December 8, 2025 • 31 mins
From million-mile truckers to wild roadside tales, Michael Berry dives into the grit, humor, and heart of America’s highways. Real drivers, real stories, and a few laughs along the way—because life behind the wheel is anything but ordinary.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air, and now a
totally random weekend review from the past. Take a guess
when this was I've Got a Big Ballsta, so one
(00:30):
of them was known as Big Balls. The beauty of
this is that then you had all of these liberal
news agencies having to save the name on air on
evening news broadcast. In order for people to be as
upset as they're supposed to be about these kids who
were do gooders saving the federal government and saving the republic,
(00:50):
they had to say the name A licensed Houston Obama
is wanted after an investigators say she cut off a
man private part before cremating him.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
She cut off his private part put it in his mouth.
Records show mortuary staff had just learned the victim was
a registered sex offender.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Ethics is everything in this line of work.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Jason Altieri runs Southeast Texas crematory.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
He says families should feel comfortable to ask questions that
y'all aren't one of those places, you know, I mean,
cut his winner off and stuff in his mouth. The
Baytown managed charged with murder months after his fiance's mysterious death,
but perhaps most disturbing of all what police say he
allegedly searched for on the Internet before the murder.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
One of his Google searches quote, can I kill an
illegal human?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
He googled if it was legal to kill an illegal
People's lack of basic knowledge astounds me. A plumbing problem
at forty thousand feet, the toilets were clogged, enforcing the
flight crew to turn around back to Chicago.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Twelve eleven of the lavatories got plugged. Only one lavoratory
if the business glass was usable on the flight.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
One toilet for three hundred passengers. I'd read lot of water,
and I peel a lot. I got to tell you,
and you got to go, and there is somebody in
the toilet, and you wondered, what are you doing in there?
How long do you need some of You remember our
(02:29):
December tradition that we pull a week in review as
prepared by the Binus executive producer in all the land
Chatta Coni Nakanies, and we play them and you guess
what week during the year that would have been. And
(02:50):
that week right there was March fourteenth, So the week
preceding in March fourteenth, because We played them, of course
on Friday, so keep that in mind as you listened
to them as we roll along. Speaking of rolling along
truck drivers, we'll start with Alan. We have a few.
I'm gonna try to get them all on Alan. Go ahead, sir, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Michael, I'll tell you what one thing. Let's get there
for you. Listen, yall show. Because I laughed my ales
off while fiving. I was talking about truck and I
thank god, I've got two million mile awards from two
different companies, and one for the flat man with gund
hold on, I ain't you poor a fat man? Other
I mean when Grondac was a tiger wagon and so
(03:32):
I said, hollow chemicals off. But I will hal all
kind of chemicals over there. Smant continued educase experience, and
my daughter wrote on her truckle mat till she was
seventeen years old. She could drive a truck in eighth grade.
She made a olimphony Alaska Highway all over the country,
and now she's in the military. She's going on ten
years now and she's a nurse in the military. But
(03:56):
she got an education from grad SIS and it was
I was out of trucks when I was a teenager.
They didn't even have a damn b cow hauling and
dung and milk holling, and uh. I went back in
the hall caws again. Bro, my kids, I was young
because I just wanted you to to get the experience
of cow hauling.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I don't want you the guy that we can give
you the address and the coordinates and you can get
us there.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know what. I remember one time
you was. I don't got that GPS, but I remember
you asked us on that Lansing. When I got to
drinking later, man, I was talking around. I was, I
was in my mind. I was in ann Arbor, Michigan.
I forgot where you.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I was thinking, thinking somewhere. I want you to get
me from your I don't those.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Things from my mother that day they got throwed out
with my compass.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I want you to get from your house.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Accomplish with my mom. Got um aware of my directions
everywhere I'm going.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I want you to get me from from your house
to Raleigh, North Carolina, and not use I ten.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Oh god, okay, all right up here, two of I
still get on air safe out of ten. Don't try
to stay up by ten East side anyway, Oh go
fifty nine up here costs and sitting round up to
h I twenty. I'll go eye twenty. I guess clear
(05:26):
across the I eighty five right I eight five, as Carla,
I will say that's about all. If received fourteen, i'd
be about fifteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, and now I thought you were wrong on twenty
hitting eighty five, but damned if you aren't right. Yeah,
I'm looking at the bath and I got I got
a little confused, and I thought, huh, all right, Uh
can you get me from Raleigh, North Carolina to Augusta, Maine.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, that would be going eighty five right on up
to uh uh up there to uh right south of
Russhe Regunion. You're going ninety five and you're going tinty
five all with. I've been up in the Main, but
I can't remember were august of Main is? I bet
up their title or two. But the old handing back
(06:22):
the state of Man is the way life shouldn't be.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
But well correctly if.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I'm but I'm looking at US interstates now, not just highways,
but interstates, and it shows only one interstate going through Maine.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That would be ninety five.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah right, how about that. That's very interesting. Alan. You
have a gift, my friend, a gift that you have
earned with many, many years of driving. I always enjoy
when you call it. Don't be a stranger, will you're up?
That's there, go ahead?
Speaker 5 (06:56):
That I mean is very this will turn I go
over trucking the twenty one years, and let me tell
you it's not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But yeah, have you seen Landmink? Excuse have you seen Landman? No, sir,
it's a TV program, paramount does it. It's a Taylor
Sheridan if you've ever did you ever see Yellowstone? And no,
I don't.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
I don't get to watch TV or nothing like that
very much. I'm in this truck and moving.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Okay, Well he uh they're out in the Midland area,
and they're and then they're out west Texas. I forget
exactly where they are, uh, somewhere near Lovebock. But anyway,
there's there's a lot of truck driving references in for
the oil field services. I'm just curious if if they
had if they had done their research and were as
(07:50):
accurate as could be expected for the field. With years
of experience, you still do.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
I wouldn't know about that part of Texas. I'm working
an eagle for the chair down in the car and city.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Uh huh. And how long have you been driving the truck?
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Twenty one years?
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Does that pay well?
Speaker 5 (08:11):
It didn't it first, but it does now it pays
the bills.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Good for you. Thanks for the call on on. We
got Mike, Jason and Mike. We'll take those three and
then I shut it down. Coming up, you've got corn.
