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Marina Memories #4: Trucks I Have Killed
Trucks I have Killed
The Marina is the kind of place where accidents are unavoidable. You’ve got big boats and big trucks moving around the yard in confined spaces, or worse, you’ve got big boats and big trucks moving on the roads at fast speeds. Collisions happen, breakdowns happen, shit happens. Throughout it all you’ll hear my dad say “that’s what insurance is for”.
It’s remarkable how calm and forgiving Dad can be in these situations. Most bosses would scream and yell and fire you on the spot. First, my dad wants to know if anyone is hurt (or arrested). Then he’ll get the details. Then he’ll say “that’s what insurance is for”. Then the merciless teasing begins. There have only been two exceptions to this rule that I know of: one is too horrible to talk about; the other was the time that Petey the drunken firefighter took a corner too tight in the yard, “somehow” not realizing that he was still hooked up to a loaded trailer. He wiped out an entire row of bass fishing boats. That was the end of Petey (he’s no longer a firefighter, either).
I’ve had three big boo boos over the years. Two were fixable and one was a write-off. Despite my Dad’s calmness and inevitable forgiveness I always freak out when I wreak one of his trucks. I always feel so bad and so stupid (and sometimes hysterical, depending upon the severity of the accident). I’ve never actually had an accident in front of him, so there has always been an agonizing delay before I can get to him to and see his reaction. Sometimes he laughs. Sometimes he asks if my mom knows and looks scared. Every single time he tells me that it’s ok, he loves me and “that’s what insurance is for”.
My first accident was a doozey. I was 18 and working as a labourer at the Marina the summer before university. My days were filled with washing boats, pumping gas, and running errands. Dad had just bought a new truck. As usual he declared that it “wasn’t going to be used in the yard” and that he was going to keep it “nice” for his personal use. He says that every time he buys a new truck. It’s usually only a matter of weeks before it gets scratched or dented or a Christmas tree gets tossed through the back window (a more common occurrence than you might think). This truck lasted about three days.
For some reason Dad thought that it would be a great idea to send me down to the city to deliver a boat and pick up some outboards from the factory. And as an extra “treat” (his word, not mine), I could take the new truck.
Let’s make a long story short:
New truck? Check
Expensive new boat hitched behind it? Check
Directions to destinations in Toronto? Check
18 year old who was nervous driving in the city at the best of times, let alone when hauling a freaking trailer???? Check
Successful acquisition of outboard motors? Check
T-boning of transport truck that was making a left hand turn because inexperienced 18 year old couldn’t stop in time due to extra weight of load? Check
New truck in smoking, crumpled heap? Check
Transport truck unscathed? Check
New boat miraculously unscathed? Check
18 year old even more miraculously physically unscathed (emotionally, not so much)? Check
Mother wishing that she was still married to father just so that she could divorce him again? Check
RIP Black Truck. You didn’t match the rest of the fleet anyway.
I was also the first one to wreck a different new truck a few years later.
It was winter. Dad was in Florida and had left the new truck that “wasn’t going to be used in the yard” and was going to be kept “nice” for his personal use for me to drive instead of my crappy (and crap-coloured) car. He lived in a house that shared a parking lot with the Marina. The house had been built by Jack, the crazy partner, and had an absolutely hideous concrete archway over the sidewalk entrance (and two lion sculptures took pride of place on either side of the door). I was on my way to feed Dad’s parrot and was pulling up to my usual parking spot in front of the sidewalk. Jerry the Sales Manager (and my stepbrother-inlaw) was plowing the snow covered lot, and had moved the concrete bumpers out of the way. I quickly realized that the parking lot was very slippery and the bumpers had disappeared as the truck continued to slide forward after I applied the brakes. “Oh well,” I thought, “I’ll just nudge up against the archway.”
I did indeed nudge up against the archway. But instead of coming to a full and complete stop, imagine my amazement when the truck kept going and the entire archway toppled over. Now imagine my even greater degree of amazement when the archway crashed onto the goddamned truck.
I would have thought that the archway would at least have had the decency to fall in the other direction, seeing as how I had just rammed it (albeit slowly). I thought the laws of physics would have dictated that or something.
Anyhow, I was again extremely lucky and escaped injury. Jerry saw the whole thing and said he was convinced that I was going to get killed by a block of concrete (and, just for the record, he was also very surprised that the arch didn’t fall away from the truck). Dad thought it was pretty funny, as did every other Marina employee. It also gave me some Brownie points with my stepmother; she had been bugging Dad to get rid of the arch (and the lions) ever since they had moved in there. After receiving a new hood and some engine repairs, the (now less) new truck was fine and lived to serve another day.
