Kevin Gordon lives in Putney. He’s 61, a slim, wiry guy with a blue Jeep Wrangler and a motorcycle out back. He gets out of bed around 11:30 at night after a normal 8-hour sleep and drives a few miles down Rte 5 to the C and S Wholesale Grocers delivery docks. Around 1:00, he begins another night’s driving into New England delivering palletized groceries. He’s been driving the big rigs since 1987.
He drives for JB Hunt, a Fortune 500 transport company based in Arkansas, a company that serves all of Canada, The United States and Mexico. You’ll see their shiny white 18-wheelers on I-91 or across the country. JB Hunt Co just awarded a safe-driving award to Kevin for recently earning one of its top awards: driving 1,000,000 miles accident free. That’s roughly equivalent to driving from Putney to the moon and back twice. “And the crazy thing is that on the very morning my odometer showed I’d just gone my millionth mile accident-free, I was about to drive onto the Bourne Bridge and onto the Cape for deliveries when some guy drove into my front wheel. Because these trucks have cameras affixed to their exteriors to record everything going on around the truck, the driver of the car had to admit HE had run into ME. It was his fault, but what timing!”
Kevin was born in North Adams, MA in 1963. “I went to high school but all I could think in the classroom was about was how I was going to make a good living. I graduated from Franklin County Tech in Turner’s Falls, MA in 1981 in electronics. I repaired appliances for awhile, then went to work at Mt. Snow ski area doing all sorts of jobs but by 1987 I had earned my CDL license to drive trucks. That was my break.
“I was riding around in a 51’ tractor-trailer in a Webster Trucking rig (now owned by JB Hunt) for a few years delivering in Vermont mostly. In 1987 I got a new job for JB Hunt delivering groceries for the wholesale C and S Grocers on Rte 5 in Brattleboro and I’ve been there ever since. I’m a contract driver: I sign on to drive a specific route each day. AND I wanted to be able to go home after work – not stay in a truck overnight as many cross-country drivers do.
“I’m a regional driver putting in a 12-hour day mostly. I drive across New England where I feel most comfortable. I get up around midnight and am at work in Brattleboro usually around 1:00 AM. A delivery box-trailer has been loaded according to my route by the guys at CandS. I check over my truck – the same one I’ve driven for years and years - to that day’s trailer, see that everything is shipshape and then look over my printed delivery schedule. First I head for I-91 south. I drive south and pick up Rte 2 East either just north of Greenfield or Hartford, CT and head toward Boston and wherever my first stop is. (“I hate Boston traffic. Every driver HAS to be first.”) I usually drive 300-450 miles a day. The trailer’s usually empty around Westerly, RI or Ledyard, MA.
“I asked to be assigned deliveries to mostly Mom and Pop stores, independent grocery stores in the New England states, or small dropoff spots like The Coast Guard center on the Cape or the submarine base in Mystic, CT. I don’t like delivering to Big Y and MarketBasket because you don’t get to know the people in those huge grocery store warehouses. I meet and talk with the owners and workers a bit at the Mom and Pop stores. And they like me to deliver around 4:00 AM so they have time to get the new stock on the shelves before the earlybird shoppers show up. I especially like McQuaid’s Market in Rhode Island. They have three stores, two in RI and one in Mystic, CTand I always look out for Tripp, Gregg and LingLing to chat with for a minute.”
“I’ve usually got a freezer compartment on the trailer I’m hauling that takes up the front third; the remainder is filled with pallets of groceries in cardboard boxes. When at the drop-off sites, I help offload the orders, have a chat with the owners of the store who I have gotten to know over the years, and then I’m off to the next delivery.
“On my way home I may stop at the Latino Market in Springfield for a delivery. I pull into the C and S yard in Brattleboro after 350-450 miles. I’ve been driving these big delivery trucks for 38 years,” whereupon he realized what he’d said and said, “Holy Cow! Doesn’t seem that long! It seems like I graduated from high school yesterday!”
I asked Kevin what it was like driving a big rig these days, especially getting on the road around 1:00 AM. “I love the fact that with night-driving there is so much less traffic than during the day. Day-driving over the last few years has gotten scary. People driving in cars are paying attention to their cell phones and texting and NOT paying attention to their driving. I can see them from my eyes from my driver’s seat 8’-9’ above the road. The texters are the worst. And I love to read license plates. Some folks have some great ones.
“After a million miles and way more than that over the years, I can see what a driver ahead of me or beside me is going to do before they even do it. It’s scary when I can see the guy’s head in front of me bobbing this way or that. Either he’s dangerously tired or he doesn’t know where he’s going. And on roads in New England, you can only see as far ahead as the next bend in the road and here I am driving at 65 mph with 30,000 to 40,000 pounds of weight behind me.
“I drive an 18 wheeler International with a different trailer attached each day. It has a 12-speed automatic transmission. I can live with an automatic but I would much rather shift when I decide it’s time. And that’s especially true in winter when I’m going up an icy, snowy road at 4:00 AM. I could lose traction but I have to say that hasn’t happened to me yet. And what will really scare me is driving those robot-driven trucks they’re designing now.”
After talking with Kevin about his five twelve-hour days a week, I asked him what he does in his time off. (He gets the whole month of September off this year, in part because of his award and his hours worked.)
“First of all, I’ll be able to sleep normal hours. That’s SO good. But I have a Yamaha RoadStar motorcycle. I follow its front tire wherever it takes us – me and my girlfriend. We motorcycle the back roads of New England to see what’s over the next hill. We love those back roads and the backroads people. We stop at General Stores and smaller establishments and get to talk with the folks there. The MOST FUN we ever had was driving my motorcycle up the auto road to the top of Mount Washington!” And after a couple hours with Kevin, I knew I had met a guy who loves to talk. After all, he spends the better part of his day alone, up there in the driver’s seat of a big rig, looking forward to the folks waiting for him at his next delivery.
This is one of a series of some 30 profiles of working people from southern Vermont and adjacent New Hampshire that I wrote and then published in the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper every Friday from Jan 1 - May 30. Do the same with your local newspaper.