For me to tell this story properly, I have to start at the very beginning with my working life. I started out learning about responsibilities at a very young age, and following in my dad’s footsteps, I was not a fan at all.
Funny thing is, becoming a trucker was the last thing I ever wanted. It wasn’t a childhood dream or a goal. In fact, I flat-out detested the idea. But life has a way of putting you behind the wheel, whether you planned to be there or not.
By the time I turned twenty—and after a couple of not-so-great job choices—an opportunity opened up. I took it, not because I wanted to be a trucker, but because I needed to work.
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My Early Years in My Father’s Shadow
Looking back, I can see where the foundation was being laid all along.
My parents divorced when I was six months old. At that time Dad was a local bus driver for Indiana Transit Service. According to my grandmother, he didn’t switch to driving a semi until I was around 4 years old. He worked for Yellow Freight, drove over the road and was gone for days at a time. During this time I was pretty much raised by my grandmother.
I was about 7 years old—just old enough to be a little helpful—my brothers, Frank, who was 11 and Fred, who was 9 and I were issued responsibilities or chores while dad was on the road. He was a trucker first, a company driver, but he was also an entrepreneur with a hand in real estate and later farming and wholesaling salvage goods.
He started his real estate ventures early. When I was around four years old, he bought three empty lots on our street. By the time I was six—in 1963—he had a brick home built on the lot right next door. Once that was done, the whole family chipped in to clean the house we’d been living in. We washed the walls, cleaned the floors, and Dad did the painting. Then he rented it out.
That was the beginning of the real estate life I lived in until I was eighteen.
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Hustle, Risk, and Brick by Brick
Dad was also a gambler—and a fortunate one. When I-70 came through downtown Indianapolis, the city auctioned off houses they had bought to make way for the interstate. My dad took some poker winnings and bought two of those houses.
I was eight years old at the time.
He had the houses moved into our neighborhood and placed on the two remaining empty lots he had bought years earlier. When he brought those houses in, he also hauled in all the block and brick that had been used for their foundations and porches.
That’s when the real work began.
My brothers and I spent the entire summer cleaning mortar off bricks and blocks so they could be reused to build garages for both homes. It wasn’t fun—but it was real, honest work. And that kind of work shapes a man.
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Looking Back
That was my childhood—and probably the biggest reason I became so self-motivated. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was already in training for the road I was about to travel.
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Coming Up Next…
In Chapter 2, I’ll share more about my father’s trucking life, the weight of expectations, and how my older brother Fred became obsessed with driving from a young age. I’ll also tell you about a painful loss that changed our family forever.
This is just the beginning. Stay with me.
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My Trucker Life 