Imagine my surprise seeing my name in the SIHS page of this years Cottager's guide, in a call to arms to drag up old truck stories! Here goes---
Prologue: When I was 15 I wrote Clare Newbury over the winter to work at the Tea Shop. She responded positively. My family arrived July 1st, both the start of their rental lease and the restaurant's opening day. I walked off the Maranbo, up the hill, and started working. I was initially assigned as waiter, a job I failed at miserably... a combination of attitude and inexperience. I thought, based on movies, that sassy was "in", and hollered across the dining room that they should "fire up the grill". Other faux pas included giving a family (who I knew, of course) their tray of food and then I sat next to them at their table! I was quickly reassigned to washing dishes in the back room, invisible from public view. We still used glass glasses back then, which were in short supply. The fountain workers would bark for more glasses, but not hot ones fresh from the dishwasher, which would explode from thermal stress when half full of frappe. We still had pens that read "STOLEN FROM THE TEA SHOP" yet couldn't find anyone to monogram our glasses with this message.
When I was entering my freshman year of college, a shake-up occurred in Farmhouse management, and I knew everyone in there. I invited myself to rent a room in the "Men's quarters" for August, which delighted the Tea Shop as well. I lived off "Mr P's Pizza" from Shop N Save for 67 cents a box but had found a way to live on the island we all love for most of the summer... and actually witness a Hennessy first-hand. This flophouse worked so well for me I returned mid-June the following summer and messed around helping Bret Newbury mow lawns. Bret had wiggled himself in as "fourth man" on the trucks, meaning if Mark Schoen and Will Marinell were both off, Bret the understudy was called up. Another winter passed, Will "graduated", and I was at the docks for a 5:40 boat when Bret was somehow working alone. "Need help?" I asked, and I was doing it-- not driving, but loading, unloading, and getting paid. I was in!!! There was, at the time, a "truck list" in Rob's head of young men who wanted to work the trucks. I bypassed this entire list by sidling in, sideways. I looked and acted like I belonged, and kept it up. Everyone assumed someone else had hired me, or that some sort of protocol had been followed. George Costanza from "Seinfeld" should be proud!
In mid-August of that summer, all the other truck guys decided they'd go off to college. Sensing my big break, I took the reins, along with Robin Graycar, who "dead-ended" that year. I was fully involved, studied all winter, and drove through the night (after finishing exams) the following Memorial Day to be on the 7 am boat to go to work. I followed tradition for "third man" and mowed lawns several days a week. I bought a string trimmer, which, in customers' minds, was capable of removing scrub brush and pine trees with trunks an inch or two in diameter. This vegetation was invariably between a person's cottage and the Atlantic ocean. I fell into a customer base-- Bret's old clients, and anyone who asked the "truck guys" who was mowing that year and/or could they arrange it? Grass grew quickly in June. I divided the island up into "territories" so I could mow several yards in geographical proximity. Mowing is actually pretty nice when one gets the right sea breeze. We had a never-ending rain and fog event clear, so I hurried to mow four yards on the "Paw" between the 3:30 and 5:40 boat. Something like Kartiganer/Flynn/Sileo/Barrett-- in that neighborhood. I succeeded, 99 percent, then ran over a water pipe fitting with my lawnmower and started a flood. I radioed Rob, then went off to retrieve a replacement fitting from the maintenance shed. We had one of the right size on a shelf! The water for "the paw" was turned off and people were wandering out of their cottages to see what was going on. Many angry people! Deliveries! Let's discuss!
