Dreams Die Hard.14

Notice: With this post I must give notice that postings may not come on a weekly basis. I will do the best I can but I am 74 years old with vision, hearing, and other  physical health issues that are keeping me from computer work. The past 3 years has been hard on me and I am tired. Maybe some rest will do me good.

Music has always been an important part of my life. I bought my first guitar when I was 14 with the help of my dad. I played rhythm and lead in local garage bands while in high school. I played bass guitar in a working band in California after graduating high school. We played half-a-dozen gigs before I quit, and returned to my Oklahoma home. After that, life got in the way of my music. I joined the Navy, sold my guitar, got drunk, and made two cruises to the Tonkin Gulf, off of the coast of Viet Nam. My three years-10 months-and 22-day Navy career was spent either sailing the seas or getting drunk. By this time I was listening to music and crying in my beer. Booze destroyed my first marriage. However, other life matters succeeded at destroying marriage #2. By the grace of God, I was able to stop drinking in the mid-"80's. But, it was my work that both helped me stop drinking but also nearly killed me. 

It was July 4, 1994, when music came back into my life. While driving thru Dallas, Texas on my way to a truck stop on the south side of town I happened to come up on the exit to Fair Park of Dallas, Texas just after I heard a commercial for a rock concert. I took the exit and spent the next 10+ hours listening to life music. That signaled another big change in my life. Six months later I owned and carried 2 guitars, and an amplifier with me in my truck.

But, this episode only lasted less than three years. I soon became a single dad faced with hard decisions that I won’t discuss here. While I was doing good with my music other problems arose. I was forced to sell my music equipment. I did not want to raise the children from my second marriage on welfare so I went back to otr trucking, placed them in Baptist Boys Ranch. Still, I was able to spend more time with them than when I was married.

For my next “Dreams Die Hard” post I will discuss the final time music came into my life and how music and photography kept me alive and active. 

A Career in Over-the-Road Trucking (1974 - 2009)

 

Coming into Barstow, California from Las Vegas, NV.

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This is a copy of one of the posts in my original blog, "Better World Trucking". It may be out of date, and trucking has changed over the years. but I hope you enjoy reading it.

Are you right for this challenging career?

By Keith Birmingham

Once again I have been asked if I would recommend trucking as a career. So, I thought I would post a little of what I think about the industry that fed and sheltered me for 35 years. I can only write about what it is like for me to be an over-the-road trucker.

I was a student, home on spring break from Oklahoma State University. My brother-in-law and I were in his front yard enjoying a cold beer, and talking about me trying to find work in a college town when a man that had bought a truck off Keith (my brother-in-law) drove the truck into the yard and up to the house. The man climbed out of the truck, and tossed the keys to Keith. “I can’t make the payments,“ is all he said as he turned around and walked off.

We were both quiet as the man walked back out to the highway and turned toward home. Finally, Keith (my brother-in-law) turned to me and asked “Ya wanna drive a truck?”

I sipped on my beer and replied, “Might as well.” After spending a few minutes checking over his truck we climbed in and drove out of town 6 or 8 miles. Keith drove out. I drove back - bobtail. That was the extent of my schooling in the trucking industry. From then on it was the University of Hard Knocks. 

That night I studied the Oklahoma driver’s manual my sister had used to get her license. The next morning we drove to Elk City, the only town in western Oklahoma where I could take a test that day. Two hours later I had a commercial driver’s license. (No, CDL was not in effect at that time.) The next day we drove to Dallas and signed on with B.F. Walker, Inc., a now out-of-business trucking outfit that specialized in oil field trucking. Of course, I intended to return to college after I had made the big money for a year. And, of course, the money was there “if” I put in the miles. But, of course, more money meant more buying and more debt. Life is what happens when you are busy making plans.

When I started in the industry lumping (loading or unloading the truck) was largely left up to the driver, but has been slowly and thankfully disappearing in the industry. When I retired back in 2009 I had not touched a load in the last 5 years of my career. I was often given the task of hiring and paying a lumper but was paid back by the career. The major percentage of trucking jobs do not pay an hourly wage. You are paid by the mile, or by the percentage of what the load pays the carrier that is your employer. So, where are the problems in this system? The problem with this system is the time you spend at the shippers and receivers dock and the other necessary duties that the driver is required to perform, such as securing the load, truck maintenance, and taking care of yourself. After what can easily be twenty or more hours per week of unpaid work the driver still has to make miles to earn money. Although it has improved for some segments of the industry (or at least for some companies) it is not uncommon to spend several hours at docks for shippers and receivers who show no respect for the truck driver. And, if your employer does not collect detention pay you don’t get paid for those hours. Some carriers will collect detention pay, but will not pay the driver for that detention. Grocery warehouses are especially bad about this misuse and mistreatment of truck drivers, but it goes on throughout the industry. And, competition for freight keeps most companies from demanding detention pay. It is that simple. This is also one of the reasons I worked for my last carrier, and will probably no longer drive. I seldom bumped the docks of grocery warehouses with my last employer. 

In recent years carriers are finding that in order to keep a driver on their trucks they must offer incentives such as increased pay for extra partial load drops, higher tarp pay, detention pay for being at a shipper or receiver longer than (usually) two hours. Many companies have perks such as insurance plans and 401k plans, and some have special employees whose job is to help you plan for the future for you and your family. These perks are nice if you can get them. I have never seen them. I stopped pulling open container (flatbed) trailers because of low and no-pay tarp pay. I have never seen a dime in detention pay. And, I don’t want the people I work for putting their noses into my family business.

