheel. It was a 13 speed Detroit motor, 2005 Freightliner Classic XL, leather interior, factory fridge and freezer. I mean I was never so proud of anything in my life as I was to drive that truck. I shined and polished it, chromed out the interior, which the boss paid for 100% (one good benefit of working here, if you were a hard runner the chrome shop was open tab)

Yeah I had a big head, I was in something special and I damn well knew it, and I was gonna make sure everyone else knew it too! Seat riding low on the floor I was just stylin' & profilin' buddy, I was the AIRBORNE ROOSTER now! I had the decals made up for the door that said my name along with a graphic of a jet airplane.

Then several months later I did one of the stupidest things I've ever done, I QUIT! I don't know why, I didn't even really want to, I just let the fatigue get to me, and I lost my mind. Probably just needed a few days at the house and I would have been ready to go truckin' again, but I didn't :(
Now the cell phone camera and social media craze hadn't hit full peak yet, so all the pictures I had of my beautiful truck have vanished. Probably the saddest thing I'll ever encounter in my career. All I have is this, and it does the truck no true justice.

Now I'm an honest guy, I wont take things that are not mine, they bought the chrome and I left it all, except for the air valve knobs. I took them with me and I have used them on every truck even until this day. It's my way that I'll always have a piece of her with me.

Sometime in the next few years after that DHL shut down operations in Wilmington and Jamestown eventually closed down. I just wish I hadn't been so stupid and I would've stayed until the end at least. So you see to me that's what trucking was all about. The way things have become these days truly saddens me, but I still truck on with the same pride I always have, and I do my thing, even if it means I'm the last guy out here who will wave a hand at ya!

Going to TX

Let me introduce you to my brand new ride, a 2015 Volvo 780, which I moved into in January this year. Previously I was in a red Peterbilt 386 for three years, I'll get into that some other time.

So I started the week off by picking up this load from our yard in Winesburg,OH on Sunday afternoon and my first stop is in Texarkana, TX. I was hoping to get started today, but I slept in a little long this morning and I didn't make it in time. So on the way I stopped back at the chrome shop in Little Rock, AR and acquired some new goodies. I've always been a big fan of chrome and it's something I love, helps me display my pride as a trucker!

My future plans include finishing the few pieces left on the dash, then adding mud flap hangers with lights, a rear center panel with lights, some of the exterior chrome trims for Volvo, and maybe someday the sleeper light strips. I got this truck now because my wife and oldest stepdaughter like to spend time on the road with me, and it has double bunks and a lot more space than a Peterbilt.
I take a lot of teasing for driving a Volvo, just a trucker thing I guess, but honestly it's a very comfortable ride, and loaded with all kinds of comforts!



So anyway I'd just like to note that this winter has been very rough on the highways, now that the weather is warming up the potholes are busting out. I-40 in TN and AR today were like a war zone, I mean in some places an entire lane has caved in. I foresee a lot of construction coming up this summer. Crews were already out today patching up holes.

All together this run has 18 stops all the way to the southern tip of TX, so we will be busy for a few days. It's an LTL load consisting of food, doors and furniture.

The Night Rider

Back in 2009 I attended an online college briefly, and in the course of some English classes I wrote this essay about my time with Jamestown Transportation. It's called the "Night Rider".

You awake from a deep sleep to the sound of your alarm; you wipe the sleep from your eyes and roll over to silence the alarm. You look at the clock and you see it has been nine and half hours since you ended your last tour of duty from the prior days work, you only have thirty minutes until it’s time to do it all again, just like you’ve done so many times before. As you crawl from your bunk and open the curtains you are greeted with the beautiful, serene vision of dusk. The sun is setting slowly over the western mountains. You see many truckers coming in, crowding the parking lot, fighting for that last few remaining spots. For many this is the end of their day, but for you, the night rider, it marks the beginning of another day.

You gather your thermos and walk inside the truck stop; you sit down at a table and order a cup and begin to collect your thoughts. You listen to all the not so discreet conversations going on among the other drivers as they take a few breaks to eat their dinners. You try and keep quiet, because you know that any little disagreement will spark a heated debate. You secretly laugh in amusement at how most of what you’re hearing is all nonsense, and how truckers seem to be experts in every field; law, medicine, politics… whatever the debate is, someone is an “expert” on it. It’s a phrase you will sometimes hear as “truck stop lawyer”, or “truck stop politician.”

