Memoirs Of CDL Training Add A Lil OTR

Seven stop driver assist nursery load. First stop Nashville, down thru Alabama, stop in Sc last stop Winston-Salem. First stop in Nashville. Corner of busy and side street, no place for big truck. Jose stops in right lane, flashers on, I run into to figure next step. One of the owners (gay couple) hands me a City of Nashville barricade and two of his workers followed w cones but stayed back. Owner said "its on you guys if the police show up! ". Then proceeds to whisper in Spanish to his worker, Victor! Victor guards me w a machete, while Jose, myself, the owners, two workers pass plants into the shop. The one owner kept saying "Be careful my friend Victor no like Blanco"! As Victor glares at me w machete'. Never figured out wth was going on. Left Nashville and at a fuel stop in outside of Birmingham I encountered very big angry racist redneck. I was walking into truck stop he bumps into and asks "Why u training that gd beaner for? Taking all our jobs!" Well I said probably w a shaky voice "Hes training me!!" He just stormed into the building muttering under his breath. Well Jose catches wind of this confrontation. Side note--when Jose would get riled up everyone he was mad at he called "stupid kkk! Or gd kkk" The look this dude gave him was dumbfounded. 5'7" 145 lb hispanic guy gritting his teeth in the face of 6' 2" 250 lb redneck. "Lets go kkk , fight me gd kkk!" In my rush to try diffuse situation my loaf of bread catches on something and its everywhere. Mr. Redneck just bolted out the door, jumped into his 20 yr old dump truck rumbled away. I didnt stop laughing for two hours. No excitement the rest of the load. Then Tarheel, NC to Dallas. No fun there either. Back to my logbook to see whats next

Definitely following. This is some good reading. Seattle sucks. Lived there for 7 years, raining when I moved there, raining when I left.

Once again I submitted and it went nowhere. I live in rural Va where internet is still new. Well not much excitement for awhile. I was kind of second guessing myself. I struggled the struggle of trainee. We get a load heading to Jersey but I notice we are heading south. Jose proceeds to tell me he has hometime and I get to sit two days in a pull off near HEB in Round Rock while he is home. Ok cool I think. Got old quick. Now I bet I could walk blind folded thru the Heb. I was about to give up. I had what I could carry packed, no idea where I was going, but was about to figure it out. Jose shows up full of joy and off we ride. Due to power shortage at receiver in Fairlawn NJ we had to drop trailer. Bobtail to a supposed Dupont yard near Delaware Memorial Bridge. Well this place reminded me of Desolation (i think) a Stephen King novel. Not a trailer in site. Weeds growing from the concrete. Creepy. Well we get out of truck near this "guard trailer". See nothing. Jose starts to call disp. And "This is a breech of National Security, where is your DD214 and Dd244"! Almost wet myself. This 6'5" man or woman w a 5'5" Barney Fife w "it" just appear out of nowhere. And she keeps going on about "security breech and dd214" Dressed in your average security guard uniform claiming she was Navy Security Patrol. Jose has tears of laughter running down his face. We literally high tailed it out of there. No trailer hauling a$$ bobtail. At this point I was almost in a trance. Wtf have I gotten myself into. Jose about to kill us laughing while bobtailing and hammer down. We bobtailed to Hershey for some candy and off to St Louis

Where at in rural VA?

Meadows Of Dan. Patrick County. Near Floyd. Galax. Hillsville. If you know MOD I live off Squirrels Spur. If you dont it should paint a better picture.

I'm domiciled in the least-populous county: Highland.

Is the Homestead in Highland? Or Bath? Not much going on in Patrick County. I think the Sheriffs Dept is probably the most profitable business.

Bath County is The Homestead location.

Once again I had a nice post that didnt send. Well its time for Orientation Two. I will refer to it as O-2. Its basically another week of classroom. Backing every other nite. Hanging out harassing newbies at the hotel. A few of us even broke the rules and got some beer. We had to drive way into Dallas to get it. I cant remember why. Although we didnt get caught the next day a long speech on if you are seen drinking while in possession of Stevens truck you will be terminated etc. Or while in hotel etc etc etc Enough said. Once thru O-2 its dumb and dumber. 2-3 weeks w a fellow trainee. I partnered w Jeff from NC from the bus ride.

The major irritation I had w Stevens was the amount of people in the classes and on the range. We could be sharing truck w 5 others on the range. Of course you had the show-offs who didn't need as much time in truck but had to prove themselves plus were no help to others. Sometimes the instructors delivery of the point they are trying to teach us sucked. I am sorry to this day if I am on a flat surface and the instructor is saying "Turn up the hill" or "down the hill"!! I am lost. "Now jack it" never got across to me either. Well its time for Dumb and dumber. Having known Jeff we chose to team for the 2-3 weeks. Boy you definitely dont know a person until you live in a truck with them. I must have heard "my trainer said this or said that" 2.2 million times. I scaled at a little place in Ark and was sliding my tandems , he refused to help, because his trainer said we could only use cat scales. For the love of god. He was famous for dumping his GD **** bottles just anywhere if we were at a Pilot. Pee-lot he called them. It gets better. TBC