Pope was a bad dude the Michael Berry Show. Jay
writes Zora, this is Jay Bird from Mason, Texas. I've
been in the agricultural trucking business for forty five years
(08:36):
and over five million miles. I haul mostly cattle and hay.
I always enjoy listening to your program, mostly on seven
ninety kf yoh out of Lovebuck and on the app
on my phone. I also use podcasts when I miss
an episode. Thanks for the positive remarks on truckers, Keep
(08:56):
up the good job. Speaking of KFY in Lovebock seven
ninety k or, our friend Dan Endam is that the helm.
These are good times for Red Raider Nation and everybody.
I don't care what your alma mater is everybody should
be proud of the guns up nation. This is a great,
(09:19):
great time for that institution. When any of our institutions win,
we all win. It's good for our state. Red Raiders
are at the are from top to bottom throughout the
institutions and organizations and hierarchy of the military, educational institutions,
(09:42):
the government, industry, finance, medicine, you name it. There are very,
very exciting things happening in Lubwock, Texas these days. Veterinary school,
medical school, new building, new stadium or new stadium number
(10:06):
four in the playoff seeds. Heck, they went to the
national championship in women's softball last year, paid a girl
a million dollars to come and pitch for them. And
if she hadn't been so worn out by the championship,
that had won that too. Big old black girl, heavy set,
I mean, built like a built like a middle linebacker. Man,
(10:28):
oh man, can this girl throw the ball? It was
a treat to watch. I have a friend named Joel Bartsch,
and Joel started at the Houston Museum of Natural Science
when he was nineteen years old as a security guard.
Big old boy, big white fellow, big corn fed white fellow.
He was a security guard at the Houston Museum of
(10:49):
Natural Science and he was going to school on the side,
ended up getting his degree, end up going on to
become an expert in gyms gymologist. Worked his way up,
worked his way up, until eventually the opportunity came for
him to be the director of the third most visited
(11:10):
museum in the entire country. I like Joel. He's a
good man and I could have considered him a friend.
I met him when I was on Houston City Council.
I made it my business to go out and learn
about anything that the city was involved with, because at
some point i'd have a vote related to it. And
he was happy, finally somebody is paying attention to this amazing,
(11:31):
amazing institution. Treasure Jim, if you will ramon right here
in our midst next to the next to the zoo.
And over the years we've got to be pretty good friends.
He works in the museum district, lives in the Woodlands,
so he listens to the show. Well, he got mad
one day because I was making softball jokes. He's here,
(11:54):
been to a softball and you're watch college softball. You
obviously don't have a daughter. So I've told the story
about several years later, been open concept. Living in my
work area, and I'm working on a Saturday, and my
wife was cleaning and I don't know why she had
it on, but she had ESPN's College Softball, women's softball on,
(12:15):
and I would glance up and watch a play here
and there, and damned if I didn't get interested in it.
And I will tell you with no shame to this day,
if there is a women's college softball game on and
I'm not doing anything else, I will sit down and
watch it. And I don't like to watch women play sports.
I think the WNBA is a joke, but boy, can
(12:40):
they play softball, and the way they play it with
that running drag bunt, that is not an easy thing
to do. I'm told there's all sorts of codes as
to whether the girl wears her hair through the cap.
You know what that means, and where she has it
over here, and you know which team they play for
or whatever. I so I just kind of pretend to
(13:01):
make up my own rules, and I'll tell my wife, Hey,
you know that one she's wearing a wrist bracelet on
her left wrist. Yeah, you know, what that means. That's
mixed up up. Yeah, a little fun with it. But anyway,
I had to call Joeld Bars and tell him I
was wrong. Women's college softball is legit, It's first rate.
But I just wanted to say to our KFYO listeners
(13:22):
in Lubbock from eight thirty to eleven am weekday mornings,
it's an honor to be with you in congratulations to
Red Raider Nation. I'm proud for your success and delighted
for your success. Mike, what you got, sir?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Hello?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yep, what you want to know?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
What you want to know today? Mike?
Speaker 1 (13:40):
How long you been driving?
Speaker 6 (13:42):
Forty one years?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Right on forty one?
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Forty one years. I got to kick out of that
other studtle that was on here before me.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Alan, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Every time he's on, I forget how much we like him.
He's a who's man? Who do you drive for me?
Speaker 6 (14:01):
I'm self employed. Uh back at the back in oh Ford,
Oh five, I was running for a company, but I
don't want to pitch in their name. But when you
mentioned land Man, when that anker truck come over that
farm market hill and hit that plane, it made me
think I did some stuff similar to that, but I
want none loading drugs and out of a plane. I
(14:22):
was off loading some fuel and a pasture off of
seventy seven in the real Grand Valley. There was no
boy up north. He had some airplane gas he needed
to get rid of him. I said, okay. He didn't
have no funds to pay me, and I said, I
ain't worried about no money, man, just to I'll come
(14:43):
here Saturday morning and get your fuel. I had a
guy up in the south that he was hurting fuel
costs a lot of them crop dusters down there. So
I came up there, up on the north side of Conroe.
I emptied out that tank five thousand and get onto
ham Gas. I took it down to the real Grand
Violence for the little airplane boy. Didn't charge him a thing, man,
(15:06):
I offloaded it, you know, pass it on, good will
be forward. I've been blessed ever since forty one years
in this inducto. No incidents, no wrecks. I mean, I
can tell you some stories that would make your coats curl.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Mikey, Well, that's the sign of a life well lived,
my man. My mong likes to crop dust yellows frozen,
putting on the stag, the Michael Very Joe yellow brand
pudding pops.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
Maybe the goodness of real jello pudding, Kevin, I rolled
the Michael Very ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
My man? Oh did I heard a bottle break? Kevin? Yes, sir,
you're up.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
I'm a truck driver out of Katie.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
What do you drive?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Drive a ken worst?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Do you own it or does the company own it?
Speaker 4 (16:03):
I own it? Truck and trailer?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
So are you like a private or hire or how
does that work?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
So there's a couple of different ways on our operators
goes somewhere fully independent in some contract to a larger carrier.
I contract to a larger carrier.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And do you contract per job or how does that work?
Speaker 7 (16:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So we have our own the carrier has our own
load board, and that load board all the agents or
brokers will post the loads and you call and bid
on them. Okay and uh yeah, So I got a
handful of agents that I kind of work with.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
When you did, what do you know? Like what details
are on the board that you're bidding with?