I'd wake up at about 7:12 for the 7:30 boat. Nine times out of ten it would hold workmen and donuts, but the tenth time would be eighty unexpected 2x4s and a bunch of Quickrete. Ugh. I never ate my Wheaties until the post-boat coffee break. The contractors were saints, and would unload each others' stuff from the boat. We truck guys tried to pay back however we could. Memorial Day weekend boats were always cheerful: Families opening their cottages. Trays of annual flowers. Former grudges wiped out over the winter. Boat owners one doesn't usually see, riding the ferry while their boat is being put in. Wheelbaskets: The late 1990s still had a few Indian-woven literal baskets-on-wheels. These are all but extinct, now. These were always run by older island ladies who've been around "since forever". They had routines down where they'd give the basket to the truck guys then go take a bench at the Post Office for mail time. If I saw a gallon of milk or ice cream on top I'd put it in their fridges when I got to their places. Trash day: mixed things up. The trash contractors would grab most of the vehicles. We had a golf cart with roof that one guy stacked trash back on the roof, like it was some sort of load-bearing luggage rack. They also absconded with most of the truck fleet. We had a truck out-of-service one Monday and were forced into a golf cart, when Harland Rice remarked "Delivery trucks are getting smaller and smaller-- pretty soon you're going to use a wheel basket!!"
Cell Phones: Were still a yuppie thing in the 1990's. The elaborate procedure was to call Rob or Sue and they would dispatch truckers over walkie-talkies. A hard day of radio use would deplete the batteries by night boat time. I could get about 1/2 second in before the things beeped. Anyone with a police scanner could tune into 155.100 MHz and pick up our traffic. The radios were our only symbol of authority, and we broke up an illegal campfire (during a drought/ fire warning) by waving the things around. During a thunderstorm, dock lollygaggers started having their hair stand on end. I tried to herd people into the freight shed for safety with the radio but failed. They were caught up in conversation. The static electricity dissipated on its own.
The fleet: We had only two trucks, a compact S15 and a fullsize Chevy. The S15 held half the stuff but could dart around the biggest rocks in the road. To work efficiently meant going fast without looking fast, its own art form. The Chevy had a loose front bumper, which clanged over bumps and made us look like speed demons when we weren't. The fix was to run low air pressure in the right front tire, but this made the power steering squeal. The fix for THAT was to put it in neutral and rev the motor to make more power steering pressure. I brushed a rear tire against a pile of shingles, nails, and wood debris and heard the thing hissing parked at the dock while the "Novelty" was disappearing behind Burnt Island. We left Rob Knake to meet the boat then drove my leaky truck to the barn for a spare. Bret searched for and remedied an open valve on the air compressor tank while I fought eight lug nuts. "What is this, a school bus?" The S15 developed a hilarious defect where the muffler and all its attached exhaust pipes would slide rearward two inches and make a hellacious noise at the catalytic converter. I carried a glove to take the heat and shove the whole thingus home where it belonged. It "shook loose" at inopportune times, like driving up the hill past the post office at mail time. The Chevy had a flat spot on its flywheel so the starter would screech but not catch. We had various "rain dances" like rolling it in neutral then throwing it in park, to bump the engine over enough so the next tooth would catch. I tugged on a fan belt to achieve the same objective.
As the part-timer, I tried to leave the trucks in better shape than they were when I found them. This generally meant refueling and cleaning. The gas pump was a manual crank, with a piece of all-thread for a crank handle. A rag kept this from digging into one's skin. Twenty cranks were a gallon. The Chevy had an 8-track player. I found an adapter at a thrift store in town that let it play cassettes. The slower Chevy saw increased use following this purchase.
We had taxi duty-- Janet Bickerstaff was a top consumer during my era. She always wore her seat belt, and we kept a little stool around to help her in. When we split up boats "evenly" she counted as part of my "load" despite her being (semi) ambulatory so I usually got done first. Night boats: Neither truck had working rear lights, and the golf cart fleet had no lights whatsoever. I accepted this as unchangeable fate, though I noticed the installation of lights on carts shortly after my tenure. One foggy night the formerly bad connection in the chevy came back to life. Bret and I stared at it jaws agape, as if, could it be? An innocent inquest into the situation revealed that the S15 could easily have backup lights as well, and the world got a little better that day. 1997-ish presented us with a new dock, wired with luxuries like lights for the gangplank and float area.
