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I was in Cache Creek B.C. at the
Husky truck stop on a warm summer day when I noticed a crowd
gathered around a fellow perched on one of the stools at the
counter. As I passed by I thought he must have been someone famous
because of his long rock-band style haircut. A moment later he was
out in the lot and climbing into a blue Kenworth cab-over parked
beside me. That was ten years ago and although he’s no rock star,
and the hair is shorter, Brian Vandrishe certainly knows how to
rock-n-roll down the highway.
The following is Brian’s
story.
Growing up in Cloverdale, B.C. in
the seventies, my parents Patrick and Patricia Vandrishe, and my
older brother Glen and I, lived on a vegetable farm on 176th Street
about eight kilometers north of the Pacific Border crossing.
I remember being roughly five years old when I started taking a
real interest in any piece of machinery that was bigger than Dad’s
pick-up. It started with the farm tractors and various 5 tons
and eventually I graduated to looking in awe at the trucks rolling
down the Pacific highway. I can still remember my brother and I
standing in the front yard watching the big rigs roll by and racing
to say, “I’ll take that one!” every time a nice one came along.
One day my parents loaded my
brother and I into the family pick-up to go and visit “Uncle” Ray
and “Auntie” Nancy. They lived out in Sardis and were long time
friends of my mom and dad. Typically, to our dismay, us boys got
pawned off on the women, so we wouldn’t get in the way or, as I
secretly believed, wouldn’t give away the secret handshake to the
ladies. So the men would go off to work on Ray’s logging truck,
which was man talk for, “lets go shoot the breeze and maybe empty a
few stubby brown bottles”.
But today was different. When we
got to uncle Ray’s truck, I stood in awe. My brother, who was
always ready to lend a hand, promptly elbowed me in the chops to
help me close my mouth. There before me stood a 1978 International
logging truck with chrome everywhere, a 2 foot tall Michelin man on
the roof and a big red bug deflector that read, “Big Buddy.” (which
finally explained the bug deflector on his pick-up that read
“Little Buddy”).
They told me to get in that
monster machine and stay there. “No problem, Yes Sir!” I
exclaimed. Dad said I moved faster than the day he came home
and found that I had painted the dog. In moments the trees were
flashing by as I motored down imaginary logging roads. In my
adolescent mind, I was trucking!
The joys of Ray and Nancy’s house
and our vegetable farm wouldn’t last because unfortunately, as many
families do, my parents split up. I was nine years old when Mom and
Dad divorced and my older brother and I ended up in Cache Creek
with Mom.
Mom’s family lived in Cache Creek
so it was just natural that we move closer to the family network.
It was a new beginning for us and, for me; it was the end of any
thoughts of trucking for a few years. Mom’s sister Barbara and her
husband Dale lived across the street from a very nice couple that
they introduced us to during our first Christmas in our new town.
They were Sumner and Irene Magnus and we all called them Granny and
Grandpa. I have to admit what attracted me to these people was not
just the fact that they were very nice, but they had a huge English
sheep dog in their front yard. This big furry fellow belonged to
their son Danny and his better half Pat. Danny was a truck driver
who would, many years later, become a big influence and help to
me.
In my early teens my interest in
trucks resurfaced. While my friends were busy hanging posters of
their favorite rock bands on their walls I was busy going to the
local Husky, grabbing the latest free truck magazine, and
plastering my room with trucks.
I spent the next few years working
here and there around Cache Creek. At 21 years old I was wondering
if I was making the right choice by staying in the small
community. Being that old, working at a gas station and
seemingly going nowhere wasn’t all that appealing especially when
all your close friends were moving away to bigger and better
things. Surprisingly enough, as is usually the case, my bigger and
better days started with a woman. Maureen and I had gone to school
together but she had moved away in her early teens. She had come
back to town for a visit when we bumped into each other. We chatted
a while and exchanged phone numbers. We soon started dating and
less than a year later we were married. Fourteen years later we are
still happily married and have two beautiful children our
eight-year-old daughter Dakota and sixteen year old son Alex.
In the first few years of
marriage, I was working wherever I could to support my new family.
I was at work one day when my old friend Danny Magnus, the owner of
the sheep dog, walked in and I jokingly said to him, “So, when are
you going to teach me to drive that truck of yours?” He looked me
straight in the eyes and replied, “Go get your learners, and let’s
go.” The next morning, with the same enthusiasm I had climbing into
that International logging truck, I stood at the doors of the local
I.C.B.C. office waiting for them to open. I got the book and
studied diligently. This was my chance to drive a big
rig. I got my learner’s shortly after and the world was mine
to conquer.
Danny had a pretty good crew
operating his three trucks, all of which were pulling
super-b’s. He loaded these trucks with lumber from northern
B.C. and hauled it to the Desticon reload in Sumas, Washington. I
went with Danny every opportunity I had. He was very patient
and I learned a lot from him.
On the weekends when the trucks
were parked, I spent most of the days at the shop helping with
maintenance. I wanted to learn all I could about them. To me it was
just as important to understand how to fix them as it was to drive
them.
After swamping with Danny and his
crew for seven months, Danny felt that I was comfortable enough
with what I was doing that it was time for me to go for my drivers
test. He was kind enough to take time out of his schedule, and lose
the revenue for the truck for a day, so that I could use his truck
and trailers to take my test. I took the test and passed.
Although Danny had taught me to
drive truck, it was never said or implied that I would have a job
working for him when I got my Class 1. That’s why I was really
surprised when we got back to his house for a celebration cocktail
and he asked if I wanted to cross shift with him on his truck. I
happily accepted and I worked for Magnus Trucking (Danny) for about
6 years. In that time I really learned a lot about trucks. I knew
how to get the truck up and down the road but the extended
education plan continued at the shop. We did everything there from
oil and grease jobs to changing brakes, electrical repairs and
pretty much everything in between.