Speaker 4 (16:53):
So let'll tell you the rate per mile, be all
in rate, where it's loading, where it's delivering, how much
fuel search arge are going to give you for fuel
stuff like that. Then you can call and sometimes they'll
drop the price while you're trying to raise the price.
And it just depends where the market's at at the time.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And what would cause them to drop the price.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
More trucks in the area than loads, we'll drop the price.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
So they know they're going to get up, they know
they're going to get that job.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yes, well, you got to consider those things when you're
going to another town. What the market of that town is.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
What is not the best deal you've ever seen? But
what is a set of numbers on the board that
you would all you'd say, when it hits that, I
will always bid what is that per mile?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
So everyone's got their bottom dollar for me? If you
know your numbers, which an owner operator should, but most don't,
I would say most don't. I've got a minimum. I
don't do anything less than two seventy a mile. Now,
if I'm under three dollars, I'm pretty upset about it. Yeah,
but I'm still making profit now.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Dumb question, But I don't know some I don't mind
asking dumb questions. You don't get paid for if you
if you make a haul to Dallas and you don't
have a load coming back like a deadhead, do you
just you don't get paid for that, right?
Speaker 5 (18:26):
Correct?
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yesterday I deadheaded from middle of Odessa to uh Weatherford,
Texas empty. It's roughly three hundred miles for a good
load that I loaded this morning going to Peko's, Texas.
So I still profit. But you still consider those dead
head miles your fuel. In your time, have.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
You worked out down to some degree of specificity what
it costs you to operate, not your labor, but what
it costs you to operate that truck all in, you know,
the wear and tear on the truck, the fuel and
everything else per mile.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Per mile.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yes, that's my minimum of two seventy. That includes my
profit that I take home, taxes, maintenance.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Everything, right. But I'm wondering what your actual hard cost
would be if you put leaving your labor out leaving
but just building in the cost of your truck to
wear and tear, you know, tires every so often fuel.
I'm wondering if that's a dollar fifty, If it's a
dollar you know what that number would be.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I wonder what it would be too.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Well, the reason I asked is there has to come
a point where let's say your let's say your hard
cost leaving aside your labor is a dollar thirty five
a mile, and you want to get to seventy a mile.
So if you if you drive to Dallas at two
seventy and then come back, it would strikeen me you
(19:56):
didn't make any money because you dead had that And
can't you know you're putting wear and tear and fuel
and all that on your vehicle and not getting paid
for it?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Now do you use that is my minimum?
Speaker 7 (20:08):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
No? I got it?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I got it.
Speaker 7 (20:09):
I tried.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And yeah, when you do you try? How often are
you able to avoid a dead head and get a job?
You know, from here to bake Us or here to
uh Weatherford and then you can pick something up on
the way back.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Well, I do more deadhead than the average truck driver
because of the type of trailer that I'm pulling. So
I pull a step jack trailer, so it's a little
bit more specialized. So we got to go further, but
the rates are usually higher. So two seventy is my minimum,
but I try and stay around four dollars a mile.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
And how did you get into that business?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (20:50):
I was tired of what I was doing. And I
asked my dad, how can I make more money than
he's a truck driver, and say, you can try driving
a truck. So I tried it and I'm still doing it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Hum, what's what's the hardest thing on your body to
be in a truck driver? You're back.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
On your body? Uh man, I'd say maybe your heart,
because the pressure is a big problem for truck drivers.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, I would just think. You know, just driving to
Dallason back now, I guess if I did it, i'd
get used to it, but just to wear and tear
of that of doing that, I didn't. I didn't enjoy it.
I I used to love a road trip. My wife
would laugh. I could drive to DC. We drive to
(21:44):
Colorado every year, and I'd do my show from out there,
and I enjoyed the drive. I knew where I was
gonna stop. We were gonna bed down in dal Hart,
I was gonna I was gonna stop, whether I went
through Fort Worth or went through Amarillo. I'd have my
little hot spots I'd stop, and I wouldn't enjoy that,
you know, go through Kenyon and all that. But I've
gotten to where now it just I don't enjoy it
(22:05):
like I used to it. I don't know if that's
getting old. I don't know what that is. Mike. What
do you drive?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Oh? I drive for in the playoffs group out of
Low Leda, Texas.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
And what kind of truckle?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
We?
Speaker 5 (22:19):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (22:21):
I drive a freightliner?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And do you own that?
Speaker 7 (22:25):
No, sir, I'm a company driver.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
And then so you're not looking at a board and
bidding the project. You're just going where they tell you
to go. Yes, sir, Yes, sir.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
And uh.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
You know, I want to thank you first of all,
because you get it.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
People out here don't get what it's like to drive
a truck, but you get it.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
I will, I will tell you the honest truth. I
really don't. I don't know how you do it. I
really don't. I look at, you know, just driving my
little tahoe uh to Dallas and and staying in your
lane and you know, people slowing down and speeding up,
and you know, you're constantly avoiding the idiots and all that.
(23:08):
I can't imagine being in that big thing, especially you know,
there's always so much construction going on and y'all don't
have a lot of clearance over on the side. I know,
you take it for granted, and people always, you know,
when you tell them something they do is heroic or
amazing or whatever, they well, that's just what I do.
But for the rest of us, it's pretty darn and
pressive to Michael Bairey show Simple Man in law school
(23:40):
because the first moment it really hit me that I
grew up quite differently than other people. I had classmates
from the Northeast who were in Austin at ut law
school with me, and they just didn't have the same
frame of reference. I mean, Trucker movies and trucker lifestyle
(24:03):
in our household was big, especially my grandfather Papa. Papa
and Nanny would sit. He had a scanner right behind
his recliner, an old green mellowmine recliner, and he had
duck taped it where it had split open, and he
(24:25):
would sit there and he could turn it up or
down over his shoulder and it sat right behind him
because he was hard at hearing. And he drove a
tow truck for eighteen wheelers, which is pretty cool, and
so you know, if an eighteen wheeler needs to be towed,
(24:45):
there's something going on. And he drove for a towing company.
