SCHOOL FRUIT (Guest Post by Paul Curran)

Posted on April 13, 2015 by cordeliasmom2012

I have decided to use Mondays to publish guest-posts and re-blogs (both mine and from other bloggers). Who better to go first than Paul Curran?

SCHOOL FRUIT

By: Paul Curran

Ads for Fund Raising with Oranges (http://www.citrusfruit.com/)

The citrus shipping warehouse had an open loading dock with a roof over it. I pulled my loaded trailer out and stopped to close and lock the doors. This particular terminal in central Florida loaded only special orders this time of year – late November. They shipped mostly what we called “school fruit” – 40 pound cases of oranges and grapefruit that had been ordered for sale by the students of individual schools as Christmas presents in order to raise money. There were two systems; 1) orders were loaded and delivered by school and then distributed by the students or 2) individual orders were trucked to the post office closest to the delivery, already labeled with the end purchaser’s address and postage.

Citrus Sorting and Packaging Plant (http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/)

I had loaded the first type – for delivery to high schools starting in Massachusetts and finishing in northern New Brunswick – 6 drops in all. This was legal for me as a Canadian citizen because it was a single shipper with part of the load delivering in Canada. I enjoyed the break from delivering to warehouses but it was always a challenge dealing with amateurs. And amateurs they were.

My first and second drops were at high schools in towns north of Boston that I shall refrain from naming to protect the guilty – although God alone knows why I bother. I arrived at the first school and after reporting to the office, I was directed to drive around the side of the school and into a paved quad inside the square shaped building. There was lots of space and I had been told that they would unload right after recess. I no sooner got the truck parked when the recess bell rang and hundreds of teens came rushing from the building. A lot of the boys gathered around admiring the truck and I answered their questions about the job and the truck. I was only 21 myself at the time (being the youngest owner/operator the company had ever had) and I looked even younger dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. Many of the boys sported beards and looked my age or older. When the bell rang again for the end of recess, 15 minutes later, two teachers – a man and a woman – came out of the building and started yelling at the teens that they had to go back into the school. They reluctantly moved towards the doors leaving me standing beside the truck. The woman teacher asked me if I was stupid that I didn’t understand that I was to leave too. I just smiled and shrugged, opened the cab door and climbed in, starting the engine. She paused for a moment, realized her mistake and then hollered

“Where are you going?”

I responded: “You told me to leave, so I’m leaving.”

“You can’t go!”

“Make up your mind.”

She apologized and I shut off the truck and got out. It wasn’t long before a crew of teens and another teacher appeared, we unloaded their order without further incident, and I was on my way.

Trailer Load of Oranges (http://www.citrusfruit.com/)

I drove to my second drop and reported to their office. They took my paperwork and directed me to back in around the side of the gymnasium where a teacher and a group of about 10 senior high teenagers awaited to help unload. I had checked each case onboard the truck and had placed cardboard dividers between the drops. My tally had matched the shippers tally by drop, by fruit sizes, and in total. I was 100% certain which cases were delivering here and how many of each size there were. So, the teacher showed me that they were going to carry the cases down a hall and place them against the wall inside the gym in preparation for distribution to the students who were participating in the fund-raising.

High School (http://flansburgh.com/projects/public-educational-c44/)

Two teens jumped in the trailer with me and together we brought the order to the end of the trailer where students on the ground carried the cases inside out of view. The female teacher supervised the process – not that it needed supervision but rather so she didn’t get her hands dirty. I counted each case and marked it off the total until all 175 destined for this drop were off the trailer. We were at the cardboard divider and the counts worked out perfect – as expected. The teens and I jumped out of the trailer and I closed and locked the doors. As I did that the teacher emerged from the door and asked if that was the whole order. I told her it was, and she said they were 10 cases short. I just figured they had miscounted, so I went with her into the gym and counted the cases against the wall.