Now, here are some personality traits that are very important to succeeding as a truck driver:
1.) You need to be self-reliant. There will be many times that you will be faced with taking care of business that should have been taken care of by other people. 
2.) You need to be comfortable with being alone for very long periods of time. Your social life will suffer.
3.) You need to be good at managing your money, or you will end up broke long before payday.
4.) Good communication skills and a good attitude is the most important tributes a driver can bring to their career
5.) Probably most important, you need to be a self-starter. If you need a nanny to wake you up in the morning, do yourself a favor, and stay at home with the nanny.

I have had a love/hate relationship with the trucking industry since 1974. I truly believe that the only difference between one company and the next is the physical address and the phone numbers. Many fleet owners would like to think that they will always treat their employees better than anyone else. The fact is that after a person invests large sums of money in equipment and in their drivers, many times it is the truck drivers that will screw over their employers. The employers become bitter toward drivers, and drivers become bitter toward employers. And, that is just the way it is.

When a person asks me if I would recommend trucking as a career I will  ask: “Are you married?” If they answer yes I ask them one more question: “Do you want to stay married?” Your spouse and your children need to fully understand that your career will require major, major, major sacrifices by them. You will miss the holidays. You will miss birthdays. And, you will miss anniversaries. And, your social life will often seem like it is null and void.

And, other than spending time with my family, playing music, working on my photography, and writing - there is nothing I would rather do than drive a truck. 
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My name is Keith Birmingham. I am an Oklahoma/Nevada-based photographer, writer, and webmaster with a growing catalog of industrial, lifestyle, and nature photography. I am in the process of revamping my online photography business and have no personal website at this time. I do have around 1000 photos for sale/lease through (https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/200825070/Keith%20Birmingham) Adobe Stock. If you use articles written by Keith Birmingham for any kind of publication you must include this resource box with the article. For details please contact Keith Birmingham at maddadkeith@yahoo.com.

A Rainey Day

 

A Rainy Day - Written and performed by Keith Birmingham

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This post is a simple reminder to me that everyone makes mistakes, and I seem to make more than most other people do. Fact: I had one of my best posts ever until just a few minutes ago, and I accidentally deleted it while searching for a video to post with it. I will try to write an even better one for next week.

Dreams Die Hard.13

I believe I have the money to buy my a/c blower motor but I am trying to put that repair off until the last of this month. Yes, the weather is getting warmer, but I am trying to stay ahead money-wise just in case something unplanned happens.

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Well, two days ago I received some medical advice that will cut this post short and slow my productivity down for a while. My eye doctor suggested that it may help if I stop my computer work for a while to relieve tension. I have actually been slowing down on this for a few weeks, and doing very little photography work as staring at a computer screen has become a very irritable exercise. I have been thinking about this for the past couple of days and I have decided to give it a try. So, my postings may slow down for now. Instead, in order to stay somewhat busy I will spend more time on my music.

I want to start posting some of my plans to describe how I hope to keep doing a van life, but on a part-time basis for now, while getting prepared to go full-time in the future if needed to do my work in photography and music. The past three years of living part-time in my van have shown me that I am on a huge learning curve. I am lucky that 35 years of my life were spent on the road as a trucker. I have already learned the fundamentals of surviving with the minimum. But, the most important thing that I have learned is that I will need to maintain base camp to be able to do my work. That base camp can be a storage or a normal home or apartment. I hope to be able to keep an apartment. 

I am not yet sure whether I will do a van build on the van I now have or just keep using portable equipment like I have done for the past three years. For now, I plan to stay with the portable equipment while I make repairs on my van that have become necessary with the advanced age of my van. The following is a short list of needed repairs: (1) I plan to try to hold off until the end of May to replace the a/c blower motor. This will depend on how much traveling I do and how hot the weather gets. I could do it now but I want to hold on to the money for any emergency that arises. (2) I need to replace the cables for the latches in one of my rear doors and one of my side doors. (3) Electrical problems now consist of cruise control repairs. Other than these three items my van is in decent shape.

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Dreams Die Hard.12

Winter is over. Spring has sprung. It is the last week of April, and the last week of weather that is too cold for my old body to be working outside. The past three years has pushed me 10+ years closer to my grave.

I have started making much needed repairs to my Bucket List Buggy. When I moved into my apartment almost 5 months ago Winter was blowing in and I was sick, tired, and weak. I was looking forward to hibernating through the Oklahoma winter. My van was in reasonably good shape. Now, not so much. Well, mechanically, it seems to be fine, but one side door and one rear door has needed latch replacement work for 2 or 3 months. And, just last week the blower motor went out on my a/c and heater system. The blower motor has become my top priority.

On Friday, May 5th I will take a trip to the DEAM McGee eye institute in OKC. It is a routine checkup. Hopefully, it will be my last trip there. Then, I will head to the VA Hospital to complain that my vision is still terrible and that I want a surgery to remove the excess skin on my eyelids. And, maybe get another pair of glasses. Hopefully, that will help. Today I removed the seats and bench from the back of my van. Tomorrow I will load it with some camping gear in case I decide to stay in OKC overnight. It looks like crap but will be better than renting a motel room.

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