You order yourself up something small for dinner, maybe a sandwich; you don’t want anything to heavy that may make you sleepy to early in the night. You sit and listen to the busy chatter of dinner time all around you, dishes clanking in the kitchen, people talking way to loud on cell phones, “expert” truckers having not to subtle debates with each other. This is the typical scene of a truck stop restaurant. After your meal has arrived, you down it quickly; as the time to get going is quickly approaching by now. You pay the cute waitress and leave her a few extra bucks for being sweet and calling you “hun” and “darlin’” and all that stuff, out here you don’t get a lot of female interaction, so these little things make your day.


You walk back into the store and fill up your thermos with the night’s coffee, as you pull down that lever on the coffee maker you hear the rushing sound as the liquid starts to swirl and fill your thermos, and you smell that wonderful aroma that you love so much. You head back out to the truck and open the hood and turn on all the lights and flashers to make sure everything is in order for your journey this evening. You close the hood and hop back in the truck, you reach down and turn the key to the on position and listen for that beeping sound, then you crank it the rest of the way over and feel that sweet vibration as the cab rocks side to side slightly and finally she fires up. You listen to the purring of the motor and smell the fresh diesel fumes, you are ready to ride!

You reach down and press in the air brakes knobs, listening for that familiar hiss of the air going through the lines; you put it in gear and begin to roll out. Some lucky driver shows up at just the right time to take your spot, you feel good knowing that you helped that tired driver find a safe place to park for the night. As you turn onto the on ramp and head for interstate you start grabbing gears one after another and you hear the marvelous roar of that big motor as you begin to pick up speed, you look out the mirrors as you place your blinker on and see your fellow drivers moving over to let you on the highway. You reach up and turn your CB on for the night, and give thanks to the courteous drivers for allowing you to merge onto the highway. You reach your cruising speed by this point and you got the truck in tenth gear and are rolling off into the night, the sun has finished setting now and the sky is lit by a full moon and all the beautiful stars of the distant skies. The traffic is starting to thin out now from the typical rush of the daylight hours, with each exit you lose more and more traffic as people and big trucks jump off searching for a place to spend the night. But you are one of the few, the special breed of drivers, you are a night rider! You’re only love is that night sky, the lonesome rumbling of your own wheels in the silence of the night and the glow of the chicken lights illuminating the highway on all sides of your rig as you roll on through the darkness.

This is where I fell in love with the night, while working for Jamestown Transportation; I had a 2005 Freightliner Classic XL, with the name “Flight 837” painted on the sleeper and the hood, this was my baby, just me and ‘ol flight 837 and the midnight sky over the desert southwest.

She was cherry red with chrome lettering, loaded with chicken lights and chrome from all sides, man she was beautiful! The best part was rolling through the night and looking in my mirrors and seeing the glow of my chicken lights illuminating the empty lane beside me. You reach down and grab a big chug of that black coffee and reach up and turn on your stereo that’s tuned to your favorite XM music channel, this is what it’s all about the freedom of the open road. You approach your first major city to pass through, it’s just after midnight and you glide right on through town, never lose a gear.

Unlike your fellow drivers you passed at the last truck stop, which will be coming around about 5 am and start piling on the highway with all the local people headed to their 9 to 5 dead end jobs. They start their day off with bumper to bumper traffic, and an hour later they make it to the other end of town finally and still have to deal with traffic all around, and angry, inconsiderate drivers all day long, people weaving in and out of lanes and such, you never know what some of these people on the road are going to do next, but you don’t have that problem now, it’s just you and highway out here, along the way you pass a smokey bear in the median sitting in his car with the lights out. You cruise on by and he doesn’t budge, you wander if he is still awake at all.

As you roll on for about five hours you decide (or that thermos of coffee) that it’s time to hit the next truck stop, you see the exit approaching, you step on the brake and feel the powerful roar of the jake brakes engage as it quickly reduces your momentum and you glide graciously off the ramp making a lone roar all the way to the bottom, breaking the total silence of this little mountain town. You reach the stop sign at the bottom and turn right and drive into the truck stop, you pull up into the fuel island and park, something that would raise a lot of anger in your fellow drivers during the day time, and may even start a fight, but nobody cares now because the only other drivers around are parked off to the side and they are fast asleep. You grab your thermos for another round of go-go juice.