Customer Service: For me it wasn't just a motto, but a saying. I philosophized that people wouldn't drive 3.5 hours from Massachusetts, unload, park, wait for a ferry, then walk to their final destination if they actually wanted convenience. Some saw it differently. One lady caught us ten minutes before the boat and mentioned that we forgot her luggage pickup. We dashed back to her porch, grabbed her stuff, and brought it on board. (The "boat people" knew better than to leave without the "truck guys".) She berated us in front of a dock full of people and a boat full of tourists that she wasn't paying for the pickup (we were going to "comp" her anyway) because it was so "emotionally traumatic." Another Islander disembarked the boat and was lecturing others on the dock float that they should stop pawing through looking for their stuff and to let the truck guys handle it-- while she was pawing through the very same stuff. I firmly asked her to "lead by example"-- a suggestion so entertaining she walked up the gangplank, in compliance.
The boats: I witnessed the transition from Maranbo to Novelty. In fact I signed something declaring I was there for its maiden voyage... destined for a spot in the Historical Society. Unloading the Maranbo meant unclipping some side ropes and just jumping into the stern. While the Novelty has clips on its cables-plus-netting, these are not regularly undone in the same way.
The pay: kept me in school. Cash-paying customers met our daily needs. The full-timers did billing on a whim a couple of times per summer, and once in mid-fall. I assisted with distribution of bills in person and everybody was happy to get them, and wondered when we were getting around to it. (I imagined I'd be greeted more like a process server!) I got a check for the divvy-up in late October or mid-November. This was fine as I was coasting on summer earnings through the school year. At some point a load changes from "$1 per unit" to "half a bed" and this transition wasn't always smooth, or even explainable. I brought a table and chairs to someone, and I was in the mode that "these are appliances" and she thought "$1/ item" and called me out. I instantly agreed with her take, reduced the bill, then she tipped me more than my original demand.
Big Men on Campus: Yes, we were. You could own a million dollar cottage but you couldn't have a truck. Passers-by got a half-wave. (A whole-wave meant hail/stop.) Since we operated at several times walking speed, everyone else looked like they were in slow-motion. We could spot everyone going to church, a boat, or a cocktail party. The cocktail crowd were always cute in their spiffy outfits... and I knew who was running early and who was later.
Medical Emergencies: Thankfully, both I was involved in ended uneventfully. Once I drove Rob to the affected person in the compact S15, missing rocks, driving smoothly, but very speedily. I hit second gear! Pedestrians could tell something was not right by our hasty driving and furrowed brows. I had just trained for CPR with some Boothbay firemen the day before and met the same guys the next day under different circumstances! This is not a drill!! The other time, I had to bring Rob a bottle of Oxygen from the fire truck, but used a golf cart to "cheat" driving on a sidewalk where roads didn't go so I could get there faster. Oxygen helped the guy! Hooray for Oxygen! It was never spoken of that I could "thread the needle" with a golf cart on a sidewalk in the dark, and that it was apparently not my first time.
The worst part... as with any job that interfaces with the public was a lack of understanding, communication, and especially humor. Yes I'm sorry someone parked in your foothold space. Sorry the sideways rain got your suede Eddie Bauer luggage stained. Sorry your ice cream half-melted while I ran someone's prescription to the other end of the island. The best part, like for anyone else, was meeting two familiar faces on the dock float after a long winter. Though I was one of those faces I'm not immune to its effects. A friend used to work at a ski area as a chair lift operator and mused that he was master of the ten-second conversation-- and we "truck guys" did the same thing as people worked their way on or off the boat.
I graduated from school in 1998 and dead-ended that fall. In October the post office was closed, of course, and I handed the Novelty captain an outgoing letter containing my resume and application materials to work at WPXT-TV in Portland. I read about the job opening in the newspaper want ads in the Squirrel Island Library. I'm still working this job sixteen years later!
