October 18, 1989, 2009

FIRST 5 YEARS:(Wednesday-Fulton, Missouri)
“Home” for the week. I helped one friend working on the church building and then helped another with his business putting up grain bends. Spend evening with my kids.

SECOND 5 YEARS: (The phone call)
As I taught future drivers at the truck school, we would have old students drop in as they were driving by the school.. The former students would often talk with the students about the good and bad of the companies they drove for. One company's reputation as a “pusher” of driver's(push drivers over their logbook hours with rumors of having drivers use 2 and 3 logbooks)really impressed the students as the money earned was really great. (Note: I liked the rumors also and I went to work for then only to find they were staying within the law—if the driver wanted too). We had one female instructor who had driven for them that also pushed the company. We had several successful students go with them with no problems...but...their was one young student-just old enough to drive a semi-truck-that went with them and had nothing but trouble. One day, an older, bearded guy drove into our yard and demanded to talk with Chuck, the school director. Chuck came down from his office and began to get his tail end reamed by this guy. Turned out that this fellow was the Father to that young driver. The Father was mad that this school would let students go with such an awful company. The Father just kept going and going and going. It was kind of fun to see Chuck out of his office talking with the student's parents, but enough was enough. Chuck needed to get busy. I picked up the phone and called the other school's phone number. One of the other instructors answered the phone and I asked for Chuck. The Father left and when Chuck answered the phone, I just asked,”Would you rather talk to me?” Chuck chuckled and answered,”Yes!”.