Back when my Dad and Papaw started in the timber industry, it was nothing like todays logging. In fact, it wasn’t really logging at all. They started out hauling pulpwood, or as some called it, short wood. The pulpwood was cut into 4 foot lengths before being loaded onto trucks and hauled to the mill.
From what I can remember, and what I have been told, they had 2 trucks. My Dad, Papaw, and my Papaws brother would take the 2 trucks to the woods in the mornings, cut the wood, load the trucks by hand, and drive the loaded trucks back to the mill in the afternoon. There was only the three of them, so they had to be committed to each other, because they depended on each other to get the job done. It was hard, unforgiving work, but it put food on the table for three families.
It wasn’t until around 1970 that they started hauling logs, or long wood. This process required a lot of changes in equipment and the way the work was done. The old pulpwood trucks were fitted with hitches and pole trailers to haul the longer wood. Equipment had to be bought in order to drag the logs out of the woods and load it onto the trucks. Needless to say, with all these changes, my Dad, Papaw and Great Uncle could no longer run the entire operation by themselves. So they had to hire men to either run the equipment or drive the trucks. They no longer just depended on themselves, they had to put their trust in hired help.
I remember one summer when I was in my early teens, my brother and I were at work with my Dad and Papaw. One of the truck drivers came back to the woods for his second load of the day. (The mill that we hauled to was in the opposite direction of home, so the drivers could only make two loads a day). After my Dad loaded the truck, the driver told my Papaw that he didn’t want to drive anymore, he was quitting. So my Papaw told him to take the truck to the mill and get it unloaded and then bring the truck and drop it off at our house. The driver said he didn’t want to take the truck to the mill, he would just catch a ride home with us. My Papaw told him his ride home was that loaded truck, you either take it to the mill and get it unloaded or you walk home. I don’t know how he got home, but the last time I saw him, he was walking down the logging road toward the highway.
As a teenager, I thought my Papaw was being to harsh on that man. We had plenty of room in the work truck to give him a ride home, why would Papaw make him walk? It wasn’t until years later that it became clear to me. He depended on that driver to do the job he was being paid to do, and he expected him to finish what he had started. The driver had a ride home, it was that loaded log truck. He made the choice to walk out of the woods instead of taking the truck to the mill.
That was such a learning experience for me. We make commitments and start all sorts of things, but do we finish what we started? No matter how hard things get, we should stay strong and finish what we start. After all, whether it be family, friends, employers, or you fill in the blank. We all have people depending on us, lets not let them down.
My own Prison 