Kelley and I were watching Dwayne Johnson movies. In the end of Snitch, the hero, a trucker, dumps a semi in a high speed chase, a great stunt, lying it down and skidding. This sparks Kelley to speak on the commercial break…

*****

It is so strange watching trucks in a movie after driving them all my life. I laid one down just like that. I was coming down the off ramp into Albany [Oregon]. They were resurfacing the ramp and had removed the curb, and didn’t put any cones up. the berm just a clay. One tire caught the berm and she just laid down and skidded—broke my nose…

The big outfits, like Safeway and Fred Myer, they temp the trailer and if it is over 36 degrees, they reject the produce. Now, a place like grocery Discounters or WINCO, independents, might be interested in distressed produce. So, our warehouse would take that rejected produce as distressed, just paying the freight. Then we have to pay for a government inspector to come in and rate the load as distressed, 10%, 20%, 40%, etc. We have this crew of little Mexican gals would sort out the bad stuff on a conveyor belt, and the distressed produce would be listed on a day chance rush and sold in bulk, by the layer or the pallet at least. That was a wrinkle in your day there. I would get a lot of those.

The most interesting loads were grand openings and places in residential areas where they had sound ordinances and you could not pull around to the dock early or late, or keep your reefer on. In the summer, when it was really hot, I didn’t mind. I had two sets of keys and would keep the cab runnin’ and lock ‘er up, so when I got back in it was nice and cool.

Watermelons have to be the biggest pain in the ass, especially when you don’t have a receiver. [1] I had a delivery for a grand opening over The Blues in Washington, out in the Tri-Cities Area. I get there and all there is is a security guard. Can’t use the dock, have to go in through the front door… I called up the owner and he told me to go ahead and unload and have the security guy sign for the load. I didn’t have a sleeper. He told me to get a hotel and dinner when I was done, and put it on the company card.

I had 18 watermelon bins. I set up the ramp, loaded a shopping cart and then burned the rubber off my shoes sliding down the ramp behind it. Eventually, I had every shopping cart in the store loaded and still had watermelons. You only may 2 cents a melon, its a courtesy, watermelons are loss leaders. So I had lined up the carts next to each other and placed watermelons between the carts above the side.

It was midnight when I got done. I found this nice hotel, that had a bar and a restaurant-and a pool. I ate a prime rib, had a few tall, cold glasses of beer, and then went swimming in my underwear. The next morning the boss was like, “What did you do? They are pissed!”

“Well, I guess the manager had to do some work first thing in the morning so the customers would have a cart—I left the bins so they can load ‘em…”

[laughter]

[Day shift supermarket clerks are notoriously lazy and jealous of their first hour of coffee drinking…]

The owners daughter, who did the billing, at the end of the month, gave me some shit about the beer. But I told her I was following orders!

Grand openings are generally fun. The company gets the best dairy guys, best produce men, best clerks, and send them. Things are so positive that a driver like me, a company man, representing the wholesaler, will even help set up cases. I’d use my jack—this was before all stores had electric jacks—to position their bin displays. I knew refrigeration, maintained my own reefers. [Refrigeration unit that keeps perishable trailer cold.] So I would help clear lines and fix fans in the cases.

But every once in a while, you get a prick—a fucking dick: Mister Know It All, Just Got Promoted, Running His Own Show, Lord of His Domain! I’m good to help. But at this one grand opening up near Aberdeen [Washington] the manager was a guy who had been okay, but was now a total prick. He started giving me orders to place pallets on the floor, to help move stuff around. If he would have asked, sure. But the way he barked orders, I told him that my job ended when the truck was unloaded and I was gone. I parked the pallets and he called the boss who backed me up.

There were strikes at different times and places, mostly up in Washington. The owners played hard ball and wanted to show the union that they could stay open. Times like that, they couldn’t pull orders from their own warehouse, so we filled them.

One of our drivers got beat up, so the boss sent me. I pull up to this dock and I have five guys behind the gate blocking me, so I backed up slow, give them time to move. And this fucker gets up on my running board on the driver’s side and stuck a gun in my face! That shit was not flying—so he did. I shoved open the door and he was laid out on the ground, his gun next to him.

I got out, stepped own on him and gave him some love. Motherfucker puts a gun in my face and acts surprised when I slap the shit out of him. I did not use a closed fist. Then I have five guys on my back, so I grab the gun. Sizing them up, I pick out the most level headed one—they were good ole boys, just fightin’ for what they thought was right.

I said, ‘Look, I’m just doin’ my job. Yo’all work for some corporate pricks—I get that. But I work for a man I grew up with, treats me right.” So I handed over the gun to the most level-headed one, and we waited for the cops to show up. Of course they denied there was ever a gun—it was gone by that time. Cops asked me if I wanted to press charges and I said, “No, we have an understanding.”

For the rest of the strike I kept a gun in the cab. There was this one rat-faced little squirrel that worked in the yard who found my gun in the cab and reported it to the boss. So I told him if I have to go deliver to a striking store, I’m not going to die over a load of produce.

We didn’t have problems after that.

…

Notes

-1. The usually senior clerk, who manages the dock and checks the order to make sure the right number of pallets, weights of shrimp, loafs of bread, etc., billed, were, in fact, delivered. These people work until 5 at the latest. There is usually an assistant manager that works until 9, but will not be available to check orders after 7:30 as he has to watch the front end close down. Well run stores bring in a night captain early at 9 PM to receive the big orders processed by the night crew. Stores with no night crews, are taken off the delivery map after 8:30 PM until 6:00 AM.