My first pickup and delivery route for Overnite Transportation was on the southwest side of Indianapolis. It covered an area from Washington Street all the way to I-65—a very large zone. I rarely went downtown unless a tractor was needed for larger pickups or deliveries. Park Fletcher and Stout Field were the prominent pickup and delivery areas.
The area was packed with residential neighborhoods, so home deliveries were common. I learned the hard way to always save home deliveries for last—more often than not, someone would be home to receive them. Sometimes customers requested on-time deliveries between noon and 2 p.m., which I always tried to accommodate.
Park Fletcher was also where the McCormick Food Service plant was located, but I only delivered there a couple of times before it closed permanently. Usually, I’d leave the terminal around 8:30 a.m. with 10 to 20 deliveries. On a typical day, I’d finish deliveries by around 12:30 p.m. This is when I usually took my lunch.
Here is a real fond memory of my days back when I was a city driver for this awesome company. I covered the southwest side of Indianapolis, and every day, I had lunch at the Village Pantry at Madison Avenue and Sumner Avenue. Usually, there were just 2 of us who met there for lunch. Billy Ross, who delivered the downtown route for Overnite and myself. Billy was a really good friend, but I lost touch with him after I left back in 1994. The Village Pantry had some really good food back then, too. 2 guys who worked for Indianapolis Power and Light would also join us for lunch. Steve Pyatte was one of the names, but the other name escaped me. But they were some awesome times back then.
I regularly delivered to companies like Eli Lilly, Napa, Carter Cartage, Superior Cartage, Rolls Royce, and Ames Thrift Store. I would usually take my lunch after completing deliveries and before making pickups. I also had daily check stops for pickups, including TransCity Warehouse, Russell Stover Candies, Springs Industries, Eli Lilly, and Zipp Express.
Our city dispatcher was Charles Spinks. Over the years, Charles and I became very close. Every year, Overnite held a company picnic, and I always ate my meal with Charles and his mom. He was his mom’s caretaker as she grew older, and I really cared for both of them. I looked forward to seeing them at these events. Working daily with Charles was one of the easiest parts of the job. He rarely pressured us to hustle, but when he did, it was infrequent. If we ran into issues and he had extra help, he would send them our way.
Usually, I’d complete my route by about 5:30 p.m., which I appreciated because it gave me time in the evening to handle things at home. Equipment rarely broke down on our city routes, which showed that the company put effort into maintaining all the trucks. Occasionally, though, delays in linehaul loads would affect our schedule, making for an interesting workday.
The proper way to load outbound freight to other terminals is to place the freight destined for the local or city delivery at the tail of the trailer (unless it was a headload), so the local freight could unload first. The through freight would either stay on the trailer or be staged on the dock until the outbound dock was ready.
I made many friends on my local routes, and in upcoming chapters, I’ll share stories about some of them. Some had a very positive influence on me, as did many of my coworkers. As you can see, I am very passionate about my time at this company—more than any other employer I’ve had in my career.
While on my city route, I often interacted with union drivers. Keep in mind that, by LTL standards in 1982, 99% of those companies were unionized. I was only 26 years old when this part of my career began. Most union drivers were in their forties and fifties. Despite the serious differences between union and non-union drivers, we always tried to be understanding and helpful. My outlook was one of respect for the elders—they worked very hard and deserved our respect. To the best of my memory, I never encountered a driver I couldn’t cooperate with.
My Trucker Life 