Record company called h and E Hughy and Elbert I
think was Huy and Elroy, Hugh and Elbert, I think
h and E. And that gave him an excuse to
listen to the scanner. So the crackle of a scanner
is mother's milk to me. I love the sound of
(25:06):
a scanner. I love the sound of a Cebee radio.
Uncle Jerry's got the biggest CBE radio wattage hurts, mega hurts,
whatever the term is. He's got a big antenna that
goes that has to he has to keep it in
the bed of his truck because if it's up, you
can't get any of these buildings. But if we know
we're going somewhere, he'll along drive from he drives me
(25:28):
to my speeches and things. He'll he'll plunk that thing down.
We'll turn it on and listen to, uh the Sebee radio,
boy Lessie. But you also had you had the great
genre of trucker music, uh Dave Dudley Red Sovine. I
mean you had great trucker music, and then you had
(25:49):
the trucker movies. Uh Convoy Uh obviously smoke in the bandit.
I mean it was so over the top that you
you had in convoy. You you you had replaced the
military with truck drivers. The truck drivers were the outlaws.
They were the bad boys. They were making things happen.
(26:11):
You had BJ and the Bear. Oh man, what a
what a high time. I wonder how many people drive
trucks today on the back ends of their career drive
trucks today because of the glamour associated with being a
truck driver in the mid to late seventies, because that
was about the coolest thing you could imagine. It was
(26:32):
so cool. Joe, you're on the Michael Berry Show. What's
your story? Warriors? There are, Sir Marris.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
I retired from law Enforce about nine years ago and
went to work for a company that does heavy dirt work.
So we haul have a lott Boy heavy haul machine
where we call those are excavators and trucks.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
You're talking about like butter gig. Okay, you're talking.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
About booty juice now and anything up to tell foot white.
So I mean weird to guys. You see the tractors
hanging off the trailer with the orange flags lapping over,
so oh yeah, fact, that's that's so it's it's just
a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
What did you do with more?
Speaker 7 (27:06):
I think it's more nerve wracking because it's so wide.
But you know, I was. I did the last eleven
years of the deputy constable, serving civil papers for which
precinct Precinct three in Baytown. I started with Baytown PD
as a patrol officer back in the late eighties, US
there and took a break and I went back to
work for the county twenty one years and seven months
in LA enforcement and I still get hassled. I have
(27:28):
a retired foot post sticker on my truck and I
still get hassled by dot tops because we always said,
if you're too mean to work with IRS, you could
always get dot cop.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, And when they pull up, you're like, look, fella,
I can read you the code. I know it, I
got it. Memorize no.
Speaker 7 (27:41):
No, some of them don't care.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
But we run really legally.
Speaker 7 (27:44):
It's a company runs brand new trucks and everything's legal,
and so when you have something shiny and chrombed out,
they don't get messed with as much by the truck
police because it's they know you spend the money to
keep it right.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
That's legal.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
No oil leagues.
Speaker 7 (27:55):
The good breaks are.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Good that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
What made you want to do that?
Speaker 7 (27:59):
I had grown up around My dad had a sand
pit with dump trucks, and I grew up driving dump trucks.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Oh how cool was that?
Speaker 7 (28:06):
Yeah, we went to our own sand ped some kid.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
We talked the trucks out in the sandlight and you
were driving.
Speaker 7 (28:12):
Oh yeah. My friends were making fifty dollars a week
working for Church of Chicken. I was making two hundred
and fifty a week. And this is six fifteen years old.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Wow, So I say, that's where do you live?
Speaker 7 (28:24):
Uh, couldn't cross me in Dayton. I talked to you
before you let me come to a couple of your events.
I'm the guy at the same name as the Houston Zuvet.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Oh Joe Flanagan, Yeah, don't say the lest Oh sorry,
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Body.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, you've even taken to uh. When you'll send an
email once a year or so, you'll say not the
vet in the in pro when I get I got
the tickets, when I get something locked in, I tend
to I tend to stick with it.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
You get you've been good to me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Well, my pleasure. Do you make more as a truck
driver than you did as long time.
Speaker 7 (28:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, I probably topped out of it's sixty
two with law enforcement and we're a little over six
figures doing this. Oh wow you married, Yeah, thirty four
years into a life sentence.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Wow, that's saying something for law enforcement.
Speaker 7 (29:14):
Yeah, yeah, saying something for our patients.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah. Now, are you long haul or these local?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Well?
Speaker 7 (29:21):
About sixteen seventy percent of our stuff's regional. But we've
got some jobs in West Texas and down in Laredo
and up around out of Gettings a little bit Austin.
We've been working building some power plants, some coal fire
power plants, I guess for the becoming need from AI.
We're on our fourth power plant job doing the dirt work.
We were the first ones there. We scratched the grass
(29:42):
off the site and start digging.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
How about that?
Speaker 7 (29:45):
And we hauled equipment back and forth.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Cella named text rights dad Gum. If I didn't tune
in too late for once, I would have called in.
My issue is blood pressure slash heart disease at fifty one.
For a lot of drivers, obesity and diabetes are rampant.
Quality food options are lacking. Mom and pop restaurants. Heck,
sit down service as a whole is disappearing at many
truck stops, or should I say travel centers, as they've
(30:09):
adopted that term and an effort to be welcoming to
all travelers. I could go on and on, but I
figured i'd just chime in, keep on, truck Do you
have your hotspots where you stop and eat?
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Yeah, you know that the truck stops like the Loves,
and they've really come a long way as far as
cleaning up and getting to be pretty decent, you know,
not crime ridden or pretty clean, and the food's not
too bad.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
So I mean, if I had my brothers, I would
go to Cracker Barrel or whatever. But uh, those places
have gotten They've come a long way from what you've
seen in the you know that eighties, seventies and eighties.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
As far as you know, a.
Speaker 7 (30:45):
Lot of lizards and greasy and nasty. They come a
long way.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I lived right near the Loves in Orange off sixty two,
and we used to ride up there and our big
deal was for lament Our basketball games. We didn't have
pro teams, and we had the Beaumont Golden Gators double
A San Diego Padres team, and we'd watch the Lamar
Cardinals basketball like it was a pro team. And my mom, my, brother,
(31:12):
and I would drive up to Loves and we'd get
sliced bologna and have baloney sandwiches. And that was our treat,
baloney sandwiches and cheetos and we're watching our basketball game
and that was our treat.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Brother.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Thanks for the call. Be saved out there.