My last truck accident was a heartbreaker for me, since it involved my most favourite truck of all time, #9. My sister and I had learned how to drive on #9. We drove it instead of our car whenever we could because we thought it was cool (even cooler than our 1976 Mercury Bobcat, if that’s possible). Fast forward a few years and poor #9 was in very rough shape, which is what happens when a truck is used in the yard and isn’t kept “nice”. Only 6 of 8 cylinders were running, the gas gauge didn’t work, it needed a new transmission and countless other things. My dad hung on to it because it still useful for light work.
I was working at a historic site in a nearby town that also was home to several marinas. A lot of our customers kept their boats in this area, so my dream job turned out to be very convenient for Dad. I was given #9 to drive whenever there were Marina errands to run in that area. Most mornings I would make deliveries and pick up smaller boats before I went into work. Whenever I had a boat in tow I was permitted to park in the bus section of the parking lot. I’d work my shift and then drop the boat off at the Marina on my way home.
One day I realized that I had forgotten something in my locker, so I turned around and pulled up by the staff entrance. Because I am a complete fucking moron, I left the (standard transmission) truck in neutral. When I emerged from the building, the truck was nowhere in sight.
After a frantic search, I found it. #9 had rolled backwards about 200 feet, somehow missing two other vehicles. It wasn’t so lucky with a post. In my haste and stupidity, I had also left the driver door ajar. It had caught on a metal post and now looked distinctly odd. The outer steel skin had been bent and peeled away from the doorframe. It looked like the door was open even when it wasn’t.
Well, shit.
Despite kicking the door from the outside quite a few times, I couldn’t get it to close completely. I ended up tying it shut with a piece of rope attached to the steering column. I took the backest of back roads home, chanting the mantra of “shit, shit, shit, shit, shit” for the entire 45 minute drive. The stupid thing is that I knew that the emergency brake didn’t work. Hadn’t I been chanting my shit mantra just the other night when I hit all four red lights as I drove on a street that ran up a steep hill with a loaded trailer, cursing the lack of emergency brake? Indeed I had. Sometimes I can be so stupid it startles me.
When I got home, I parked in the boat yard across the road and slunk into the Marina. My dad wasn’t around, so I went looking for the next best thing, my real life Clark Kent. He immediately came to check out the truck with me, and assured me that it was no big deal. Once he had stopped laughing.
Bastard.
We took it into the shop and my real life Clark Kent and a couple of the mechanics spent an hour or so rehanging the door and riveting the skin back in place. After they had stopped laughing.
Dad thought it was pretty funny too.
Bastards.
The Marina is the kind of place where accidents are unavoidable. You’ve got big boats and big trucks moving around the yard in confined spaces, or worse, you’ve got big boats and big trucks moving on the roads at fast speeds. Collisions happen, breakdowns happen, shit happens. Throughout it all you’ll hear my dad say “that’s what insurance is for”.
It’s remarkable how calm and forgiving Dad can be in these situations. Most bosses would scream and yell and fire you on the spot. First, my dad wants to know if anyone is hurt (or arrested). Then he’ll get the details. Then he’ll say “that’s what insurance is for”. Then the merciless teasing begins. There have only been two exceptions to this rule that I know of: one is too horrible to talk about; the other was the time that Petey the drunken firefighter took a corner too tight in the yard, “somehow” not realizing that he was still hooked up to a loaded trailer. He wiped out an entire row of bass fishing boats. That was the end of Petey (he’s no longer a firefighter, either).
I’ve had three big boo boos over the years. Two were fixable and one was a write-off. Despite my Dad’s calmness and inevitable forgiveness I always freak out when I wreak one of his trucks. I always feel so bad and so stupid (and sometimes hysterical, depending upon the severity of the accident). I’ve never actually had an accident in front of him, so there has always been an agonizing delay before I can get to him to and see his reaction. Sometimes he laughs. Sometimes he asks if my mom knows and looks scared. Every single time he tells me that it’s ok, he loves me and “that’s what insurance is for”.
My first accident was a doozey. I was 18 and working as a labourer at the Marina the summer before university. My days were filled with washing boats, pumping gas, and running errands. Dad had just bought a new truck. As usual he declared that it “wasn’t going to be used in the yard” and that he was going to keep it “nice” for his personal use. He says that every time he buys a new truck. It’s usually only a matter of weeks before it gets scratched or dented or a Christmas tree gets tossed through the back window (a more common occurrence than you might think). This truck lasted about three days.
For some reason Dad thought that it would be a great idea to send me down to the city to deliver a boat and pick up some outboards from the factory. And as an extra “treat” (his word, not mine), I could take the new truck.