We divided the route in two where
one week Danny would run the northern half of B.C. (from Cache
Creek to destination north), and I would run the southern half
(Cache Creek to Sumas). The next week we would switch routes. We
did this for a few months until one of his drivers quit. That’s
when I finally got a truck of my own to drive, a 1989 Kenworth
cab-over. In the 6 years I worked for Danny, we hauled
strictly to Desticon in Sumas. I always dealt with the same
shippers, saw the same drivers, and always dealt with the same
dispatcher. It was a pretty cozy job and I really enjoyed it, but
things in the Magnus camp were changing. Danny was getting
frustrated with the way the lumber industry was headed and slowly
started changing his trucks over to hauling dry vans. It wasn’t
long before I was the only one still hauling lumber. He wanted me
to change also but I was less than enthusiastic about the
move.
I didn’t want to haul vans, and I
sure didn’t want to leave the security of the nice run I had. The
writing was on the wall; it wasn’t going to be long before my truck
was going to haul vans so I started looking for a job hauling
lumber. There were lots of companies looking for trucks but it was
a matter of transferring to someone I would trust and feel
comfortable with.
One day, down in Sumas,
opportunity knocked. I was offered a job with Malla transport, a
company I had known for as long as I had been driving. The owner,
Sam Malla, had a few trucks working for him and his business was
really starting to take off, so he decided to quit driving and
dispatch from home. He put me in a really nice long nose Pete that
was a treat to drive. I drove that truck for about 6 months and
learned how to read a map as I was now going to places off my
beaten path. After 6 months Sam got bored sitting at home and told
me he wanted to get back in the truck. I give Sam all the credit in
the world; he knew my situation so he told me to take my time let
him know when I found a new job. A few weeks had gone by and
I was sitting at home wondering how long it would be before Sam got
impatient with me and just told me to get out, when my phone
rang. It was my old friend and dispatcher from Desticon, Gary
Palmer.
Gary told me that Desticon
Transportation Services was buying six trucks and asked me if I was
interested in coming to work for them. A few conversations and a
couple of weeks later, I was in a brand new Pete with the name
Desticon emblazoned on the door. That was on Nov 1, 2000 and by
then I had been dealing with, and hauling for them, for roughly
eight years. In all this time I had never had to interact with the
upper management of the company. That changed. The staff was
somewhat naive to drivers and their needs. They could tell
you anything you wanted to know about a rail car, but almost
nothing in regards to trucks. This was a new experience for them
and personally, as a driver, it got to be quite frustrating at
times. My immediate boss Nathan, who holds a valid Class One
licence, always seemed interested in learning what made us tick,
all the while trying to keep us happy. Initially we butted heads on
what seemed to be a regular basis. Through it all he was always
willing to listen and we always agreed on some kind of happy
medium. Initially we just hauled lumber one way and ran empty
back to points north for another load. However with the
ever-changing markets we began to transport other
commodities. Since my job description had not changed for
many years, I enjoyed the opportunity to learn how to secure other
products. I began hauling steel, concrete blocks and rolled roofing
to name a few.
Being pretty green to this new
aspect of the wonderful world of trucking, I wanted to show off to
anyone that was brave enough to come with me. So it was only
natural to take the first person that wanted to go for a ride. This
fellow was an Ontario native who had never been to B.C. before and
the mountainous highway down the Fraser Canyon was a real treat to
him. On arrival at the border I said hello to the officer and was
instantly questioned about my passenger. After a brief explanation
we were asked for identification then told to come inside while
they checked us over and searched my truck. As we sat waiting for
the officer I told my passenger that this happened on occasion and
that we would soon be on our way. That was when the officer
returned and asked who owned the black leather jacket in the truck.
My rider replied that it was his. We were both promptly
handcuffed and lead to separate holding cells.
As I sat in the tiny cell, it
didn’t take long for me to figure out what had just happened and
why. I didn’t know it before hand but it turned out that my
passenger liked to smoke pot now and then and he was stupid enough
to bring a small amount with him. It was then and there that I
started to plot ways to slowly kill my, “friend,” should I ever be
allowed out of prison and back to Canada.
The scariest part of the whole
experience was not knowing what was going to happen. Would they
seize the truck? The load? Was I going to be charged for anything?
Was I going to be denied entry to the United States? I didn’t know
the answers to these questions and nobody was in a hurry to tell me
anything.
I spent four hours in that cell
wondering what was going on and believe me, it was a long four
hours when they opened the door. The officer said, “Your load is
cleared and you’re good to go, but your friend won’t be going with
you.” I didn’t ask any questions, I just gave him a big, “Thank you
sir,” and left. Lesson learned? No matter how well you know someone
they may still shock you and cause you unexpected grief. That was
the first and last time I’ve taken a passenger into the
U.S.
I have been working for Desticon
for over six years now and as a whole it has been a pretty
rewarding ride. I have earned their trust, and they have earned
mine. If I have any kind of problem, personally or otherwise, they
are there to lend a helping hand in any way they can. We don’t have
the issues that we had when this trucking branch of the company
first started and I firmly believe that is due to the fact that
they are willing to listen to their drivers. They have the business
sense to listen and work with you, rather than just tell you what
you want to hear so that you’ll go away.
There were others who
sub-contracted as drivers through various companies but I was the
first driving employee for Desticon Truck Transport Services Inc.
The growing pains and heated disagreements that we had at the start
are just distant memories and now I often think about how far “we”
have come as a company.
I can be proud to say that I
helped change the way that they, as a company, look at drivers, and
they have changed the way that I look at employers.
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