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MY TRUCK STORY
When I was a kid I loved to take pictures of semi trucks and I used my 110 film camera to shoot all types of photos, back then I would use my allowance to buy film and then go to the local Eckerd’s Drug Store to have them sent off for processing.
Boy was it fun when I would have my parents stop by days later to pick up my semi truck photos that had returned. I couldn’t wait to look at the pictures of semi trucks that I had photographed, see back when I was young I lived on a main road that had lots of trucks passing all day long.
Everything from log trucks, wood chip trucks, tankers, flatbeds, box trailers and even tractor trailers hauling tobacco that you would smell the aroma of fresh cured tobacco when it passed.
I would stand outside the road and motion to passing truck drivers to blow their air horns, I even had a couple of buddies that would always lay down on the air horn every time they passed. One of my favorites was a trucker that drove a cab over International Truck with chrome straight stacks that you could hear coming miles away.
I could always make it to the road in time and he also had the coolest air horns that had a deep sound like no other.
One evening he was returning from emptying a load of wood chips and I got him and another driver that also drove an International Truck to pull over so I could take pictures of their trucks.
With a little luck and help from my father he arranged for us to get to ride with him in his 18 wheeler on a run the following week.
I was so excited that the next day I went out and bought 4 rolls of film. I was getting prepared for the following week so that when he stopped to get us I could photograph everything that happened.
Let me just say for a young boy like myself I was on top of the world that day when my father lifted me up into that semi truck. The best part was feeling like the king of the road with those loud stacks everyone knew we were coming and to move out of the way not to mention when he let me pull that chain to the air horns.
It was also very interesting when we got to the paper mill and he unhooked the trailer onto a huge lift that was very tall, it lifted the front of the trailer high up into the air so that the chips would fall out the back.
The whole time I was so amazed and I didn’t let a second pass that I was not taking photos of everything that happen and getting myself some really nice photos of the semi parked.
As a young boy that trip was something that memories were made of and I think its very true how much it meant considering its been over 25 years and I still remember it like it was just yesterday.
Now I have grown older and those cab over International trucks have about disappeared from the roads and highways but there is one thing that still gets my eyes and ears tuned in and that’s a cool looking rig with straight stacks that says step aside and let this semi through.