Prologue: When I was 15 I wrote Clare Newbury over the winter to work at the Tea Shop. She responded positively. My family arrived July 1st, both the start of their rental lease and the restaurant's opening day. I walked off the Maranbo, up the hill, and started working. I was initially assigned as waiter, a job I failed at miserably... a combination of attitude and inexperience. I thought, based on movies, that sassy was "in", and hollered across the dining room that they should "fire up the grill". Other faux pas included giving a family (who I knew, of course) their tray of food and then I sat next to them at their table! I was quickly reassigned to washing dishes in the back room, invisible from public view. We still used glass glasses back then, which were in short supply. The fountain workers would bark for more glasses, but not hot ones fresh from the dishwasher, which would explode from thermal stress when half full of frappe. We still had pens that read "STOLEN FROM THE TEA SHOP" yet couldn't find anyone to monogram our glasses with this message.
When I was entering my freshman year of college, a shake-up occurred in Farmhouse management, and I knew everyone in there. I invited myself to rent a room in the "Men's quarters" for August, which delighted the Tea Shop as well. I lived off "Mr P's Pizza" from Shop N Save for 67 cents a box but had found a way to live on the island we all love for most of the summer... and actually witness a Hennessy first-hand. This flophouse worked so well for me I returned mid-June the following summer and messed around helping Bret Newbury mow lawns. Bret had wiggled himself in as "fourth man" on the trucks, meaning if Mark Schoen and Will Marinell were both off, Bret the understudy was called up. Another winter passed, Will "graduated", and I was at the docks for a 5:40 boat when Bret was somehow working alone. "Need help?" I asked, and I was doing it-- not driving, but loading, unloading, and getting paid. I was in!!! There was, at the time, a "truck list" in Rob's head of young men who wanted to work the trucks. I bypassed this entire list by sidling in, sideways. I looked and acted like I belonged, and kept it up. Everyone assumed someone else had hired me, or that some sort of protocol had been followed. George Costanza from "Seinfeld" should be proud!
In mid-August of that summer, all the other truck guys decided they'd go off to college. Sensing my big break, I took the reins, along with Robin Graycar, who "dead-ended" that year. I was fully involved, studied all winter, and drove through the night (after finishing exams) the following Memorial Day to be on the 7 am boat to go to work. I followed tradition for "third man" and mowed lawns several days a week. I bought a string trimmer, which, in customers' minds, was capable of removing scrub brush and pine trees with trunks an inch or two in diameter. This vegetation was invariably between a person's cottage and the Atlantic ocean. I fell into a customer base-- Bret's old clients, and anyone who asked the "truck guys" who was mowing that year and/or could they arrange it? Grass grew quickly in June. I divided the island up into "territories" so I could mow several yards in geographical proximity. Mowing is actually pretty nice when one gets the right sea breeze. We had a never-ending rain and fog event clear, so I hurried to mow four yards on the "Paw" between the 3:30 and 5:40 boat. Something like Kartiganer/Flynn/Sileo/Barrett-- in that neighborhood. I succeeded, 99 percent, then ran over a water pipe fitting with my lawnmower and started a flood. I radioed Rob, then went off to retrieve a replacement fitting from the maintenance shed. We had one of the right size on a shelf! The water for "the paw" was turned off and people were wandering out of their cottages to see what was going on. Many angry people! Deliveries! Let's discuss!
