Adventures of Jake Brake & Sleepy - Part 1

This is the first in a series of stories that I will be writing to describe the friendship between “Jake Brake” and “Sleepy”. It’s a story of how fate and trucking brought two young kids just out of truck driving school together and created an inseparable bond and lifelong friendship. Jake Brake and Sleepy started out fresh in trucking on the same day, and each one had strengths and weaknesses, in order to succeed they had to learn from each other, and overcome the obstacles along the way. All the while inevitably ending up in some form of misadventure, but all the while strengthening their friendship. Sometimes fun, and sometimes sad, it sure to keep you interested and always wandering what will happen next.
Our story begins in February of 2002 with Sleepy who was fresh out of trucking school and had gotten hired by his first trucking company and was in the process of the three week training program. This is not a very long training program at all, and the learning is very fast paced, the main objective of the trainers here is to get there student passed by the companies safety department so they can get there five hundred dollar bonus and get their next student, the emphasis on safely training new drivers is secondary as far as most the trainers here are concerned.
Sleepy however was having a little trouble picking up everything in this short amount of time, especially with the shifting, because the Volvo truck he learned on at the school was a ten speed, and this Freightliner FLD 120 was a “super ten speed”, and the concept is a little more difficult for a new driver to pick up on. He also had some issues in following the correct highways and would often get lost and confused on back roads. Near the end of his training his trainer told him that he may not be able to pass the final test, and thus would be terminated from the company. This affected Sleepy in a very deep and emotional way, because driving a truck was his childhood dream and he had come so far, the thought of failing now made him very sad. He went into the truck stop and got a shower, while in the shower he broke down and started crying. He is not a really sensitive type of guy, but the thought of failure and not becoming a trucker was a very deep blow to his dreams.
His trainer never saw him cry, but he could tell that his comment had affected Sleepy and made him very depressed. He decided the best thing to do was take him to the French Camp, CA terminal because the safety department here was the most lenient and he would have the best chance of passing. At the end of the three week training period Sleepy and his trainer headed to French Camp, along the way the trainer made a suggestion that Sleepy meet up with another student and run teams for awhile to improve his skills before going solo. It was Sleepy’s goal to be a solo driver, but he was very nervous about doing it right now, he was very scared still about driving the truck and knew he wasn’t ready to be solo, so he agreed this was a good idea. But how would he make this work, he would need to find someone who lived close by so they could at least share home time, and how do you convince a total stranger to let you drive with them? It was a great idea, but the chances of actually making it a practical one seemed very vague, so Sleepy was convinced that he would end up being thrown in a truck solo and that scared him to death.
They arrived at French Camp and they stopped at a nearby truck stop, tomorrow was the big day and Sleepy was very nervous if he would even be able to pass at all, and if he did, then what? How in the world was he going to drive a truck alone when he was still so scared of his inexperience behind the wheel? While standing outside the truck stop a man approached him and asked for a few bucks for gas, Sleepy doesn’t have a lot of money, as he was only making twelve cents a mile for training, but he has a big heart for people and he gave the man a few bucks. Next thing he knows he is standing next to a mountain of a man, just over six foot and about three hundred pounds of solid muscle. Sleepy is about five foot eleven inches and one hundred thirty five pounds.
He decided to start a conversation with the massive stranger and told him that he was a student and was here to test out of the training program, the kid then told Sleepy he was also a student with the same company and he was here for the same reason. Sleepy told the kid how nervous he was about testing out and the things his trainer has said. They started talking about home, and he told Sleepy he was from Ohio. Sleepy lived in Colorado, but he had no ties there since he was living with his parents, but he was actually born and raised in Ohio and still had a lot of family there. The kid introduced himself as Nick, he said “they call me Jake Brake, my trainer gave me that name because I never shut my jakes off.” Sleepy told Jake Brake his name was Rich, and he had gotten his handle from some friends before getting into trucking because he worked third shift, and they always found him asleep when they needed him. As you can see, the character “Sleepy” is me, and “Jake Brake” is someone whom I was about to engage on a never ending journey of friendship and adventure with.
Nick was doing very well in the training program, and after talking with me and my trainer at the truck stop that night he agreed to take me under his wing for awhile so that I wouldn’t have to face the big road alone until I was ready. Being that he lived in Ohio and I had family there, it was a perfect match; fate had taken its course and brought us together here this night.
The next day Nick and I and another student crowded into a truck and took turns taking our road test and backing exams, we both passed with flying colors. There was a female student with us who could not even get the truck into gear or shift without excessive grinding, and she passed to, so my trainer was correct, this was very lenient safety department.
Jake Brake and I were assigned our truck, a 1998 Freightliner FLD120 that was located somewhere in the Los Angeles area, abandoned by the previous driver, so we both headed to the local Greyhound station and had to take one more horrendous ride on the grey dog, luckily a short one. After arriving in the Los Angeles area we hopped in a cab and headed to our truck. Much to our surprise we found a ragged out model of something that resembled a truck, we opened the door and found the interior was trashed and filthy, we started the truck up and immediately all kinds of bells and whistles started going off. This was certainly not what we expected to start our career, especially as a team, but hey we were truckers none the less, and we were going to take whatever we had to, we were ready to hit the open road! After a few minor repairs that was, our first trip was to drive the truck to the company shop in Fontana, CA to get rid of all the alarms that were going off indicating some issues that needed to be addressed.
In the next edition we will discuss the first trip out for Jake Brake and me, the start of our bonding together as best friends.
Copyright (2009) Richard Goon

