Nashville Trucking

There must be some old hands out there who once drove for Nashville Trucking Company running out of Nashville, Arkansas, owners were C. C. Couch & Hansford Ray. I know of some of the old hands from those days have past on, Roy Swint who we called Number 9 & John Jones who was known as Big John, and Hook Byers and I can't remember his CB handle, there there was Buck Boler, can't remember his CB handle either at the moment. I drove for them from about 76 to 81.

For the 1st few months I ran east unloading. Quickly I found out I did not care for that, especially those A. G. Shore loads that most of the time we had to run all over the east coast nearly having to pedal those loads off of the back of the trailer in order to get rid of them. Plus those loads seem to take 4 to 5 days to get off the trailer. Anyone who has ever went east with a A. G. Shore load will know about how bad those loads were.

Quick as I could I got to running the west coast, that was much better than running east, at least for me it was. running east we had to detour ever scale house for most of the time we were either overloaded plus most of our trucks were just a bit to long for the 55 foot limit from Tennessee to the east coast.

And A. G. Shore load was not to much better one the west coast, for they generally had 20 or more pickup's and we got no pay for pickup's nor drop's.

I was trying to think of the truck numbers, can't remember many of them, I do remember Number 9, Roy Swint, who had his own truck for most of the time I was there, his truck was Number 9. I do remember # 7, # 64, # 62. Seem like the truck Fish Hook who has passed on drove was # 65. Some of the other hands went by Kidnapper, Paper Boy, Little Phantom, Bingen Bum, we had 2 Grasshoppers, Blue Boy, Grave Digger, Slow Poke. Maybe later I will think of some more of them and edit this entry to add them to it. That has now been about 28 years ago, so my memory has gotten a bit fussy.

We had mostly regular stops we made going and coming from the west coast. I feel sure I can't remember all of them either and I feel sure many of those truck stops have been gone for several years. Cunningham Truck Stop at the 380 marker west of Fort Worth, Texaco at Midland, Texas, there is one at Odessa but I can't remember its name right now. Sometimes stopped at one just west of Abilene, McClain's at El Paso, one at Rockwell, Texas. the Texaco at Tucson, the Texaco at Colton, CA., 7th Standard Road just north of Bakersfield. Of course there were a few others some of stopped at once in a while. During that time they built those Iron Skillets just west of Forth Worth and east of El Paso, I did not stop at them all that much.

I may think of more that I can add to this later, but I was just thinking of those west coast days, wondering if some of you hands were around anywhere. I do have about 4 more whose faces I can see right now, but I can't think of their names nor CB handle. I went by Flintstone. If any of you happen to come by here please take time and leave me a note, would love to hear from you. And who knows there were many other hands out there that we ratchet jawed with on the CB, run up and down the super slap with many a mile and stopped and had coffee with, it would be nice to hear from you as well.

May the Lord bless,
Jerry

"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye
will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
Josh 24:15