Sorry about this being a long post, but it is an interesting story, and a true one.In the later part of 1986 and early part of 1987 I drove an eighteen-wheeler forty-eight states for a large trucking company, lets call them J. B. Hunt because I just plain like the truth. Affectionately known by drivers of other companies as J. B. Cunt. Some days you just had to turn off the CB radio when you got tired of hearing it.
Now J. B. Cunt is a fine upstanding christian trucking company, don’t ya know. Headquartered in the bible belt in Lowell Arkansas. But this isn’t what this story is about, besides, anyone that has read this blog for some time knows that God is a free spirit and likes to mess with so called christians.
I was dispatched out of Los Angeles, the only terminal they had on the West Coast at the time. I lived in North Eastern Washington so I had to drive to LA to get a truck and drive home if they happened to give me some time off. But that only happened once because they kept me on the road all the time. Being as they are a fine upstanding christian company they did get me home for Christmas that year, with their truck, but they only let me rest for two days even though they had promised three. They where great on breaking promises and pushing drivers.
Okay, I will talk about them a bit before I get to the Oldsmobile. Their trucks where dirt ass cheap, cab-over Internationals with short wheel-bases and no air ride and 300 Cummins engines and five speed transmissions, and no jake brake. And they bitched because the little trip reader they had at the time told them I had hit the bottom of a pass doing almost eighty miles an hour coming out of the Blues. Well hey, they gave me a 48 thousand pound load (total load including truck and trailer of 78 thousand pounds) of peanut butter in Little Rock, Arkansas on a Friday afternoon and wanted it delivered in Portland, Oregon at seven O’clock on Monday morning. Peanut butter is important shit to get delivered, don’t ya know.
I started off the top of that pass at about ten miles an hour but by the time I got to the last corner my trailer breaks where smoking really hard so I just let her run out (Us ex race car drivers are like that ya know). Let me tell you, running off a pass in a short-coupled cab-over with spring brakes and 78 thousand pounds pushing you is a yee-haa. Ride them fucking cowboy. There was no way I could make the exit near the bottom of the pass to get into the truck stop for a six pack of beer so I just blew on by. Don’t worry, I stopped and got beer down the highway, can’t keep God from his beer.
The trucks where dirt ass cheap, but let me say that they did take damn good care of them. And they did have damn good dispatch and kept me plenty busy and I made good money with them. Of course they never gave me much time to stop and spend much of it. Being a fine upstanding christian company they of course had firm rules, like no drinking in the terminals, or drinking period, or drugs, but being as I don’t do drugs that was no problem for me. I avoided the terminals as much as I could but I did pull into one at times to have the truck serviced and washed. I got a little kick out of sitting in the terminal parking lot sucking on a few beers while doing my paperwork.
Don’t take me wrong, I didn’t drink and drive, or drink to much, but I needed a few beers while I was doing my logs and paperwork and trying to wind down so I could get a few hours sleep before taking off again. Anyway, I would pick up a truck in LA and head East with a load and run up and down the East Coast for a while. Then they would start me headed West, with the intention of getting me back to LA for a little time off. Ha !! I would get in the middle of the country and they would dispatch me right back to the East Coast again, saying that they had a load East of me going to LA. After a while I figured out that it was just a lie, so much for trusting others.
But I only trust others for so long. I had been out for a few months and I never got closer than maybe eight hundred miles to LA before they headed me East again. The cheap truck and long hours (up to 22 hours a day) had beat me down and I needed some time off. My back was hurting and I was getting really cranky. They had been telling me for two weeks that they would get me to LA but it wasn’t happening. The agreement was that a driver had to return his truck to his home terminal in order to avoid fees for picking it up, and to get his fuel bonus and safety checks.
I pulled a load out of Illinois into Lowell, Arkansas, their home terminal. The LA dispatcher had promised that there was a load at Lowell going to LA for me. Ha !!! I dropped the load in Lowell and then went to the terminal to have the truck checked and serviced. A few hours later I called my dispatcher and he gave me a load to Illinois. Don’t ya know, at this point the shit the fan. I called back about ten minutes later and told him to fuck off and we got into this little pissing contest.
