Long b4 I ever began to grind gears hauling, or toewing, I used to hang out at what was the RoadRunner Texaco Truck Stop in Bliss. So then after that found that our family had a financial interest in the Flying J chain, but I always liked going to the mom & pop truck stops. Most were open 24 hours, had good food usually home made, lots of it and at a reasonable price. In our neighborhood, Bliss had three, The RoadRunner Texaco, the Y-Inn, and the Oxbow. All remained open 24 hours, and what was really cool, was sitting there slurping down 100 mile sea,(coffee) hearing those freight haulers yap about their trips. The bears, the roads, fuel prices, the whole shebang.
Of course that was old skool truckin, something I think we have lost, is the independence of truckin. Like the industry itself, Trucking has become too technical. Automated and too focused on the dollar , rather than the pride in the industry, that we used to have.
Truck Stops if ya’ll want to call them that, are more like travel stops. Real truck stops do exist , but not many if at all, in Idaho any more. The ones called a Truck Stop, few have cafe’s that stay open 24 hours like they used too. The ones that do usually have pit bulls in there rather than the truck stop angels we used to see. The old adage gleaned from a old movie sezz, if you build it they will come., I have considered several times of sticking my neck out and building a truck stop, even a small one, but my financial limitations makes that a wish that will never be crossed off of my bucket list.
In Diesel Smoke, I’d like to get your thoughts on the memories ya’ll have of the old skool truck stops. I’m sure ya’ll have some. Maybe even a few of you got your Cherry popped at one, that was not an uncommon happening.
The only real truck stops left in Idaho, that are true truck stops are Wright Brothers’ Idaho Falls Truck Plaza, The Boise Stage Stop or what’s left of it, and Burns Brothers in Boise. In Nampa is a Flying J along with one that took the steam out of what is in Heyburn, where the Knytes meet, called the WaySide. Used to be spelled WeighSide, but got changed several years ago, when the place quit fueling trucks. Now about the only thing fuel wize here is Loves. Problem is they are a fuel stop, with a Carl’s Junior , but not a REAL CAFE. Then of course truckers lounges. These were where drivers with too many miles, not enuff Hours for service rested. If ya’ll wanted to go trucking and wanted the real skivvy on the industry, forget the truck magazines, go listen to those old pros. Thing with me, even though Dad had driven a rig even b4 I was born, if fact I was born in a 58 Pete COE, pulling a bull hauler. I teethed on the steering wheel of a 62 Pete COE that Dad bought from Cady Auto in Hazzard. But I was too damn ignorant and arrogant to be interested in trucking. For in 1963, Dad took a reassignment at Hill Air Force Base in Utah so much of my truckin days would be furloughed until we all moved back here to Idaho.
When I got to the age of 17 , Mom bought me a VW Diesel Rabbit, it was new got great mileage, but I really wish it would have been a truck. Any mile, I painted my Mini Mack as I called it, put on some bulldog air snorters, crafted a couple of stove pipes for stacks, put on big elephant mirrors, and some Mack mud flaps attached to the bumper.
So I went to the truck stops, soaking in every bit of trucking 411 I could get, course I was so naive they most likely told me stuff that was not real, but I believed every damn thing they told me. Course a few years later LexiBelle and I got together and albeit a mini rig as many called it, still a 1-1/2 ton Chevy with a 500 Holmes was by all accounts a commercial truck so I was trucking, well sort of. I rapidly found out the realities of owning a truck and trying to make a living with it. It was easier back then since fuel was not as high, insurance was reasonable, even for a green horn like me, and we had the shop and all in Hazzard. Back then the big gig on the weekends was going to Bliss to the truck stop. Have java, play Packman , and swap bullshit stories with those freight haulers.
Back then it was not bad and life with that 79 VW Rabbit, going to most of them was cheap. I’d make up reasons to go, until, one cold morning in Gooding City, I used some starting fluid to start the little diesel, blew the head off of it, bought a 69 Chevy Caprice, turned it into the General Jackson, and in 81 bought General Lee. The rest is history, but one night in early October,2011, I sat at the WaySide in LiL Lexi, looking at the old fuel pumps of the old fueling area there, remembering what it was like, wishing that same pride, and spirit would come back to American trucking. Maybe it will after the USA , becomes the UCSA and the Confederate party is in charge of the government, and the nations capitol is in Georgia.
Good numbers to ya’ll
