The Bed Bugger Trucker

By Thomas Ferris

I wrote this book because everybody said that I should write a book about my life on the road as a professional mover and professional trucker. It’s about the places I have been to, the people I have met, and the memories of it all. I was a driver for twenty-five years and a mover for thirty-seven years.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649521538

Book preview

Truck Driver Slogans

The Gateway—St. Louis, Missouri

The Big Easy—New Orleans

The Big Apple—New York City

Shakey Town—Los Angeles, California

The Bikini—Florida

The Windy—Chicago

Guitar—Nashville, Tennessee

The Gay Bay—San Francisco, California

Big D—Dallas, Texas

Boeing, Boeing, Boeing—Seattle, Washington

The Keystone State—Pennsylvania

The Buck Eye—Ohio

Stinkin’ Lincoln—Illinois

Mile High—Denver, Colorado

Corn Huskers—Nebraska

Smokey Bear—State, Local Police

Chicken House—Truck Weight Station

Bed Buggers—Professional Movers

Skinny Road—Two-Lane Highway

Mr. Evil Knevil—Motorcycle Cop

Kojak with a Kodak—Police Radar

Concrete Cowboy—Truck Driver

This is a story about a professional mover and a professional truck driver travelling throughout the United States, moving people and driving through and all across this great nation. So kick back, grab a cold one, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it.

Sincerely,

Thomas J. Ferris

It all started when I was a little guy. My mom and pop would drive to Baltimore, Maryland, to take my brother to see a doctor. While my pop was driving, my brother and me would see all those big trucks passing us, and us passing them, and my brother and me in the back seat of a 6S Chevy pumping our arms up and down, so the driver of those big rigs would pull his air horn. My pop would always yell at us and tell us to knock it off, or else. My pop was a police chief; at one time, he had a wide black belt that had my name on it.

Believe me, he whupped my butt a lot when I was growing up, and I am so glad he did. One day, I decided to walk up to the local store. We live in a small town of about five hundred people, with two stores, a butcher shop, a barber, and a gas station.

While I was walking up the street, I noticed this huge orange tractor/trailer parked beside my buddy’s house. I wondered what was going on. My buddy told me it was a moving van—you know, that’s what they use to move you all over the country. That was the beginning of my career. As I got older, I still kept thinking about driving one of those trucks. A friend of mine introduced me to a guy who worked as a professional mover, and he was a driver.

Wilson was his name, and he would tell me stories about him and his brother, out on the road, driving around the country moving people, and going to all the cool places.

Wow, I thought to myself, this could be my chance.

So Wilson got me a job working at his company, Allied Van Lines. They started me out driving a gas-powered straight truck, with a twenty-five-foot box on the back. You know it as an oversized U-Haul. I drove straight truck for ten years up and down the East Coast, and as far west as Chicago, Illinois. It was such an experience, to say the least. Then I got tired of that and went and applied for my chauffeur’s license class, a license to drive the big rigs I always dreamed about, and finally, now was my chance. I passed my test, but there wasn’t any position for drivers at the company I worked for. So I rode along with one of the drivers for a year.

Then one day Gene, the driver, and I were down in Lumberton, North Carolina, at a truck stop, eating, and his pager went off, and it said to call the boss immediately. One of our company’s other truck drivers was calling it quits, and the boss asked me if I could take over his rig, ’cause he was headed home with Gene. At last here was my big chance to be a tractor-trailer driver. I was white-knuckled and scared for two weeks, but finally, I settled into it and started enjoying my new career. Now I’m driving a cab-over-engine, two-seat Kenworth, single-axle-drive, sixty-two-mile-an-hour truck.

Everybody has to start somewhere. Now it was my turn to move up the ladder of success. I drove all over the country. I drove and loaded and unloaded my moving van so many times I could do it in my sleep.

After I took over the truck in North Carolina, they said I had to finish the trip of the guy that quit. I loaded up in North Carolina for Boston, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

After I delivered my last load in Rhode Island, my boss told me to drive back home empty.

I wasn’t home two days, and I was bugging my boss for a trip to the West Coast. I never was ever past Illinois, and I knew the future was about to change. Yup, I finally received my first trip to California. Man, I loved that I had to load up my moving van first on the East Coast, and it wasn’t gonna be an easy load. My first load came out of our warehouse, leader for Fresno, California. My second load was in good old New York City, Manhattan, and let me tell you this: I know people who won’t even drive their car in New York City. Let alone drive an 18-wheeler over there. It is so hard to get around Manhattan, New York, in a big tractor trailer, let alone trying to find a parking space.

Finally, I arrived at my customers apartment in Manhattan. I parked along the curb, went to her apartment, introduced myself, and got the elevator okayed for my use. She didn’t have that much stuff, but you have to handle everything three times till you get it on your moving van.

When I went down to my truck