09/20/12

Grandpa and the Truck: Book 2 Available for Purchase

Here he is– this trucker who awoke to find the roof blown clear off his hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi, in August of 1969.  Fiction?  Heck no…It was the night Category 5, Hurricane Camille whalloped that seaside town, leaving devastation in its wake (and experts recently worried about Isaac’s 80-mph winds!!!)

This trucker had many experiences in his 30 years on the road, and we tell of the most exciting ones in the Grandpa and the Truck stories.  But they’re decidedly “Not Just for Boys”.  In Book 2 (same one that has hurricane story), “Girl Truckers,” focuses on two Rhode Island women who showed the men just how good women could be at long-haul trucking. They were two of the forerunners of women, today, who drive the big rigs…

Each of the Grandpa and the Truck books is comprised of two beautifully-illustrated stories, Questions sheets that help with discussion, Trucker Terms, and Maps to help children acquire other-than-GPS knowledge of our great country.

Books are $9.99.

Soon will be the season of shopping for little ones, for Christmas and Kannukah.  Then, too, there are always those inevitable birthdays one must run out and buy a child’s gift for?  What’s better than educational  books that teach many things to little ones?

These books just could be the hit of the party and the books that child will cherish.

09/4/12

Who’s the Trucker Behind Grandpa and the Truck stories?

I couldn’t write these stories if I didn’t believe in the man.  He had to be a folk-hero type, a man who knew his industry and one who little ones could learn from.

Oh, he told me the stories over the years, and I thought them remarkable…so much so that when I told them to our grandkids and saw their reaction, I decided to “put them out there,” in books.

You see, Paul Wesley Gates was born in Humnoke, Arkansas, in a one-room house aside a field, where his parents worked long hours, picking cotton.  According to him, it was ‘so far back in the boonies, they had to pipe in sunshine.’

He’d eventually have 2 brothers and 4 sisters, but one died. It was a tough life and they were poor.

At 17, his formal schooling ended, when school officials suspended him for inadvertently burning down a copse of trees adjacent to the school.  He’d hastily discarded a cigarette….all the more embarrassing because Joel T. Robinson School was named for a relative of his.

That’s when he went into the roofing business.  But he hated spreading hot sticky tar on roofs in 110 degree Arkansas summers and when the conveyor truck delivery man took out mailboxes, hit the sides of buildings, and screwed up deliveries, the boss fired him.

That’s when Gates became a trucker.  He slid onto the seat of a cab and never left—for the next 30 years.

Two years into that job, he was foreman, running a crew at 19.

From there, he joined the Navy as one of the Seabee construction crew and went to Rhode Island which became his ‘home port’ for the next 52 years.

But he’d go lots of other places, too.

He began trucking for a Rhode Island company, hauling freight and a few years into the business, he bought his own big rig …and then a second one.  He was training men, too, who’d became his driving partners in a career that saw him travel every state in the United States—except one.

He was now officially, an owner-operator, hauling households (a “Bedbug Hauler,” as they say in the industry.And don’t our little ones squeal in delight over that?!)

When his 4 year Seabee stint ended, he joined the Army National Guard and rose to Sergeant First Class.  In that capacity, he traveled the world, using his trucking skills in other lands like Sicily, Spain, Germany and Guatemala, building airstrips, hospitals, and schools.

Because he had exceptional talent in shooting (all that hunting as a young ‘un, getting supper for the family, paid off,) he took his National Guard’s combat pistol team to Arkansas for annual competition, even coming in 4th. in the nation one year. He did this for 20 years.

And, remember his shortened schooling due to a cigarette tossed aside? Well, that same man went on to get his GED and Associate’s Degree, in college.  He gave up smoking, too, in his 30’s.  He’d learned, by then, the value of both an education and being physically-fit (he still jogs.)

So, this is just a small capsule summary of the trucker behind this series.  Was he an exceptional trucker, too?  You bet. He was named one of Atlas Van Lines’s Elite Fleet of truckers, drivers who logged millions of miles without accident.

That meant he didn’t just drive well; he avoided accidents, as well.

So, trucker, sailor, soldier, marksman, world-traveler, patriot… and a darned good American. Just some of the reasons he’s the Model Trucker for the Grandpa and the Truck stories…

08/21/12

Long-Haul Trucker Relives a 2-Day Gridlock in One Instance…

Nature’s Fury in Another…….All on the same road trip!

Hubby had a crazy thought this week. It occurred to him that one particular trucking gig years ago saw him experience two monumental events in one week:  The Woodstock Music Festival, in Bethel, New York, on Aug. 15, 1969 and Hurricane Camille in Biloxi, Mississippi, on August 17, 1969.

He experienced both… as only a TRUCKER can.

First, he headed out on a northwesterly route, out of Rhode Island and was driving along in that central region of New York when he hit the “parking lot” the highway had become. Cars had been ditched everywhere, in breakdown lanes and on grassy strips of median dividers.

Truckers from the opposite direction hadn’t been able to warn him of the problem—they got stuck, too, and their CB radios were out of range.

Everybody just sat there, watching the human parade pass by–young people carrying their favorite accessory—boomboxes, shouting the music they loved.

Many would be stuck for 3 full days, as unintended ‘guests’ of the Woodstock Music Festival.

You’ll read about what this trucker did, during that event, in Grandpa and the Truck Book 3, coming out later in the Fall.

What book’s out soon?  Grandpa and the Truck, Book 2, with “Grandpa Meets the Hurricane” and “Girl Truckers” (remember…it’s for little ones 4-8 years old.) That 2nd. story (every Grandpa and the Truck book has 2 stories) tells of 2 Rhode Island women who made male truckers sit up and notice, as they became phenoms in their industry…

But they didn’t start out as such.

What’s ironic?  Hubby did the Biloxi run on the reverse side of the Woodstock Music Festival run….two potent events on the same road trip…. two that might have driven anyone else (but a trucker) “bonkers.”

Book 1 and 2 are available now on the www.grandpaandthetruck.com site ….

Book 2’s story with “Girl Truckers” has been endorsed b Women In Trucking. OOIDA gave us a shout-out, too, and Overdrive’s given us two.Women InTrucking and OOIDA’s edorsement are proudly affixed to the back of every Grandpa and the Truck book.

PS…We know you’ve got your own ‘chilling moments’…every trucker does. We aim to tell them to a public that knows very little about what we truckers do—via stories told to little ones.  After all, they’re our best Fan Club.