I'd wake up at about 7:12 for the 7:30 boat. Nine times out of ten it would hold workmen and donuts, but the tenth time would be eighty unexpected 2x4s and a bunch of Quickrete. Ugh. I never ate my Wheaties until the post-boat coffee break. The contractors were saints, and would unload each others' stuff from the boat. We truck guys tried to pay back however we could. Memorial Day weekend boats were always cheerful: Families opening their cottages. Trays of annual flowers. Former grudges wiped out over the winter. Boat owners one doesn't usually see, riding the ferry while their boat is being put in. Wheelbaskets: The late 1990s still had a few Indian-woven literal baskets-on-wheels. These are all but extinct, now. These were always run by older island ladies who've been around "since forever". They had routines down where they'd give the basket to the truck guys then go take a bench at the Post Office for mail time. If I saw a gallon of milk or ice cream on top I'd put it in their fridges when I got to their places. Trash day: mixed things up. The trash contractors would grab most of the vehicles. We had a golf cart with roof that one guy stacked trash back on the roof, like it was some sort of load-bearing luggage rack. They also absconded with most of the truck fleet. We had a truck out-of-service one Monday and were forced into a golf cart, when Harland Rice remarked "Delivery trucks are getting smaller and smaller-- pretty soon you're going to use a wheel basket!!"
Cell Phones: Were still a yuppie thing in the 1990's. The elaborate procedure was to call Rob or Sue and they would dispatch truckers over walkie-talkies. A hard day of radio use would deplete the batteries by night boat time. I could get about 1/2 second in before the things beeped. Anyone with a police scanner could tune into 155.100 MHz and pick up our traffic. The radios were our only symbol of authority, and we broke up an illegal campfire (during a drought/ fire warning) by waving the things around. During a thunderstorm, dock lollygaggers started having their hair stand on end. I tried to herd people into the freight shed for safety with the radio but failed. They were caught up in conversation. The static electricity dissipated on its own.
The fleet: We had only two trucks, a compact S15 and a fullsize Chevy. The S15 held half the stuff but could dart around the biggest rocks in the road. To work efficiently meant going fast without looking fast, its own art form. The Chevy had a loose front bumper, which clanged over bumps and made us look like speed demons when we weren't. The fix was to run low air pressure in the right front tire, but this made the power steering squeal. The fix for THAT was to put it in neutral and rev the motor to make more power steering pressure. I brushed a rear tire against a pile of shingles, nails, and wood debris and heard the thing hissing parked at the dock while the "Novelty" was disappearing behind Burnt Island. We left Rob Knake to meet the boat then drove my leaky truck to the barn for a spare. Bret searched for and remedied an open valve on the air compressor tank while I fought eight lug nuts. "What is this, a school bus?" The S15 developed a hilarious defect where the muffler and all its attached exhaust pipes would slide rearward two inches and make a hellacious noise at the catalytic converter. I carried a glove to take the heat and shove the whole thingus home where it belonged. It "shook loose" at inopportune times, like driving up the hill past the post office at mail time. The Chevy had a flat spot on its flywheel so the starter would screech but not catch. We had various "rain dances" like rolling it in neutral then throwing it in park, to bump the engine over enough so the next tooth would catch. I tugged on a fan belt to achieve the same objective.
As the part-timer, I tried to leave the trucks in better shape than they were when I found them. This generally meant refueling and cleaning. The gas pump was a manual crank, with a piece of all-thread for a crank handle. A rag kept this from digging into one's skin. Twenty cranks were a gallon. The Chevy had an 8-track player. I found an adapter at a thrift store in town that let it play cassettes. The slower Chevy saw increased use following this purchase.
We had taxi duty-- Janet Bickerstaff was a top consumer during my era. She always wore her seat belt, and we kept a little stool around to help her in. When we split up boats "evenly" she counted as part of my "load" despite her being (semi) ambulatory so I usually got done first. Night boats: Neither truck had working rear lights, and the golf cart fleet had no lights whatsoever. I accepted this as unchangeable fate, though I noticed the installation of lights on carts shortly after my tenure. One foggy night the formerly bad connection in the chevy came back to life. Bret and I stared at it jaws agape, as if, could it be? An innocent inquest into the situation revealed that the S15 could easily have backup lights as well, and the world got a little better that day. 1997-ish presented us with a new dock, wired with luxuries like lights for the gangplank and float area.
