By Stu MacKay: MacKay & Company
Sometime during the last several months, somebody sneaked in and ripped several years’ worth of pages from my calendar. Who, how or why isn’t obvious – but the fact is that the damn thing flipped open to August 2010. Since the first page in this calendar was August 1935, simple arithmetic works out to 75.
The good news: well, we made it. The bad news: where in the world did all this time go?
Looking back from age 75 is akin to staring down both ends of a telescope simultaneously. Some events are probably larger in memory than they actually were at the time, others appear much smaller. It’s the sorting process that’s the challenge, convincing myself that shrinking the importance of the really stupid stuff is objective (although it isn’t). Likewise, exaggerating the importance of the good and/or smart stuff is way too easy.
If I stick to truck-related stuff, by no means am I downplaying the importance of family memories. There’s just no sense in embarrassing them in print. Much the same for my non-truck history. Although there is some residual bitterness resulting from my family home, grade school, junior high school and dad’s business all being demolished (locals describe it as urban removal), we’ll just leave that in the “stupid government decisions” file.
Showering while driving was a concept ahead of its time
In the truck department, breaking in as a very green (pre-Gore, green meant naive) dispatcher in the mid-50s looms large in memory. Two lane roads, 35-foot trailers, underpowered tractors (cherry picker Macks with 15-speed trannies – and all 15 needed), World War II vet drivers and everything on paper (bills of lading, waybills, manifests, dispatch sheets, driver time sheets, maintenance records, etc.). Electronics in the 50s? Two-way radios in the big terminals were about it! We did have a tabulating department – wonder what they did…