Then the head dispatcher in LA got on the phone and asked me what my problem was. Hell, by then I didn’t have a problem, they did. LOL …. We got in this little pissing contest, she reminded me that the agreement was that I was to return the truck to my home terminal, I told her that it wasn’t going to happen and they could talk to an attorney if they didn’t like it because I was cleaning out the truck and getting to LA on my own. They had their truck, with no load on it, at their home terminal, its not like I just abandoned a load and a truck somewhere. After a few minutes she gave up and asked me if I needed any money to get back to LA where my car was in their parking lot.
Fuck no, I haven’t had time to spend any money for a few months. So they gave me a ride into town to a hotel and I got a six pack of beer and got half shit faced. The next morning, because I’m a free spirit and don’t want to take a buss or plane, I start walking down the street looking at what is on used car lots. I settled on a 1970 Oldsmobile 98 because they are pretty damn good boats. The transmission wasn’t shifting quite right but that didn’t bother me as I know that trans is pretty tough. The salesman said that it had belonged to a Nun and had seen an easy life, yeah, whateverthefuck. I’m a master mechanic, I’ll decide what I see.
It had pretty worn tires but I figured they would get me to LA, so I bought it, don’t recall what I paid for it, just a few hundred bucks. Arkansas is different than my state, I didn’t want an Arkansas title so ended up getting what they call a drive away permit. It was good for 48 hours as I recall. I ran into one hell of a winter storm in New Mexico (I won’t write about that now) so the permit was expired by the time I got to LA and dropped into the terminal to pick up my fuel and safety checks and my other car.
Okay, my favorite sister lived in Lancaster at the time (she’s dead now) and I went to her place and her husband went back with me to pick up my other car the next day. It was a nice little car that I had rebuilt the engine in, I left it with her because I had grown fond of that old Oldsmobile that was being easy on my back and the transmission had started shifting right the second day out, so I decided to take it on to Washington even though the permit was expired. It turned out that I gave her the other car.
Anyway, let’s get on with the story. When I got to Washington I transferred the title to the Olds and took some time off. The lady that was in my life at the time after my wife died had never been much of anywhere. It was spring break (she was a tutor) so I took her on a ten-state trip. When I was trucking I had discovered Kingman, Arizona so when we went through there I stopped at the Ford dealership and put in an application for work. When we got home there was a job offer for me.
Soooooo, I put my tools and tool boxes in the merry Olds and took off to Kingman. She followed me a few months later, we lived together for twelve years and this is where it gets interesting. Hey, the first part of this story was interesting also. She owned two horses, I found and rented twenty acres about five miles out of town. It didn’t have electricity and I had to pack the water we used, no big deal to me, I’m an old country hick and love that life.
I had a motorcycle in Washington and she brought it when she moved down, and I bought another one when there, it’s great country for biking. I ended up quitting the Ford dealership because the service manager was a frigging idiot and I went to work in a Big A auto parts store. We bought a 1981 Ford F 150 pickup that was a good deal while I worked for the Ford dealership though. Mostly I went to work on the bikes and only used the pickup when we needed water. The poor old Oldsmobile just set around all the time except when my son came over from Las Vegas and we took a twelve pack of beer and went tearing through the dessert with it hell bent for election. Hey, if you do this kind of stupid stuff, make sure you take something to seal up gas tank leaks. :-).
Anyfuckingway, Marie wasn’t in love with Arizona and spotted sixty acres in Utah for sale in a nickel ad, so we took a weekend to go look at it. It had a decent mobile home on it and a garage and a few out buildings on it. It was cheap, dirt cheap, only twenty grand. At the time I was pretty adventuresome so we bought it.
This was in the high country of Utah, the town was Duchesne, nice enough country but the economy really sucked. Work and getting by has never been an issue to me as I’m very talented and handy and can find something to do anywhere. So we moved to Utah with the Ford, and of course the old Olds. Actually, it took a couple of trips because Marie had two horses and a horse trailer. The last trip was okay but it was a long day, the Olds blew a radiator hose about half way there but I was able to fix it to keep us going with what I had on hand. I also had a 24 foot cargo trailer with six foot sides on it and it was loaded to the hilt with all we owned that I hadn’t already moved yet in other trips.
