On the Road with Dick McCorkle

It all started when I was fourteen years old.  My uncle had a ’49 Studebaker straight truck.  We hauled hay and stone in the summer, and wood in the winter.  They worked with me so i could learn to drive.  In those days you still needed a driver’s license, but if you were working for the local farmers the law would look the other way. 

By the time I was fifteen, i graduated from the Studebaker to a ’50 Chevy.  This was a gas truck that had originally been with Mayflower.  It was owned by Pete Ewing.  He was a local farmer.  We hauled hay to the barn, and livestock to Indianapolis.  My pay was twenty dollars a week which was a lot of money for a kid back then. 

By the next summer, I landed a job with Fairchild Trucking.  Their general haul was hay, straw, and livestock.  That’s where I started with my tractor trailer experience.  A.J. Fairchild and his brothers were very good to me, and taught me a lot of the things I needed to know.  i got experience with a 50 Ford Straight truck, 49 Ford Cab Over, both were a gas truck. 

Then, I graduated up to a 57 Chevrolet Fleetside.  By this time, I was eighteen and had my chauffeur’s license.  I started working casual in  Indianapolis, working the docks and driving.  I really started getting experience with the diesel motor at this time.  I believe the first tractor I started driving was the cherry picker GMC with a 238 Detroit. 

After working for about every carrier in Indianapolis, I landed a job with Mason-Dixon who had just purchased Silver Fleet.  They had B-67 Mack trucks.  They would freeze you to death in the winter, and burn you up in the summer.  They had no air-conditioning and no power steering.  Because of my young age, the terminal manager offered me money to resign, but of course, i didn’t.  I then spent the next twenty years with this company.  I drove Mack, International, GMC, and Ford trucks.  I pulled 38-foot trailers graduating to 45-foot trailers.  In April of 1984, Mason-Dixon went out of business. 

Through truck driving championships, I knew Joe Himmel who was part owner for Perkins Furniture Transport.  I stopped and talked to Joe, and he put me to work.  First, on a company truck, and then I purchased a 78 Mack cab over, single axel, an 82 Cruise liner, then I went with international. The last one being a 2000.  The company changed hands, staying in the family.  Jim Card purchased the company, and in turn sold the company to his son, Andy.  Then becoming Perkins Specialized transport. 

Which brings us up to today, Slice of Trucker life I am involved with.  Driving 2009 Cascadia, thanks to Jeff Stoops, Stoops Freightliner, and Andy Card, CEO and Owner of Perkins Specialized Trucking.

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