For those of you in the towing industry, do you remember your first experience driving a tow truck?  I do.  I was 15, and I was with my brother-in-law, one of two drivers (the other was my older brother Mike) at McMinnville Towing, the company my parents owned.  We were at the parts store, and he said, "You drive back to the lot."  It was an old Ford 1-ton 4-speed, and it wasn't just the first time driving a tow truck, it was the first time driving a stick shift.  It wasn't pretty.  After backing out of the space, I was having a hard time going forward without killing the engine.  The tow sling was edging farther out into the street every time I rolled slightly backward and tried to depress the  accelerator pedal in conjunction with releasing the clutch.  I have to hand it to my brother-in-law, though.  He calmly turned on the rotator lights so no one would run into us, and he had me keep trying till I got it.

One of the benefits of being in a tow truck and not a car.

The first vehicle I owned was a 1949 Willys Jeep with a Chevy 283 in it, painted camo.  My 8-year-old just the other day asked me what happened to it, because I've told him about it a few times.  "I traded it for a '69 LeMans," I told him.

"What's that."

"A car with a nose longer than the Honda I'm driving now."

"You shoulda kept the jeep," he said.

Duh.  Like I don't know that now.  I crashed the LeMans into a tree a year after I got it.  The Willys couldn't go 95 mph, so I doubt it would have met the same end.

My parents sold the tow company before I was old enough to drive legally for them, so my first real driving experience was when I was 20, for a company named Estby Towing in Beaverton, Oregon, where my brother-in-law was now managing.  His brother Leonard was my trainer. Leonard and I had known each other for years, so learning from him was easy.  I was assigned to a Chevy 1-ton with a 454 and a Vulcan Cradle Snatcher.  Wow, what fun! Like dollying a car every time you hook up.  And try keeping those extension chains
away from the side of a Suburban.  We would tie shop rags around the clevis hook at the top of the extension chain so that it was a scuff rather than a scratch.

Leonard did a good job of training me, I have to admit.  In the 20 years I was behind the wheel  accidents and damage claims were few and far between, and it's my experience that getting off to a good start is crucial.  And we had fun.  One day we stopped for lunch at Burger King, and we ate in the truck.  There were no cupholders, so while eating I was in the habit of resting a drink on the bottom of the steering wheel so that it leaned against the horn button.  I had parked with the wheels turned slightly, so this time I had to give the steering wheel a laborious partial-turn to lock it into place before my “cupholder” was in place.  We ate our food and shot the breeze, and when it came time to leave, I forgot that I had given the steering wheel the turn to lock it, so when I turned the key over, the steering wheel sprung back to its resting position, launching the three-quarters full cup of soda into a 540-degree spin before it landed upside-down on my lap.  I can still hear the sound of Leonard laughing.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com

On the way home last night I passed a couple on the freeway changing the tire on their SUV.  The woman was actually standing in the lane of traffic to shield her husband (well, maybe it was her boyfriend, if she was THAT serious).  It got me thinking about how many tires I've changed over the years.  Think about it.  A typical vehicle owner gets a flat tire, and it's sometimes a MAJOR ordeal for them to change their own tire.  Many will buy a motor club membership just to avoid this task.  For tow truck drivers, it's something you can make into a contest.  For fun.  That's warped.

I never did a lot of motor club work, so I'm sure that there are many of you out there who changed more tires than I ever will, but I'm sure I've done a few hundred. And, of course, anytime anyone in my family has a flat, who do they call?  By family I mean anyone I've lived with, gone to school with, met through a friend, etc.--you know how it is.  "Hey, call Nick, he used to drive tow truck."  It's okay.  It's no ordeal for us, right?

The worst tire change I ever did was one of the first ones I ever did, when I was 16.  I owned a '49 Willys Jeep, and a friend of mine needed some help pulling an old rear axle off a junk car in a field near his house.  It was late fall, and the field was very soft and muddy, but not too much for a Willys.  The car was on its top, and he had cut and torched around the axle enough that we could put a chain on it and pull it off the car.  We loaded it in the back of the jeep and drove out, and when we got out to the road, I had a flat.

We couldn't get the lugnuts loose.

We really tried hard to loosen those lugnuts.  My buddy even walked home and got a large piece of steel pipe, about 4 feet long, which we put on the end of the lug wrench, to give us leverage.  We got one of the lugnuts about a half-turn before we figured out it had left-handed threads.

Years later I had another frustrating tire-change experience.  I was sent out on a police call for a tire change in the parking lot of a particular "adult" establishment here in Portland.  When I got there, there were several police cars in the parking lot.  Seems there had been some kind of disturbance inside, and the police went in to check it out, and while they were in there, someone slashed all 4 tires on the patrol car.  They seemed to be handling it fairly well, having a good laugh over it.  Rather than have me tow it in to the city shop, however, they called in a few more cars to get together enough spares for me to change all 4 tires.

Sheesh.

In Portland, police officers are not "allowed" to change their own tires.  It's a safety issue, or a Union  issue, or something.  Yes, they
can get shot at, but they can't change a tire.  This was the 90s, so you remember those Caprices with the fender skirts over the rear tires, right?  Such fun.  It was a hot, summer night. Being on commission, I busted my butt to change these 4 tires as quickly as possible, so that I could get on to something more lucrative.  The officers chatted with the dancers as they came and went.  I finally finished, about 45 minutes of work, did my paperwork, and left.

Here was the real killer: I charged for 4 service calls.  However, when the city auditor reviewed my invoice, they determined that I could only charge for 1 service call, plus extra time on-scene.  Our contract stated that the first 30 minutes on-scene were part of the hookup or service call charge, so I ended up with commission on a $30 service call, plus $15 for an extra 15 minutes.

So my busting my butt actually reduced my commission.

And I didn't get to chat with any dancers.

Some nights, there is no justice in the world.

Have a safe and profitable week.

Sincerely,
Nick Kemper
www.TowPartsNow.com