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load. So
Michael Verie Show is on the air, and now a
totally random weekend review from the past. Take a guess
when this was I've Got a Big Ballsta, so one
(00:30):
of them was known as Big Balls. The beauty of
this is that then you had all of these liberal
news agencies having to save the name on air on
evening news broadcast. In order for people to be as
upset as they're supposed to be about these kids who
were do gooders saving the federal government and saving the republic,
(00:50):
they had to say the name A licensed Houston Obama
is wanted after an investigators say she cut off a
man private part before cremating him.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
She cut off his private part put it in his mouth.
Records show mortuary staff had just learned the victim was
a registered sex offender.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Ethics is everything in this line of work.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Jason Altieri runs Southeast Texas crematory.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
He says families should feel comfortable to ask questions that
y'all aren't one of those places, you know, I mean,
cut his winner off and stuff in his mouth. The
Baytown managed charged with murder months after his fiance's mysterious death,
but perhaps most disturbing of all what police say he
allegedly searched for on the Internet before the murder.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
One of his Google searches quote, can I kill an
illegal human?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
He googled if it was legal to kill an illegal
People's lack of basic knowledge astounds me. A plumbing problem
at forty thousand feet, the toilets were clogged, enforcing the
flight crew to turn around back to Chicago.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Twelve eleven of the lavatories got plugged. Only one lavoratory
if the business glass was usable on the flight.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
One toilet for three hundred passengers. I'd read lot of water,
and I peel a lot. I got to tell you,
and you got to go, and there is somebody in
the toilet, and you wondered, what are you doing in there?
How long do you need some of You remember our
(02:29):
December tradition that we pull a week in review as
prepared by the Binus executive producer in all the land
Chatta Coni Nakanies, and we play them and you guess
what week during the year that would have been. And
(02:50):
that week right there was March fourteenth, So the week
preceding in March fourteenth, because We played them, of course
on Friday, so keep that in mind as you listened
to them as we roll along. Speaking of rolling along
truck drivers, we'll start with Alan. We have a few.
I'm gonna try to get them all on Alan. Go ahead, sir, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Michael, I'll tell you what one thing. Let's get there
for you. Listen, yall show. Because I laughed my ales
off while fiving. I was talking about truck and I
thank god, I've got two million mile awards from two
different companies, and one for the flat man with gund
hold on, I ain't you poor a fat man? Other
I mean when Grondac was a tiger wagon and so
(03:32):
I said, hollow chemicals off. But I will hal all
kind of chemicals over there. Smant continued educase experience, and
my daughter wrote on her truckle mat till she was
seventeen years old. She could drive a truck in eighth grade.
She made a olimphony Alaska Highway all over the country,
and now she's in the military. She's going on ten
years now and she's a nurse in the military. But
(03:56):
she got an education from grad SIS and it was
I was out of trucks when I was a teenager.
They didn't even have a damn b cow hauling and
dung and milk holling, and uh. I went back in
the hall caws again. Bro, my kids, I was young
because I just wanted you to to get the experience
of cow hauling.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I don't want you the guy that we can give
you the address and the coordinates and you can get
us there.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, you know what. I remember one time
you was. I don't got that GPS, but I remember
you asked us on that Lansing. When I got to
drinking later, man, I was talking around. I was, I
was in my mind. I was in ann Arbor, Michigan.
I forgot where you.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I was thinking, thinking somewhere. I want you to get
me from your I don't those.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Things from my mother that day they got throwed out
with my compass.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I want you to get from your house.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Accomplish with my mom. Got um aware of my directions
everywhere I'm going.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I want you to get me from from your house
to Raleigh, North Carolina, and not use I ten.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Oh god, okay, all right up here, two of I
still get on air safe out of ten. Don't try
to stay up by ten East side anyway, Oh go
fifty nine up here costs and sitting round up to
h I twenty. I'll go eye twenty. I guess clear
(05:26):
across the I eighty five right I eight five, as Carla,
I will say that's about all. If received fourteen, i'd
be about fifteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, and now I thought you were wrong on twenty
hitting eighty five, but damned if you aren't right. Yeah,
I'm looking at the bath and I got I got
a little confused, and I thought, huh, all right, Uh
can you get me from Raleigh, North Carolina to Augusta, Maine.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, that would be going eighty five right on up
to uh uh up there to uh right south of
Russhe Regunion. You're going ninety five and you're going tinty
five all with. I've been up in the Main, but
I can't remember were august of Main is? I bet
up their title or two. But the old handing back
(06:22):
the state of Man is the way life shouldn't be.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
But well correctly if.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I'm but I'm looking at US interstates now, not just highways,
but interstates, and it shows only one interstate going through Maine.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
That would be ninety five.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah right, how about that. That's very interesting. Alan. You
have a gift, my friend, a gift that you have
earned with many, many years of driving. I always enjoy
when you call it. Don't be a stranger, will you're up?
That's there, go ahead?
Speaker 5 (06:56):
That I mean is very this will turn I go
over trucking the twenty one years, and let me tell
you it's not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But yeah, have you seen Landmink? Excuse have you seen Landman? No, sir,
it's a TV program, paramount does it. It's a Taylor
Sheridan if you've ever did you ever see Yellowstone? And no,
I don't.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
I don't get to watch TV or nothing like that
very much. I'm in this truck and moving.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Okay, Well he uh they're out in the Midland area,
and they're and then they're out west Texas. I forget
exactly where they are, uh, somewhere near Lovebock. But anyway,
there's there's a lot of truck driving references in for
the oil field services. I'm just curious if if they
had if they had done their research and were as
(07:50):
accurate as could be expected for the field. With years
of experience, you still do.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
I wouldn't know about that part of Texas. I'm working
an eagle for the chair down in the car and city.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Uh huh. And how long have you been driving the truck?
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Twenty one years?
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Does that pay well?
Speaker 5 (08:11):
It didn't it first, but it does now it pays
the bills.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Good for you. Thanks for the call on on. We
got Mike, Jason and Mike. We'll take those three and
then I shut it down. Coming up, you've got corn.
Pope was a bad dude the Michael Berry Show. Jay
writes Zora, this is Jay Bird from Mason, Texas. I've
been in the agricultural trucking business for forty five years
(08:36):
and over five million miles. I haul mostly cattle and hay.