There were 10 less cases in the gym than had come off the truck. The students looked guilty and the teacher would not look me in the eye. I knew immediately that they had stolen the oranges but the line of students had stayed constant during the unloading – none disappeared or reappeared out of order. This meant that the oranges were somewhere close by. I was so angry that I walked out of the gym without a word and looked up and down the corridor. There were a number of doors in evidence and I started opening them and checking inside the rooms. The teacher followed me and kept telling me that I wasn’t allowed to look in the rooms and that she was going to call security. At the time I was 6’ 3” and 250 pounds with no fat – she wasn’t going to slow me down without security guards. I had only checked three rooms and when I opened the fourth door, there were the ten cases stacked against the wall – same name on the boxes, same lot numbers, and the missing fruit sizes. No doubt they were deliberately placed there to try and steal them. At first, the teacher objected that they were not the cases that had come off the truck. I was so angry that not only had she tried to steal the cases but that she also enlisted the teens to help her steal – what kind of example was that?

Case Labeling (http://www.apex-ephemera.com/floridalabels/)

I said nothing – just handed her the paperwork that I had inherited while checking the order and told her to sign it. She signed the paperwork, I gave her copies and with a disgusted look I left. I didn’t trust myself to say anything to her for fear that I would go into a righteous rage. And we wonder, as a society, how our children end up being liars and thieves – pretty clear answer in this case: they were being taught by the teachers.

The remainder of the deliveries went relatively well, although a few were challenging to access with a tractor trailer. Whenever I hauled school fruit, I always wondered by the end what had ever possessed me to take the load. And each time one of the loads was offered my memory failed me and I figured it would be a great break in the routine.

Good Advice (http://www.commercialwarehousing.com/)

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Paul Curran and I love to hear from our readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Facebook or Twitter pages, or email me at cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com or notcordeliasmom@aol.com

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Image credits are under the respective photos for this post.

Posted in Guest Posters, Paul Curran, Road Trips & Cars, That's Life | Tagged fruit, oranges, Paul Curran, truck driving, truckers | 42 Comments

House Under Water

Posted on April 7, 2015 by cordeliasmom2012

*sigh* This was supposed to be my post for Thursday, April 9, 2015, but I accidentally hit “Publish” instead of “Save” (I really have to stop doing that!). I could delete it and re-post it on Thursday, but I decided to just let it stand. Enjoy!

Spring has sprung (more or less), and so has the house.

A question was recently asked of another blogger who lives in a snow belt: What happens to all that snow when it melts?

Well, in my area, you get mud:

And then more mud:

And while that’s happening, the ice on the roof of the house melts and results in this:

And this:

Many of you will remember that my husband and I had a new roof installed in September, 2013 – because the old roof had started leaking and we didn’t want further damage.

That winter (2013-14), we patted ourselves on the back for having the wisdom to install the roof before the first snowfall. Never again would we have to worry about Western New York winters, at least not while we were safe and cozy inside our house.

You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

This past winter (2014-15) was an extreme event (definitely not for the faint-hearted). Areas south of the City received up to 9 feet of snow; my northern suburb received about 3 feet. There were periods of warming following by periods of freezing followed by more warmth and then more cold, etc. Such freeze-and-thaw weather results in those pretty icicles that you see streaming down from the rooftops, and which become the subject of so many beautiful winter photographs.

However, it‘s not beautiful when that ice then melts, leaks above and behind the gutter and the ice shield, and finds its way into the house. I was livid – We have a new roof, dammit! Call that damn contractor!

My house is a mid-1940’s tract house built for the use of returning World War II veterans and their families. Every house on my street is the same basic floor plan – a two-story main building with a one-story addition on the back for the kitchen. That one-story addition has a roof that is sloped only a degree or two above being considered flat.

I talked to two of my neighbors, who also had new roofs installed within the last 2 years. All three of us used different contractors (all reputable), and all three of us had leaks in the exact same area of that kitchen extension.

So, it’s not the contractors’ fault – it’s Mother Nature having a little fun at our expense.

There were so many households in the Western New York area with leaky roofs this year that the local newspaper, radio and TV stations began running stories about how extreme winter affects homes and other buildings. If nothing else, I learned that such leaks may or may not be covered by the homeowner insurance.

Fortunately for us, we had purchased the “deluxe” policy with the water back-up rider. Our agent assured us we were covered!

