Absolutely nothing beats windshield time . Welcome back to Dan the Roadtrip Guy , a podcast where we have candid conversations about life lessons learned on the road . I'm your host , bimmer Enthusiast and Roadtrip Extraordinaire , dan Neal . And now on to the show . It's just me today and no guest on the show .
I just was reminiscing about my childhood with a coworker yesterday and just felt like putting this out there and keepsake for me , if nothing else . Growing up , I had wonderful parents and my dad was an owner-operator of a big rig . The truck I remember is a 67 Kenworth and he drove that from probably 1967 and 1989 when he retired .
Growing up , all I ever wanted to be was a truck driver . I think as kids we always want to be something Astronaut , fireman , policeman , race car driver which maybe I wanted to be that a little bit too . But I vividly remember wanting to be a truck driver , just like my dad .
I love the open road , I love the thoughts of the independence and freedom you got from that , and so that's what I wanted to be . And I remember sitting in the truck . I was probably six years old when he got it .
I would sit in that driver's seat and pretend I was a truck driver , even put on his hat every now and then to make myself really look like a truck driver . I know there's a picture somewhere of that . It was a cool truck . It was green and white and gold . I think his favorite color must have been green because we had a lot of green stuff .
He would later on paint the truck into a scheme that he had come up with . He hauled freight at first , then he hauled some produce and he wrapped up his career probably the last 18 or so years hauling steel and steel type products on flatbed and then in a dry van . I think maybe he got tired of tarping those loads because that was a tough job .
You know he'd sit in that seat and they were burgundy and white striped and had a sleeper . And you just pretend you were a truck driver . That was in CB days , so you're talking on the CB . It had an eight track player .
He took great pride in that truck and keeping it running and doing things to it , enhancing it all along the way , even lengthened out the frame of it to make it a longer chassis on the truck . When I was nine years old I spent the summer with him riding around the kind of the east coast of the US , from Florida , south Florida .
I'll never , always remember the smell of Florida , I think from those trips down there We'd go to Cleveland I remember there was . He would haul fish out of Cleveland and the plant was so cold it was just very cold to stand in there while they loaded the trailer with frozen fish .
We'd go to Pittsburgh and I remember those streets they were kind of cobblestone , where they would go and load produce . Great memories of being on the road with him . He had a partner at that point , willie Bab , and so they all produced together . Then when he hauled steel he was by himself . I just remember wanting to be a truck driver .
So I was probably in college and I kept telling him I wanted to be a truck driver and he said , oh , that's fine , but you got to go to college . And I think , dad , maybe I'd wished he had been able to go to college , didn't ? He would have been a great engineer .
Wasn't a thing the man couldn't fix or come up with some part to make it work even better ? I think it was important to him for us to go to college and have a college education In college .
I don't believe I was married yet and I'd always told Linda I wanted to be a truck driver and she seemed okay with that and maybe we would have hit the open road together and saw the US One day . We were sitting at home and said , hey , I've got to run down to Tennessee .
You know , it was a short run from our home , a few hours and once you go with me .
And so we had to spend the night and so we slept in the truck I think I might have slept in the sleeper and he just kind of leaned over the doghouse which you know was between the two seats in the cab and covered the engine , and at least that's what he called it For the life of me .
I'm not sure why , unless it's just because it kind of looked like a doghouse , but anyway I remember us sleeping in the truck . I remember we unloaded , we headed home and he let me drive for a little bit . And I just remember he's so patient , he was so patient with me .
From time to time He'd say you know , there's a lot more road on your side over there if you want to move over just a little bit .
And then , trying to change gears in that truck , it had two transmissions of five speed and four speed and you really had to finesse those , to change them , had to get those revs just right , which he I don't think I ever heard him rake a gear .
I raked a few gears , I finally got it back in gear and we were headed down the road and we got home and you know , we probably had dinner and we're sitting around and he looked at me and he said so , you still want to be a truck driver ? And I said you know , dad , I don't think so . And he said good , so I think I think that pleased him .
I think it was a rough life when you're on the road all the time . I remember he would leave on Sunday afternoons , usually around three o'clock , depending on where he had to go , so he might have left earlier , he might have left a little later and we might hear from him once a week .
He would typically return home on a Friday or Saturday sometimes , and then Saturday was filled with getting . The time was filled with getting the truck ready for the next week , because you know , if the wheels weren't turning , you weren't earning . He would spend his Saturdays maintaining the truck and then hit the road again on Sunday .
Looking back on that , I've heard people say you know who have ? You know a traveling parent or something ? Oh no big deal . It's quality time when they're home and it was . It was a good time when he was at home . He made time to do things .
But looking back on that , there were a lot of missed opportunities when he was on the road and we wouldn't hear from him very often because back then it was expensive to make a phone call . There were no cell phones like you see everybody talking on today's .
That call home , you know , could have been a dollar or two a minute , I don't remember the exact cost . But he would usually call home once a week , couldn't wait to answer the phone and then he and mom would . We talked for a while . I truly miss both my parents .
My dad died a little over nine years ago , mom almost eight years ago , coming up in December . Wonderful parents miss them both and I think I'm glad I'm not a truck driver . If anybody ever offered me the chance to ride across the country with them I'd probably take them up on it . For now I'm very content not to be a truck driver .
That's about it , just a childhood memory . I encourage each of us to think about our memories , write them down , record them . We've got these handy little devices these days that make it easy to record Hope . You enjoyed it . I hope you enjoyed this episode of Dan the Road Trip Guy and we look forward to having you back again next time .
In the meantime , if you want to find me , you can find me on the internet at Danny D-A-N-N-Y , neil N-E-A-L dot com . Until we meet up again , keep having conversations and keep driving .