I always enjoy listening to your program, mostly on seven
ninety kf yoh out of Lovebuck and on the app
on my phone. I also use podcasts when I miss
an episode. Thanks for the positive remarks on truckers, Keep
(08:56):
up the good job. Speaking of KFY in Lovebock seven
ninety k or, our friend Dan Endam is that the helm.
These are good times for Red Raider Nation and everybody.
I don't care what your alma mater is everybody should
be proud of the guns up nation. This is a great,
(09:19):
great time for that institution. When any of our institutions win,
we all win. It's good for our state. Red Raiders
are at the are from top to bottom throughout the
institutions and organizations and hierarchy of the military, educational institutions,
(09:42):
the government, industry, finance, medicine, you name it. There are very,
very exciting things happening in Lubwock, Texas these days. Veterinary school,
medical school, new building, new stadium or new stadium number
(10:06):
four in the playoff seeds. Heck, they went to the
national championship in women's softball last year, paid a girl
a million dollars to come and pitch for them. And
if she hadn't been so worn out by the championship,
that had won that too. Big old black girl, heavy set,
I mean, built like a built like a middle linebacker. Man,
(10:28):
oh man, can this girl throw the ball? It was
a treat to watch. I have a friend named Joel Bartsch,
and Joel started at the Houston Museum of Natural Science
when he was nineteen years old as a security guard.
Big old boy, big white fellow, big corn fed white fellow.
He was a security guard at the Houston Museum of
(10:49):
Natural Science and he was going to school on the side,
ended up getting his degree, end up going on to
become an expert in gyms gymologist. Worked his way up,
worked his way up, until eventually the opportunity came for
him to be the director of the third most visited
(11:10):
museum in the entire country. I like Joel. He's a
good man and I could have considered him a friend.
I met him when I was on Houston City Council.
I made it my business to go out and learn
about anything that the city was involved with, because at
some point i'd have a vote related to it. And
he was happy, finally somebody is paying attention to this amazing,
(11:31):
amazing institution. Treasure Jim, if you will ramon right here
in our midst next to the next to the zoo.
And over the years we've got to be pretty good friends.
He works in the museum district, lives in the Woodlands,
so he listens to the show. Well, he got mad
one day because I was making softball jokes. He's here,
(11:54):
been to a softball and you're watch college softball. You
obviously don't have a daughter. So I've told the story
about several years later, been open concept. Living in my
work area, and I'm working on a Saturday, and my
wife was cleaning and I don't know why she had
it on, but she had ESPN's College Softball, women's softball on,
(12:15):
and I would glance up and watch a play here
and there, and damned if I didn't get interested in it.
And I will tell you with no shame to this day,
if there is a women's college softball game on and
I'm not doing anything else, I will sit down and
watch it. And I don't like to watch women play sports.
I think the WNBA is a joke, but boy, can
(12:40):
they play softball, and the way they play it with
that running drag bunt, that is not an easy thing
to do. I'm told there's all sorts of codes as
to whether the girl wears her hair through the cap.
You know what that means, and where she has it
over here, and you know which team they play for
or whatever. I so I just kind of pretend to
(13:01):
make up my own rules, and I'll tell my wife, Hey,
you know that one she's wearing a wrist bracelet on
her left wrist. Yeah, you know, what that means. That's
mixed up up. Yeah, a little fun with it. But anyway,
I had to call Joeld Bars and tell him I
was wrong. Women's college softball is legit, It's first rate.
But I just wanted to say to our KFYO listeners
(13:22):
in Lubbock from eight thirty to eleven am weekday mornings,
it's an honor to be with you in congratulations to
Red Raider Nation. I'm proud for your success and delighted
for your success. Mike, what you got, sir?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Hello?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yep, what you want to know?
Speaker 2 (13:39):
What you want to know today? Mike?
Speaker 1 (13:40):
How long you been driving?
Speaker 6 (13:42):
Forty one years?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Right on forty one?
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Forty one years. I got to kick out of that
other studtle that was on here before me.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Alan, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Every time he's on, I forget how much we like him.
He's a who's man? Who do you drive for me?
Speaker 6 (14:01):
I'm self employed. Uh back at the back in oh Ford,
Oh five, I was running for a company, but I
don't want to pitch in their name. But when you
mentioned land Man, when that anker truck come over that
farm market hill and hit that plane, it made me
think I did some stuff similar to that, but I
want none loading drugs and out of a plane. I
(14:22):
was off loading some fuel and a pasture off of
seventy seven in the real Grand Valley. There was no
boy up north. He had some airplane gas he needed
to get rid of him. I said, okay. He didn't
have no funds to pay me, and I said, I
ain't worried about no money, man, just to I'll come
(14:43):
here Saturday morning and get your fuel. I had a
guy up in the south that he was hurting fuel
costs a lot of them crop dusters down there. So
I came up there, up on the north side of Conroe.
I emptied out that tank five thousand and get onto
ham Gas. I took it down to the real Grand
Violence for the little airplane boy. Didn't charge him a thing, man,
(15:06):
I offloaded it, you know, pass it on, good will
be forward. I've been blessed ever since forty one years
in this inducto. No incidents, no wrecks. I mean, I
can tell you some stories that would make your coats curl.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Mikey, Well, that's the sign of a life well lived,
my man. My mong likes to crop dust yellows frozen,
putting on the stag, the Michael Very Joe yellow brand
pudding pops.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
Maybe the goodness of real jello pudding, Kevin, I rolled
the Michael Very ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
My man? Oh did I heard a bottle break? Kevin? Yes, sir,
you're up.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
I'm a truck driver out of Katie.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
What do you drive?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Drive a ken worst?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Do you own it or does the company own it?
Speaker 4 (16:03):
I own it? Truck and trailer?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
So are you like a private or hire or how
does that work?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
So there's a couple of different ways on our operators
goes somewhere fully independent in some contract to a larger carrier.
I contract to a larger carrier.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And do you contract per job or how does that work?
Speaker 7 (16:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So we have our own the carrier has our own
load board, and that load board all the agents or
brokers will post the loads and you call and bid
on them. Okay and uh yeah, So I got a
handful of agents that I kind of work with.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
When you did, what do you know? Like what details
are on the board that you're bidding with?