New Truck Video Tour

8Ball Busted Me

I was trying to be sneaky and buy chrome for the new Pete, but Danny caught me red handed! This is like the 4th time in the last 2 years we ran into each other at a truck stop like this.

Back to the West Coast

Its been a fun summer this 2010. Running regional and being home every week gave me a chance to do lots of fishing and other activities that I never really got to do since I started trucking back in 02. But the main reason why I came here was to run the west coast, which is what I love the most. The opportunity wasn't available until a few weeks ago when one of our west coast drivers decided he wanted to run regional, the opportunity was perfect! All of our west coast drivers get to drive the new trucks, and the old beat up trucks like I had stay on the east coast. So we just swapped trucks and now I'm rolling in a 2011 Peterbilt 386, beautiful truck!

















It comes with all the necessary comforts, a comfortable bed, Sirius radio for that Road Dog truckin, and a factory refrigerator & freezer, which is my favorite accessory. My 1st week out I ran regional, 2 trips between Indianapolis to Detroit, 5 stops of produce each time. I had to attend the company safety meeting last Saturday and after that I took off on my first return to the left coast trip with seven stops.

I ran down to Lubbock, TX for Monday morning and delivered a door there and went to El Paso where I stayed the night and delivered a couple more doors there on Tuesday. These doors were the biggest I'd ever seen, special order for an 8,000 sq ft home! It took three of us to get them off the truck. I think I'm going to get very strong delivering these doors on a regular basis. LOL
From there I came over here to Phoenix for four drops today. I started this morning in Tolleson with empty pill bottles, then more pill bottles to Phoenix, and finally doors and wood shims to Tempe. Now I'm back at the Flying J where our buddy Vern Gill has kindly asked me to join him and his girlfriend and their children for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

After that's all over I will head out tomorrow night to deliver a couple more doors to San Diego, CA on Friday morning then wait to see what the back haul will be. Produce more than likely.
I leave you with the sunset at Texas Canyon on 11/23, my 30th birthday. What a way to watch this milestone day in my life fade away.

5/26/2010

So on Monday morning my wife and I went down to the heart of Amish country in Berlin, OH and we did some walking around looking in the western wear shop and a couple antique malls, she bought a new end table for the living room and I bought a whiskey bottle, I love too see antique glass bottles for some reason. LOL We had lunch at a diner in town there and she took me back to my truck. I hopped in and bobtailed back to Berlin to pick up my loaded trailer.
I set off for MN to deliver Tuesday night. Chad aka DrSuessMN was waiting for me up at the Flying J in Lake Station, IN. So I finally made it up there and met up with him and we took off, this was like 1am so the ride through Chicago was a breeze, we did the I94 to IL41 back to I94 deal to avoid the tolls and when we got into WI we decided to shut down for some rest.

