A knight of the road recalls the royal carpet

Updated Jun 20, 2011

Owner-operator Gordon Alkire remembers an era when he requested early wake up calls at truck stops from “the lady behind the counter.” Alkire, leased to Landstar Ranger, describes high points over his more than 40 years’ trucking in this week’s OverdriveRetro Readers Remember memoir.

“At that time, either she or someone from the truck stop knocked on my door and handed me a cup of coffee at the same time,” the Kansas native son says. “We were knights of the road and were treated like it.

“Back then, the CB [radio] was not the nasty thing we hear today,” Alkire notes. “Drivers had pride, and if they did step out of line, they stood a chance of getting an education in radio etiquette by their fellow drivers and sometimes none too gently.”

He, like other owner-operators, say they appreciate those days even more as they face more and more challenges in hours of service regulations and increasingly conjested highways.

Read his Readers Remember anecdotes, including one scary episode on a heavy haul he’ll never forget.