Customer Service: For me it wasn't just a motto, but a saying. I philosophized that people wouldn't drive 3.5 hours from Massachusetts, unload, park, wait for a ferry, then walk to their final destination if they actually wanted convenience. Some saw it differently. One lady caught us ten minutes before the boat and mentioned that we forgot her luggage pickup. We dashed back to her porch, grabbed her stuff, and brought it on board. (The "boat people" knew better than to leave without the "truck guys".) She berated us in front of a dock full of people and a boat full of tourists that she wasn't paying for the pickup (we were going to "comp" her anyway) because it was so "emotionally traumatic." Another Islander disembarked the boat and was lecturing others on the dock float that they should stop pawing through looking for their stuff and to let the truck guys handle it-- while she was pawing through the very same stuff. I firmly asked her to "lead by example"-- a suggestion so entertaining she walked up the gangplank, in compliance.
The boats: I witnessed the transition from Maranbo to Novelty. In fact I signed something declaring I was there for its maiden voyage... destined for a spot in the Historical Society. Unloading the Maranbo meant unclipping some side ropes and just jumping into the stern. While the Novelty has clips on its cables-plus-netting, these are not regularly undone in the same way.
The pay: kept me in school. Cash-paying customers met our daily needs. The full-timers did billing on a whim a couple of times per summer, and once in mid-fall. I assisted with distribution of bills in person and everybody was happy to get them, and wondered when we were getting around to it. (I imagined I'd be greeted more like a process server!) I got a check for the divvy-up in late October or mid-November. This was fine as I was coasting on summer earnings through the school year. At some point a load changes from "$1 per unit" to "half a bed" and this transition wasn't always smooth, or even explainable. I brought a table and chairs to someone, and I was in the mode that "these are appliances" and she thought "$1/ item" and called me out. I instantly agreed with her take, reduced the bill, then she tipped me more than my original demand.
Big Men on Campus: Yes, we were. You could own a million dollar cottage but you couldn't have a truck. Passers-by got a half-wave. (A whole-wave meant hail/stop.) Since we operated at several times walking speed, everyone else looked like they were in slow-motion. We could spot everyone going to church, a boat, or a cocktail party. The cocktail crowd were always cute in their spiffy outfits... and I knew who was running early and who was later.
Medical Emergencies: Thankfully, both I was involved in ended uneventfully. Once I drove Rob to the affected person in the compact S15, missing rocks, driving smoothly, but very speedily. I hit second gear! Pedestrians could tell something was not right by our hasty driving and furrowed brows. I had just trained for CPR with some Boothbay firemen the day before and met the same guys the next day under different circumstances! This is not a drill!! The other time, I had to bring Rob a bottle of Oxygen from the fire truck, but used a golf cart to "cheat" driving on a sidewalk where roads didn't go so I could get there faster. Oxygen helped the guy! Hooray for Oxygen! It was never spoken of that I could "thread the needle" with a golf cart on a sidewalk in the dark, and that it was apparently not my first time.
The worst part... as with any job that interfaces with the public was a lack of understanding, communication, and especially humor. Yes I'm sorry someone parked in your foothold space. Sorry the sideways rain got your suede Eddie Bauer luggage stained. Sorry your ice cream half-melted while I ran someone's prescription to the other end of the island. The best part, like for anyone else, was meeting two familiar faces on the dock float after a long winter. Though I was one of those faces I'm not immune to its effects. A friend used to work at a ski area as a chair lift operator and mused that he was master of the ten-second conversation-- and we "truck guys" did the same thing as people worked their way on or off the boat.
I graduated from school in 1998 and dead-ended that fall. In October the post office was closed, of course, and I handed the Novelty captain an outgoing letter containing my resume and application materials to work at WPXT-TV in Portland. I read about the job opening in the newspaper want ads in the Squirrel Island Library. I'm still working this job sixteen years later!