Speaker 4 (16:53):
So let'll tell you the rate per mile, be all
in rate, where it's loading, where it's delivering, how much
fuel search arge are going to give you for fuel
stuff like that. Then you can call and sometimes they'll
drop the price while you're trying to raise the price.
And it just depends where the market's at at the time.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And what would cause them to drop the price.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
More trucks in the area than loads, we'll drop the price.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
So they know they're going to get up, they know
they're going to get that job.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yes, well, you got to consider those things when you're
going to another town. What the market of that town is.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
What is not the best deal you've ever seen? But
what is a set of numbers on the board that
you would all you'd say, when it hits that, I
will always bid what is that per mile?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
So everyone's got their bottom dollar for me? If you
know your numbers, which an owner operator should, but most don't,
I would say most don't. I've got a minimum. I
don't do anything less than two seventy a mile. Now,
if I'm under three dollars, I'm pretty upset about it. Yeah,
but I'm still making profit now.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Dumb question, But I don't know some I don't mind
asking dumb questions. You don't get paid for if you
if you make a haul to Dallas and you don't
have a load coming back like a deadhead, do you
just you don't get paid for that, right?
Speaker 5 (18:26):
Correct?
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yesterday I deadheaded from middle of Odessa to uh Weatherford,
Texas empty. It's roughly three hundred miles for a good
load that I loaded this morning going to Peko's, Texas.
So I still profit. But you still consider those dead
head miles your fuel. In your time, have.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
You worked out down to some degree of specificity what
it costs you to operate, not your labor, but what
it costs you to operate that truck all in, you know,
the wear and tear on the truck, the fuel and
everything else per mile.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Per mile.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yes, that's my minimum of two seventy. That includes my
profit that I take home, taxes, maintenance.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Everything, right. But I'm wondering what your actual hard cost
would be if you put leaving your labor out leaving
but just building in the cost of your truck to
wear and tear, you know, tires every so often fuel.
I'm wondering if that's a dollar fifty, If it's a
dollar you know what that number would be.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I wonder what it would be too.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Well, the reason I asked is there has to come
a point where let's say your let's say your hard
cost leaving aside your labor is a dollar thirty five
a mile, and you want to get to seventy a mile.
So if you if you drive to Dallas at two
seventy and then come back, it would strikeen me you
(19:56):
didn't make any money because you dead had that And
can't you know you're putting wear and tear and fuel
and all that on your vehicle and not getting paid
for it?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Now do you use that is my minimum?
Speaker 7 (20:08):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
No? I got it?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I got it.
Speaker 7 (20:09):
I tried.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And yeah, when you do you try? How often are
you able to avoid a dead head and get a job?
You know, from here to bake Us or here to
uh Weatherford and then you can pick something up on
the way back.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Well, I do more deadhead than the average truck driver
because of the type of trailer that I'm pulling. So
I pull a step jack trailer, so it's a little
bit more specialized. So we got to go further, but
the rates are usually higher. So two seventy is my minimum,
but I try and stay around four dollars a mile.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
And how did you get into that business?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (20:50):
I was tired of what I was doing. And I
asked my dad, how can I make more money than
he's a truck driver, and say, you can try driving
a truck. So I tried it and I'm still doing it.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Hum, what's what's the hardest thing on your body to
be in a truck driver? You're back.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
On your body? Uh man, I'd say maybe your heart,
because the pressure is a big problem for truck drivers.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, I would just think. You know, just driving to
Dallason back now, I guess if I did it, i'd
get used to it, but just to wear and tear
of that of doing that, I didn't. I didn't enjoy it.
I I used to love a road trip. My wife
would laugh. I could drive to DC. We drive to
(21:44):
Colorado every year, and I'd do my show from out there,
and I enjoyed the drive. I knew where I was
gonna stop. We were gonna bed down in dal Hart,
I was gonna I was gonna stop, whether I went
through Fort Worth or went through Amarillo. I'd have my
little hot spots I'd stop, and I wouldn't enjoy that,
you know, go through Kenyon and all that. But I've
gotten to where now it just I don't enjoy it
(22:05):
like I used to it. I don't know if that's
getting old. I don't know what that is. Mike. What
do you drive?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Oh? I drive for in the playoffs group out of
Low Leda, Texas.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
And what kind of truckle?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
We?
Speaker 5 (22:19):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (22:21):
I drive a freightliner?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And do you own that?
Speaker 7 (22:25):
No, sir, I'm a company driver.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
And then so you're not looking at a board and
bidding the project. You're just going where they tell you
to go. Yes, sir, Yes, sir.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
And uh.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
You know, I want to thank you first of all,
because you get it.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
People out here don't get what it's like to drive
a truck, but you get it.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
I will, I will tell you the honest truth. I
really don't. I don't know how you do it. I
really don't. I look at, you know, just driving my
little tahoe uh to Dallas and and staying in your
lane and you know, people slowing down and speeding up,
and you know, you're constantly avoiding the idiots and all that.
(23:08):
I can't imagine being in that big thing, especially you know,
there's always so much construction going on and y'all don't
have a lot of clearance over on the side. I know,
you take it for granted, and people always, you know,
when you tell them something they do is heroic or
amazing or whatever, they well, that's just what I do.
But for the rest of us, it's pretty darn and
pressive to Michael Bairey show Simple Man in law school
(23:40):
because the first moment it really hit me that I
grew up quite differently than other people. I had classmates
from the Northeast who were in Austin at ut law
school with me, and they just didn't have the same
frame of reference. I mean, Trucker movies and trucker lifestyle
(24:03):
in our household was big, especially my grandfather Papa. Papa
and Nanny would sit. He had a scanner right behind
his recliner, an old green mellowmine recliner, and he had
duck taped it where it had split open, and he
(24:25):
would sit there and he could turn it up or
down over his shoulder and it sat right behind him
because he was hard at hearing. And he drove a
tow truck for eighteen wheelers, which is pretty cool, and
so you know, if an eighteen wheeler needs to be towed,
(24:45):
there's something going on. And he drove for a towing company.
Record company called h and E Hughy and Elbert I
think was Huy and Elroy, Hugh and Elbert, I think
h and E. And that gave him an excuse to
listen to the scanner. So the crackle of a scanner
is mother's milk to me. I love the sound of
(25:06):
a scanner. I love the sound of a Cebee radio.