However, this particular insurance company had never impressed us with the way it honors (or rather, does not honor) claims. My husband called the claims department only because I insisted – we fully expected the company to hassle us, or at the most to allow a claim of only a couple of hundred dollars.

Won’t wonders never cease? Apparently, there are so many claims in this area that the company is bending over backward to avoid any bad publicity. Although I had taken photographs and completely documented the damage, the adjustor didn’t even come to the house. Based on our description, a check was sent out the very next day for the full estimated value of repairing walls, replacing ceiling tiles, and if necessary, replacing cupboards, with a notation that if the estimates come in higher, we can call for a claim review.

Now all we have to do is find someone to actually do the work. Let the fun begin!

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I love to hear from my readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Facebook or Twitter pages, or email me at cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com or notcordeliasmom@aol.com

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Images by Cordelia’s Mom

Posted in That's Life | Tagged home ownership, houses, insurance, leaking roof, repairs, roof | 22 Comments

DEATH (Guest Post by Paul Curran)

Posted on April 6, 2015 by cordeliasmom2012

Due to its nature, there are no pictures in the body of this post. Those will be supplied by your own imagination.

DEATH

By: Paul Curran

Alan and I finished our late supper about 11 pm at the Irving Big Stop in Deer Lake Newfoundland. The truck stop restaurant was owned by a local family, and the food was excellent. We had both showered, and having slept for four hours, we were raring to go. I pulled out first, headed west, and Alan followed in his Freightliner with a temperature controlled trailer (reefer). We were both headed towards the ferry back to the mainland, loaded with frozen fish destined for American markets.

It was a warm, clear summer night, and I had the driver’s window halfway down. The driving was perfect and we had lots of time to get to the 6am ferry- about a three-hour drive. There was only one town – Corner Brook – of any size and a handful of tiny communities along the way. Hardly any speed changes and no controlled intersections – just a nice ride. Alan and I chatted back and forth on the CB as we drove. The last ferry would have arrived at PaB at 6 pm (at the time they ran twice a day) and the vehicles had long passed where we were. At night, there was very little traffic on these roads between towns. Even the police only came out here when called – they seldom patrolled.

About halfway to the ferry, we approached the turn-off to Stephenville – a decent sized town about ½ hour off the Trans-Canada Highway, where we were passing by en route to Port aux Basques. The junction was level to my right, but was in the middle of a construction zone. They were twinning the highway and had the overpass in place, but traffic both ways was running on one side of the new highway, as if it were a two-lane road. The other side, which would be the east-bound when done, was formed but still had a gravel surface. The whole construction zone was on a sweeping turn to my left. I could see the intersection where Hwy 490 went to the right towards Stephenville. I could not see the highway around the bend. I slowed to 80 kmph (50 mph), the construction zone speed.

As I approached the bend, I could see the lights of an oncoming vehicle reflecting off the concrete overpass and painting the road. I started around the bend, and the lights of a car (too low and narrow to be a truck) came into view. As it always is when meeting a vehicle in a turn at night, it was not immediately possible to determine where the car was positioned on the road. As the distance between us closed, I realized quickly that the car was partially on my side of the road and drifting further into my lane – as if going straight rather than staying in its lane. I braked hard and moved as far to the right as I could without leaving the shoulder. The lights of the car matched my movements. This is a common phenomenon at night when an oncoming driver is tired, confused, has poor visibility or is distracted. They drive into the headlights of the approaching vehicle. Almost always, they will realize their error as they get closer, and correct. This vehicle did not correct.

I had a short tinted bug deflector along the nose of the hood, and as I watched, the car headlights disappeared behind the deflector – in head-on position. At this point everything happened very fast – a fraction of a second – and yet it seemed as if time had slowed almost to a standstill. I can clearly remember what seemed like a long pause between the headlights disappearing and the horrendous crash that ensued. If we were both doing 80 kmph (50 mph) then we were approaching at a rate of 146 feet per second, so if I lost sight at 50 feet, it was less than 1/3 of a second before the crash.

