Trucking Business & Football

My brother retired from the Illinois Power Company a number of years ago.  He tried woodworking to keep himself busy but soon tired of making wooden toilet paper holders.  I will say this, they were very nice and he could have sold them if he tried.

When we were younger our father always had a truck of some kind or the other.  I remember him coming home with a 1927 Reo truck that he had bought at a fish market in St. Louis, MO.  It still had the fish market signs on the side and smelled like rotten fish.  The windshield opened up from the bottom to help cool you off in the summer time.  It worked fine unless you hit a bird and then you were picking feathers out of your mouth along with other bits and pieces of the bird.  Not fun to say the least.  He also had dump trucks, flat bed trucks and everything in between.  I learned to drive by driving a dump truck up and down the alley when I was about 13 or 14.  It took me a year to master putting in the clutch and pressing the brake at the same time.

Well, my brother reverted to his childhood memories after he retired and bought a large tractor trailer rig and hit the open road.  He has been an owner/operator for a number of years now and likes to keep his runs west of the Mississippi river and avoid the traffic on the east coast.  I don't blame him.  He recently took a load from near his home in Illinois out to Barstow, CA and delivered it about a week ago.  Then it was time to get another load, but the longshoremen were on strike and no freight was being loaded or unloaded at the docks.  Very quickly trucks waiting for loads started to stack up and he was about number 65 on the load list.  He finally is down around number 3 or 4 on the list and hopes to get a load on Monday or Tuesday.  

If he gets a load that isn't in such a tight delivery schedule, he will try and stop by and visit us for an afternoon.  It's always great to see him and there is a mission to be accomplished while he and Sue are in the Tucson area.  Sue wants to pick up some rocks in the area for her rock garden back in Illinois.  I'm sure we can find her a few rocks somewhere out here in the desert.

He had hoped to rent a car and visit this weekend, but called Saturday late and said he wouldn't be here.  About the time he called, Judy and Steve stopped by for a visit and the time slipped by very fast and then it was dinner time.  We decided at the last minute to go to Montgomery's for dinner.  Funny how plans can change in a minute when you are retired.

Once again, the NFL games broadcast here today were lousy games.  One ended in a 58-0 rout and the other had some really terrible calls by the refs and disrupted the game.  At least the Redskins beat the Baltimore Ravens and that is doubly nice since they won and the Ravens lost.  No, I am not a Ravens fan and love to see them lose.  How sweet it is.  The Skins QB RGIII injured his knee, but it doesn't look very serious.  That would be a huge loss if he can't finish the season since the Skins are on a roll now.  Time will tell.

The weather continues to be unseasonably warm, but they are calling for colder weather tonight and a cooling off all week.  It surely was nice as long as it lasted.  We have a great furnace in the motor home and I know we will be comfortable even if it does drop down into the 20s overnight.  Bring it on!