other dog

that's the truth!

One of the dollies H.H. had. This was the one I pulled the most. Made from a Mack truck chassis. You had to pull the front axle up onto blocks and chain it to the beam when it wasn't being driven. Dragged out of the junk yard with a Farmall M and slapped together some kind of way. Under that 150' beam that was just dropped on there in a haphazard manner by two Farmall H tractors. One had a front end loader, the other one had just a hay spike. I said "are you sure i'm not over on the drives?" They said "don't worry 'bout tha' mule, jest git on down yonder wit it''.

That's kind of like gear shift knobs- they used to have a whole shelf of them at every truck stop, now they bring top dollar on e-bay.

I remember going across Hawk's Nest on rt. 60 in West Virginia, when we would always stop at the Catholic church in Boomer and set our brakes up. They had a big paved parking lot and I would pull in there and get my 9/16 wrench and the piece of cardboard I carried out and adjust the brakes. Lock them down and back off a quarter of a turn. You might not adjust them anywhere else, and if you did you might back them off half a turn. But I'd stop there every time I ran Hawk's Nest and it was a quarter of a turn. 🤣 Been across there many times in an F model Mack with a 50,000 lb. load of coils on. You needed to have your $#it together, nobody around here even knew what a Jake Brake was then.

The hardest ones to load were the ones with a "sweep" on them, or curved beams. You had to position the dolly way up under them to get them to set up, then you had all the overhang to deal with. But like they say, if it was easy everybody would be doing it.

So, instead of having oversize permits to do what you had to do you'd be better off with a 70' overhang?..interesting concept. You had to load long girders so they would "set up" on the dollies, meaning they would stay there and balance, without turning over before you ever put a chain on them. This was actually all carefully thought out and done, nothing was hap-hazard about it.

Yes, even though it was 2 different companies I drove for the same family for more than 42 years. I started driving in January of '79 and went to work for H.H.Moore in June of 1979.

We hauled a lot of bridge girders. I took one from Carolina Steel in Abingdon, Va. to rt. 840 around Nashville one time that was 149'11". I usually just say it was 150' 🤣 That one was on a 4 axle dolly with a lift axle. It was made from a Mack truck chassis. I'll post a picture when I get home, don't have it on my phone.

I worked there from 1979 until 2005. H.H. and his wife Evelyn had both passed away by then and his son and daughter were running the place, neither of whom had really had anything to do with trucking until then. They later sold the company to PGT Trucking. I went to work for F.L.Moore and Sons in 2005. F.L. was H.H's son, the sons were his grandsons. That's where I retired from, and theyre still going strong. I was there when they added the two extra bays to the shop, but I don't remember what year it was. The far end of the last bay had a nice wash bay in it. That little building behind the shop in the old picture was the tire shed at one time, and there was a huge old willow tree by it. Half of the willow tree fell down and I went up there and sawed it up. I kept the wood for firewood, but it wasn't very good wood, it was almost like cork when it dried, didn't burn good at all. Here's H.H. and Evelyn Moore in probably '83 or '84. The K100s were '84 models, he bought 6 brand new ones at one time. F.L. Moore bought the the brown one and had it leased to H.H.

A power mirror on the passenger side makes it much easier to blind side. The Peterbilt I used to drive had a big window in the sleeper too, so by the time I couldn't see the back of the trailer in the mirror anymore I could see it through the sleeper window. The KWs had a window, but they were too low to help with backing up.

This is a very interesting picture a friend and former co-worker posted this morning. He said he was cleaning and found it, and he asked me what year I thought it was. It shows the old H.H. Moore Jr. Trucking Co. headquarters in Appomattox, Va, and Lawson Ford is the place to the left of it. All I see at H.H. Moore's is chip vans, no flatbeds. There's a wood yard across rt. 460 from H.H's. We narrowed it down to the 70's, between 72 and 79, that was about as close as we could get. H.H. Moore Jr. trucking Co, the Ford dealership, and the wood yard no longer exist. Appomattox Hardware is now right across the road from the old Ford place, and the house on the corner between the Ford place and H.H's. was torn down years ago. Another thing I noticed that's strange in the picture is that there is no traffic on 460. Nothing. You'd never see that today. Here's the same area today- Street view of the old H.H. Moore Jr. Trucking Co. Inc.

I lost a set off a chip trailer over on rt. 60 when I was on the way back to the wood yard from Covington one night. Or maybe it was just the outside tire? I don't remember now, as it was over 40 years ago. But I knew right where I lost it. There was a big pull-off about a half mile up the road, so I dropped the trailer there and bob tailed back. They sent somebody over from the shop the next day to fix the trailer, or put a tire on it. I went back to that pull off and got the trailer, and walked back to where I'd lost the wheel(s). It was just woods there, and I walked back and forth several times and never saw a trace of anything. But somebody could have found a tire and wheel and got it, only superman could load a set of duals by himself. Or the incredible hulk, the hulk could do it. Or those tires might still be over there in the woods somewhere to this day.

I've pulled triples a few times. Two flatbed trailers stacked on a flatbed trailer 😁

😡 I'd still like to know why they needed a pre-dawn raid at President Trump's house, joe biden does the exact same thing- and it's no big deal 😡

Reminds me of the guy that worked for the railroad. He lived down around Crewe, Va, they have a big rail yard there. Or they used to anyway. He said the hardest thing he did all week was when he carried his bag from his car and put it in the caboose.

I tasted the ribs, they were OK, but the chicken was fantastic!

The ribs were good, but the cheap chicken was the cat's ass!

Oh, I almost forgot to take a picture of the ribs. I bought these chicken leg quarters too, because they were reduced to $3. I figured I might as well cook 'em instead of freezing them, because at $3 ya' never know. They appeared to be fine though. the ribs are done too.

I think Old Bill, AKA William Weatherstone, said he was 6'4". He drove a B-61 with no sleeper all across Canada and the US. He said he would roll the passenger side window down and rest his feet on the mirror brackets when he stopped to sleep, no matter how cold it was. Unless he got a motel room there was really nothing else he could do.

I guess we'll run over to Altavista when Zina gets off work- in the car- and get some ribs to smoke tomorrow, If I can afford them. They didn't have any baby backs Saturday, those are my favorite kind to cook. Supposed to be 54 and sunny tomorrow. She really likes the way i've done them the last 2 times I smoked them, with brown sugar and then the rub. Gonna take some to the next door neighbor too.

I know people in Florida who have the ADT Home Security sign displayed in the front yard. That's all, just the sign. But I have a Ring Camera sign on the shed door. We got a Ring camera for Christmas one year, but it didn't work. We called Ring security and found it was a refurbished unit that was still registered to the old number and they claimed they couldn't change it. So I just stuck the sticker on the door anyway, don't remember what I did with the camera.

Yesterday a trip I made with a van to the Coca Cola plant in Hollywood, Fl. came up in my memories on facebook. I posted a couple of pictures and remarked that it was a tight spot to get into- there wasn't quite enough room to pull up far enough to get lined up to the dock, so I had to blind side it in. There was a trailer spotted beside the dock on the near side, and some metal poles on the far side. So the facebook conversation went like this- Brocky said something like "doesn't look very hard to me". And Jeff Moore, who owned the truck I used to drive, is like green dash- they come up with the hilarious one liners immediately. I altered the original picture just a little. It looked like this at first. But there really wasn't quite enough room to get a straight shot back, and it wasn't too hard to blind side in, except for those poles I had to be wary of.

I probably do, somewhere. But you know how disorganized I am, it might be an all day job for me to find any particular picture, unless of course i'm not looking for it, then i'll see it right away.