Uncle Jerry's got the biggest CBE radio wattage hurts, mega hurts,
whatever the term is. He's got a big antenna that
goes that has to he has to keep it in
the bed of his truck because if it's up, you
can't get any of these buildings. But if we know
we're going somewhere, he'll along drive from he drives me
(25:28):
to my speeches and things. He'll he'll plunk that thing down.
We'll turn it on and listen to, uh the Sebee radio,
boy Lessie. But you also had you had the great
genre of trucker music, uh Dave Dudley Red Sovine. I
mean you had great trucker music, and then you had
(25:49):
the trucker movies. Uh Convoy Uh obviously smoke in the bandit.
I mean it was so over the top that you
you had in convoy. You you you had replaced the
military with truck drivers. The truck drivers were the outlaws.
They were the bad boys. They were making things happen.
(26:11):
You had BJ and the Bear. Oh man, what a
what a high time. I wonder how many people drive
trucks today on the back ends of their career drive
trucks today because of the glamour associated with being a
truck driver in the mid to late seventies, because that
was about the coolest thing you could imagine. It was
(26:32):
so cool. Joe, you're on the Michael Berry Show. What's
your story? Warriors? There are, Sir Marris.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
I retired from law Enforce about nine years ago and
went to work for a company that does heavy dirt work.
So we haul have a lott Boy heavy haul machine
where we call those are excavators and trucks.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
You're talking about like butter gig. Okay, you're talking.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
About booty juice now and anything up to tell foot white.
So I mean weird to guys. You see the tractors
hanging off the trailer with the orange flags lapping over,
so oh yeah, fact, that's that's so it's it's just
a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
What did you do with more?
Speaker 7 (27:06):
I think it's more nerve wracking because it's so wide.
But you know, I was. I did the last eleven
years of the deputy constable, serving civil papers for which
precinct Precinct three in Baytown. I started with Baytown PD
as a patrol officer back in the late eighties, US
there and took a break and I went back to
work for the county twenty one years and seven months
in LA enforcement and I still get hassled. I have
(27:28):
a retired foot post sticker on my truck and I
still get hassled by dot tops because we always said,
if you're too mean to work with IRS, you could
always get dot cop.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, And when they pull up, you're like, look, fella,
I can read you the code. I know it, I
got it. Memorize no.
Speaker 7 (27:41):
No, some of them don't care.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
But we run really legally.
Speaker 7 (27:44):
It's a company runs brand new trucks and everything's legal,
and so when you have something shiny and chrombed out,
they don't get messed with as much by the truck
police because it's they know you spend the money to
keep it right.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
That's legal.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
No oil leagues.
Speaker 7 (27:55):
The good breaks are.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Good that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
What made you want to do that?
Speaker 7 (27:59):
I had grown up around My dad had a sand
pit with dump trucks, and I grew up driving dump trucks.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Oh how cool was that?
Speaker 7 (28:06):
Yeah, we went to our own sand ped some kid.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
We talked the trucks out in the sandlight and you
were driving.
Speaker 7 (28:12):
Oh yeah. My friends were making fifty dollars a week
working for Church of Chicken. I was making two hundred
and fifty a week. And this is six fifteen years old.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Wow, So I say, that's where do you live?
Speaker 7 (28:24):
Uh, couldn't cross me in Dayton. I talked to you
before you let me come to a couple of your events.
I'm the guy at the same name as the Houston Zuvet.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Oh Joe Flanagan, Yeah, don't say the lest Oh sorry,
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Body.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, you've even taken to uh. When you'll send an
email once a year or so, you'll say not the
vet in the in pro when I get I got
the tickets, when I get something locked in, I tend
to I tend to stick with it.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
You get you've been good to me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Well, my pleasure. Do you make more as a truck
driver than you did as long time.
Speaker 7 (28:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, I probably topped out of it's sixty
two with law enforcement and we're a little over six
figures doing this. Oh wow you married, Yeah, thirty four
years into a life sentence.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Wow, that's saying something for law enforcement.
Speaker 7 (29:14):
Yeah, yeah, saying something for our patients.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah. Now, are you long haul or these local?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Well?
Speaker 7 (29:21):
About sixteen seventy percent of our stuff's regional. But we've
got some jobs in West Texas and down in Laredo
and up around out of Gettings a little bit Austin.
We've been working building some power plants, some coal fire
power plants, I guess for the becoming need from AI.
We're on our fourth power plant job doing the dirt work.
We were the first ones there. We scratched the grass
(29:42):
off the site and start digging.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
How about that?
Speaker 7 (29:45):
And we hauled equipment back and forth.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Cella named text rights dad Gum. If I didn't tune
in too late for once, I would have called in.
My issue is blood pressure slash heart disease at fifty one.
For a lot of drivers, obesity and diabetes are rampant.
Quality food options are lacking. Mom and pop restaurants. Heck,
sit down service as a whole is disappearing at many
truck stops, or should I say travel centers, as they've
(30:09):
adopted that term and an effort to be welcoming to
all travelers. I could go on and on, but I
figured i'd just chime in, keep on, truck Do you
have your hotspots where you stop and eat?
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Yeah, you know that the truck stops like the Loves,
and they've really come a long way as far as
cleaning up and getting to be pretty decent, you know,
not crime ridden or pretty clean, and the food's not
too bad.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
So I mean, if I had my brothers, I would
go to Cracker Barrel or whatever. But uh, those places
have gotten They've come a long way from what you've
seen in the you know that eighties, seventies and eighties.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
As far as you know, a.
Speaker 7 (30:45):
Lot of lizards and greasy and nasty. They come a
long way.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
I lived right near the Loves in Orange off sixty two,
and we used to ride up there and our big
deal was for lament Our basketball games. We didn't have
pro teams, and we had the Beaumont Golden Gators double
A San Diego Padres team, and we'd watch the Lamar
Cardinals basketball like it was a pro team. And my mom, my, brother,
(31:12):
and I would drive up to Loves and we'd get
sliced bologna and have baloney sandwiches. And that was our treat,
baloney sandwiches and cheetos and we're watching our basketball game
and that was our treat.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Brother.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Thanks for the call. Be saved out there.
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