Marie also had a Toyota that I had taken up on the cargo trailer with other things on another trip. The Ford was a good pickup but it only had a 300 straight six in it and that was a lot of load for it. Ford engineers are idiots at times, it had a 2.73 gear ratio in the rear end, that is pretty high for a small engine, I spent half of that day in second gear. It was a good thing we went over the last pass at about midnight and it was cool as I creeped the last few thousand feet with the speedometer barley bouncing off the peg.
Anyway, like I said, the economy was really bad there, we hadn’t noticed that half the stores in town was empty when we first looked at the place. Not that it would have made any difference I guess, being an old country hick I always get by, and Marie was not a needy woman either, she was country also. All she wanted was her horses and a stud and I was the man. LOL
So I first started a little recycling business with the pickup and trailer but soon got to busy for that so I rented the old fire station, then I started a little parts department in it also. Then I bought a building on main street and expanded and started building a full fledged parts house, it was good there. My hats said, E-Z Not Sleazy Auto Parts.
We had to pack water to our home as it was at least six hundred feet to sink a well with no promise of water so I packed it home in a 300 gallon water tank in the pickup and put it in an eleven hundred gallon tank I had installed there. Yeah, I know, I’m carrying on some.
Because I had to use the pickup so much for recycling and hauling water and Marie had her Toyota the Olds once again just sat around. And then, and then…….. Duchesne county decided to put on a demolition derby. Ha !!! I’m an expert at setting up demo cars, I know all sorts of tricks to keep them going, I’ve never entered a demo derby I didn’t win, so I entered the Olds in the demo derby.
I figured I was getting a little old to be driving in one so I let the young man that was working for me drive it and I was the pit crew. I gave him lots of instructions and he did pretty well, taking first place in the first heat, qualifying us for the main event. The car was beat to hell but I got it back together for the main event and he was doing well again until he got stuck by giving it too much gas in a wet spot as they had really soaked the arena with water.
They towed it back to our space and I got it ready for the consolation main and he won it so we did okay that day. Wait, I’m not done yet. A few weeks later was the forth of July parade, or the this is fucking Utah parade, I really don’t recall, so I entered the Olds in it. I made up some signs and a skit where my employee drove the Olds while I followed behind in the pickup. He stopped in front of the judges stand and flipped a switch that I had rigged up to a fan to blow out some smoke and make it look like the car was burning up. I jumped out of the truck and ran up and opened the hood and pulled out a mess of wiring I had set up there and carried on for a bit ‘fixing things’, gave him the thumbs up and he started the Olds up and drove on.
The judges wasn’t sure of what to make of that so they came up with a new award on the spot, we won ‘Most Original’, and five fucking bucks. LOL
Wait, I’m not done. This Merry Oldsmobile is not dead yet, it still runs, good. I worked in Ford dealerships for years but I have a soft spot for those old GM bullet proof Olds 455 engines and turbo 400 automatic transmissions. I owned a parts house, I had parts at cost, and a complete valve grinding setup and things like that.
I pulled the engine and trans out of the Olds, the trans didn’t need anything done to it but I tore the engine apart and rebuilt it to unleaded gas standards, and while I was at it I put a complete Competition Cams valve train in it, including roller tip rockers.
Yup, I put that setup in the 1981 Ford 150 pickup. I can’t tell you how far that baby would burn rubber, I was too cheap to find out. With that 2.73 gear ratio in the rear end I once did 55 in first gear before I let off and let her shift up. I never did know how fast she would go full out. When we moved to Montana the next year it was no sweat, I out pulled Dodge diesels going up passes.
Of course, this was before my spiritual journey had started. Back when I was a less evolved monkey. When I left Montana I left the Ford and the trailer and the home with Marie as I had bought a ¾ ton Ford with a camper on it in Montana.
And thus started my spiritual journey.
Hey, have a great day. Hugs. BBC

