He was delivering in Milwaukee in the morning and I was already half way to Rogers, MN for 8pm Tuesday. So we drove through the Petro in Racine and it was packed so he said we should go check out the Kwik Trip across the street. We drove over there and backed up against the wall but the lady came out and said we couldn't park there, so we asked her if we could run inside real quick and then leave and she said okay. I go back out and stick my key in the door and the lock sometimes sticks so I put pressure on it and *SNAP* key breaks off right in the door! I always carry my spare key in my pocket with me but of course now its not there. Luckily my sleeper door was unlocked so I climbed inside and I tore the truck apart and couldn't find the spare key anywhere. So we hop in Chad's truck and drive back to the PETRO and they say they don't do anything with keys so we got directions and headed to WAL-MART but they couldn't help neither because they don't use the old style key machines anymore where they could clamp it together and trace the cut.

Chad drove me back to the Kwik Trip, also he called them before we went to WAL-MART so they would know what was going on. He dropped me off and he went over to the burger king lot to get some sleep. So I searched some more for that key with no luck, finally I called our mechanic at home and he told how to hot wire the truck from the ignition switch to get it running. It fired right up and I went over to the PETRO and got some sleep.

When I woke up I took off and headed west and I passed a Peterbilt dealer right off the interstate and I ran in there and gave them the vin # and they made me a new key for 5.00, so now I have a key again.I delivered my load last night in Rogers then went to Bogards for my first pick up this morning. Got loaded at 7:30 and headed into WI for two more pick ups in Granton and Appleton and I'm sitting in Luxemberg now for my 4th pick up in the morning then my final pick up in Hilbert and I'll be off to Ohio to drop the load tomorrow night in Navarre.

5/23/2010

I left the house Thursday night and picked up my truck from the yard with a fresh new A/C and all, it was a big relief! I went over to IN and loaded up Friday morning and drove all the way to Keasbey, NJ and parked in the holding area and check in. They started calling trucks around 0400 and I swore I heard them say something about truck 233, I walked into the office to see if they were talking to me but they didn't know what I was talking about, I don't know maybe I was hearing things, or wishful thinking. They finally did call me to a dock around 0800 and of course I didn't get out till 1100 and made it to the final stop last minute, they stop receiving at noon. It's a driver unload,one pallet breaks into six, so I knocked that out real quick and headed to DE to pick up the bananas for delivery in Newcomerstown, OH this morning.

I always take 287 to 202 and 31 to I95 to avoid the ridiculous tolls on the turnpike. Coming out of DE last time I took 202 and it had a lot of lights so this time I went back into PA and took some other roads I thought might be quicker to pick up 30 but just ended up right back on 202 anyway and it just wasted more time I think. I did find a nice diner outside Lancaster with truck parking called "Jennie's Diner" the food was great, had that homecooked feel to it, and plenty of it, I took the rest with me for later.

I took 30 into Lancaster and 283 into Harrisburg then went over to I-81 and down to Carlisle and fueled up and ran over to Breezewood then 30 to 220 and I-99 then 22 into Ohio. This is a good road and saves a lot of money and doesn't take too much more time. The fog got really thick by the time I got into Ohio, couldn't even hardly see the road in front of you. I made it to the 250 get off and instead of going west I accidentally got off the east exit. Now there was a parking lot I could have turned around in, but due to the fog I didn't see it until it was to late so I went into Athens, and I knew I didn't want to go east because there was no turn around down there for sure. So I took Ohio 9 south and hoped for something, well no such luck. For a state road this was like a COUNTY road. It may have been eight foot wide, but not an inch more twists and turns and hills so steep I was climbing them in 3rd gear and barely made it the top. it was a white knuckle ride for sure! Couldn't see ten foot in front of the hood and them sharp turns and steep grades. I finally came to a town and saw a sign for route 22 turn right six miles, so I turned right and followed that highway, pretty much the same thing as route 9. Finally made it back to 22 and had to make an impossible right turn and followed that back to 250 then 36 into Newcomerstown, the fog never did let up a bit. After all that it took me 2.5 hours to get there from the time I originally got off the exit, forty miles away.

I was so tired after I got unloaded I went back to the truck stop and went to bed before driving to the yard where my wife came and picked me up this afternoon. Tomorrow night I'll be setting out for MN.

Chicken Haulin' Adventures #1