I did not have my seat belt on (they were not required at the time and many truck drivers did not use them in case of an accident that involved fire or being submerged in a waterway) and my body pivoted around my arms holding the steering wheel, my head hitting the roof liner. I bounced in the seat and hit the ceiling a second time. My legs flew up under the dashboard, my shins striking the bottom edge. The sound of being inside a large crash is indescribable, as if every molecule around you is suddenly vibrating with noise. I can recall the view forward as being grey and granular, like a heavy fog. Although I had been stopping, it takes many seconds to stop a vehicle that large, and my foot was no longer on the brake. The truck was still moving, and I can remember waiting for a piece of debris to come through the windshield and cause serious injury. There was as sense of complete loss of control.

Eventually the truck slid to a stop, nose pointed down, and the noise faded away. I seemed to be intact, but so much adrenaline was flowing I could have had a serious injury and would not be aware. I tried the door but it was crumpled shut. The windshield was gone from its frame, and I scrambled out through the hole fearing a fire. The hood was also gone, and I stepped on top of the twisted motor and jumped down on the ground. At that point I realized the front end and both front wheels were also gone. I can recall seeing the crushed and leaking frame-mounted fuel tanks sitting directly on the ground. No fire, that was good. The tractor and trailer sat on the unfinished gravel road adjacent to the highway, the tractor at a 45 degree angle to the trailer – lucky that it hadn’t jackknifed and hit the trailer.

I half walked, half ran towards the remains of the car. I remember seeing Alan also running towards the wreckage. The car was crushed beyond recognition. The engine and front 10 feet of the car were in the back seat. There was nothing in between but a large block of steaming twisted metal, emitting snapping and popping sounds as it cooled and expanded from the impact. There was no chance that anyone was alive. Pieces of the car and truck were scattered over the roadway as if thrown there by some giant hand.

In the end, the police and emergency crews and wreckers came and began to organize the carnage as the sunrise turned the scene blood red. It all became very civilized from that point. All the impact marks were on my side of the road, Alan was a witness, the truck (or its remains) were examined and pronounced in good shape. I was cleared of any wrong-doing. Alan took my undamaged trailer down to the ferry and loaded it aboard for the company to pick up on the other side. I travelled with Alan back to where we met a friend who picked me up and took me home (only about 60 miles from the pick-up point). I heard later from the police that the car driver had likely had a seizure as he was an epileptic. He had been alone in the car, returning from a night job cleaning offices n another town.

Even though I was cleared, there still lingers the guilt at having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That I will have to live with for the rest of my life.

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Paul Curran and I love to hear from our readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Facebook or Twitter pages, or email me at cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com or notcordeliasmom@aol.com

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Posted in Guest Posters, Paul Curran, Road Trips & Cars, That's Life | Tagged accident, collision, death, grieving, guilt, Paul Curran, truck driving, truckers | 55 Comments

Dyngus Day Without Pussy Willows?

Posted on April 5, 2015 by cordeliasmom2012

Here in Buffalo, NY, Dyngus Day is a big event because of our large Polish population. For those unfamiliar with it, Dyngus Day is the day after Easter. I don’t participate, seeing as I’m an old married lady, but the way I understand it – if young people chase each other around and spank each other with pussy willow branches, that will insure a happy relationship.

Not in my book – read the above-referenced Wikipedia description of Dyngus Day. Being dragged out of bed soaking wet and walloped with pussy willows does not seem like a loving relationship to me, but then, I’m just a silly old married lady.

But this year, there is a shortage of pussy willows due to the extreme winter we’ve just gone through (and yes, it is snowing here again today – on Easter Sunday!).

Guess what ?! I have a pussy willow tree right in my own back yard.

So I tromped out through the muck and mud yesterday, expecting to find full-blown pussy willows which I could then sell at an outrageous price for the upcoming Dyngus Day celebrations. Alas, even my tree only has baby buds.

But hey, at least it’s a sign that spring will come eventually.

HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!

***

And for those who don’t celebrate Easter, but do like pretty pictures, here are some goldfish for you:

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I love to hear from my readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Facebook or Twitter pages, or email me at cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com or notcordeliasmom@aol.com

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Images by Cordelia’s Mom