Let’s make a long story short:
New truck? Check
Expensive new boat hitched behind it? Check
Directions to destinations in Toronto? Check
18 year old who was nervous driving in the city at the best of times, let alone when hauling a freaking trailer???? Check
Successful acquisition of outboard motors? Check
T-boning of transport truck that was making a left hand turn because inexperienced 18 year old couldn’t stop in time due to extra weight of load? Check
New truck in smoking, crumpled heap? Check
Transport truck unscathed? Check
New boat miraculously unscathed? Check
18 year old even more miraculously physically unscathed (emotionally, not so much)? Check
Mother wishing that she was still married to father just so that she could divorce him again? Check
RIP Black Truck. You didn’t match the rest of the fleet anyway.
I was also the first one to wreck a different new truck a few years later.
It was winter. Dad was in Florida and had left the new truck that “wasn’t going to be used in the yard” and was going to be kept “nice” for his personal use for me to drive instead of my crappy (and crap-coloured) car. He lived in a house that shared a parking lot with the Marina. The house had been built by Jack, the crazy partner, and had an absolutely hideous concrete archway over the sidewalk entrance (and two lion sculptures took pride of place on either side of the door). I was on my way to feed Dad’s parrot and was pulling up to my usual parking spot in front of the sidewalk. Jerry the Sales Manager (and my stepbrother-inlaw) was plowing the snow covered lot, and had moved the concrete bumpers out of the way. I quickly realized that the parking lot was very slippery and the bumpers had disappeared as the truck continued to slide forward after I applied the brakes. “Oh well,” I thought, “I’ll just nudge up against the archway.”
I did indeed nudge up against the archway. But instead of coming to a full and complete stop, imagine my amazement when the truck kept going and the entire archway toppled over. Now imagine my even greater degree of amazement when the archway crashed onto the goddamned truck.
I would have thought that the archway would at least have had the decency to fall in the other direction, seeing as how I had just rammed it (albeit slowly). I thought the laws of physics would have dictated that or something.
Anyhow, I was again extremely lucky and escaped injury. Jerry saw the whole thing and said he was convinced that I was going to get killed by a block of concrete (and, just for the record, he was also very surprised that the arch didn’t fall away from the truck). Dad thought it was pretty funny, as did every other Marina employee. It also gave me some Brownie points with my stepmother; she had been bugging Dad to get rid of the arch (and the lions) ever since they had moved in there. After receiving a new hood and some engine repairs, the (now less) new truck was fine and lived to serve another day.
My last truck accident was a heartbreaker for me, since it involved my most favourite truck of all time, #9. My sister and I had learned how to drive on #9. We drove it instead of our car whenever we could because we thought it was cool (even cooler than our 1976 Mercury Bobcat, if that’s possible). Fast forward a few years and poor #9 was in very rough shape, which is what happens when a truck is used in the yard and isn’t kept “nice”. Only 6 of 8 cylinders were running, the gas gauge didn’t work, it needed a new transmission and countless other things. My dad hung on to it because it still useful for light work.
I was working at a historic site in a nearby town that also was home to several marinas. A lot of our customers kept their boats in this area, so my dream job turned out to be very convenient for Dad. I was given #9 to drive whenever there were Marina errands to run in that area. Most mornings I would make deliveries and pick up smaller boats before I went into work. Whenever I had a boat in tow I was permitted to park in the bus section of the parking lot. I’d work my shift and then drop the boat off at the Marina on my way home.
One day I realized that I had forgotten something in my locker, so I turned around and pulled up by the staff entrance. Because I am a complete fucking moron, I left the (standard transmission) truck in neutral. When I emerged from the building, the truck was nowhere in sight.
After a frantic search, I found it. #9 had rolled backwards about 200 feet, somehow missing two other vehicles. It wasn’t so lucky with a post. In my haste and stupidity, I had also left the driver door ajar. It had caught on a metal post and now looked distinctly odd. The outer steel skin had been bent and peeled away from the doorframe. It looked like the door was open even when it wasn’t.
Well, shit.
Despite kicking the door from the outside quite a few times, I couldn’t get it to close completely. I ended up tying it shut with a piece of rope attached to the steering column. I took the backest of back roads home, chanting the mantra of “shit, shit, shit, shit, shit” for the entire 45 minute drive. The stupid thing is that I knew that the emergency brake didn’t work. Hadn’t I been chanting my shit mantra just the other night when I hit all four red lights as I drove on a street that ran up a steep hill with a loaded trailer, cursing the lack of emergency brake? Indeed I had. Sometimes I can be so stupid it startles me.
When I got home, I parked in the boat yard across the road and slunk into the Marina. My dad wasn’t around, so I went looking for the next best thing, my real life Clark Kent. He immediately came to check out the truck with me, and assured me that it was no big deal. Once he had stopped laughing.
Bastard.
We took it into the shop and my real life Clark Kent and a couple of the mechanics spent an hour or so rehanging the door and riveting the skin back in place. After they had stopped laughing.
Dad thought it was pretty funny too.
Bastards.