As you pull the door open of this little mom and pop café you hear that distinct chime of a bell hanging above to let the clerk know you’ve entered. You look over at the clerk and she greets you with a smile and a “good morning”, you smile back and return the greeting. You hear the slight sound of country music playing overhead; you head straight for the restroom to relieve yourself of that thermos of coffee you consumed in the first half of your shift and walk back into the store to get another round for the last half of your shift. As your fill your thermos with the sweet aroma of another fresh (or somewhat recent by this time) pot; you feel a little rumble in your stomach and decide to grab a pastry to go. You climb back in the truck, fire it up put ‘er in gear and drive away, nobody outside will ever even know you were here. You’re rolling back down the freeway again with just the sight of another big truck with lots of lights going the other way every once in awhile. The CB radio is pretty quiet for the most part, not like during the day time when it’s filled with want to be disc jockeys and the Rambo’s all threatening to whoop each other. The silence is broken every once awhile by another lonely trucker trying to say something silly to stay awake, or a few drivers running together passing by and chatting to pass the time away.

You reach up and tune your satellite radio to the overnight trucking show, but after a short while you realize this is nothing more than an electronic dining area, much like the one you were in at the beginning of your shift. A bunch of “expert” truck drivers with all the solutions, and a lot of them with invalid, uninformed complaints which amounts to nothing more than adults whining, you’re not interested in listening to this for very long so you switch to coast to coast am with George Noory for awhile and listen to peoples ghost stories, and how they were abducted by alien life forms and flown off in UFO’s to distant galaxies, only to be returned with sore behinds. Not very believable, but it is certainly entertaining for a few hours.

As the break of day starts to rise over the eastern horizon your body takes it’s natural toll and tells you it’s time for bed, you start to get sleepy but you just keep driving you got only a few more hours left, you finish off that second thermos of coffee and crank up your favorite tunes on the stereo. Finally you reach your destination for today and again you pull off the ramp and rumble your way to the bottom, as you pull in the truck stop you have full access, all the trucks have left to go on their way in the day time and you pick a spot and pull those air brakes, you’re tired and glad to hear that familiar sound of the air popping and you look out your window and see a puff of dust scatter around your truck as you set the air brakes, you close your curtains and hop in bed and drift off until it’s time to do it again. That’s the end of the day for the “Night Rider.”

Copyright Richard Goon (2009)

Meet the Rooster

My name is Richard Goon, better known by my "handle", the Truckin Rooster. As a child I dreamed of many big things in life, one of them being to grow up and become an OTR truck driver, which is what I eventually did. In 2002 I had just turned 21, living with my mom and stepdad just outside of Denver,CO when I picked up a newspaper,saw the ad for a national truck driving school, and I called, got enrolled, and the rest is history.

So they shipped me off on a greyhound bus to Burlington,IA where I completed a two week course and received my CDL. I then went back home, and shortly after began my career with covenant transport.

So anyway I wasnt always known as the Rooster, up until 2006 I carried the alias of "Sleepy" which I got from some of my old buddies I used to hang out with and we cruised the town together, chatting on our CB's and raising hell. The name Sleepy came from me working 3rd shift out at Denver Intl Airport, so naturally I was sleeping a lot during the day, so they decided to give me that name.

In 2006 everything changed when I went to work for Jamestown Transportation, at this time I had been living back in my original hometown in Ohio for about a year. What they did was haul airfreight from Airbourne Airpark in Wilmington,OH and they drove a lot of really shiny, fancy rigs with tons of lights and chrome, commonly referred to in the trucking circles as "Rooster cruisers". So I decided it was time to upgrade my image a bit, and I dubbed myself the "Airborne Rooster" , then later after I had moved on I just became Rooster.

Anyways now I am 34 years old, been driving 13 years now, 5 years with my present company, and I am happily married to my beautiful wife Gina since November 2014, and I have 3 stepdaughters at home. 16,14, and 12, and a stepson who is 18 and he lives on his own.

So that's the short version, and here I am starting a new blog about my continuing adventures out on the open roads of America. You can visit my YouTube channel as well for lots of videos.
Roosters Videos