This is a photograph of my buddy Danny on the left, me in the middle, and brother Stan to the right taken in 1977. The truck was a 1968 (I think) Ford F700 with a 15 foot bed and a cable loader. You can see the loader boom above Danny's head. The way we loaded it was to drag the cable out and wrap it around a stack of pulpwood, then I would operate the loader controls on the back of the truck to winch the wood to the truck and lift it on the bed. Danny would be on the logs already on the truck directing the load to where it would go. Once I winched the cable out from under the logs he would hand the cable down to Stan who would drag it out and restack logs on top of the cable and the whole process would start again. Labor intensive it was. The truck had the big 360 V8 with a 5 speed transmission and the 2 speed rear end. It would pull whatever you put on it.
I was thinning a stand of loblolly pines on Sand Mountain in Harris County GA. That load was a little over 4 cords. Back then I was getting about $20 a cord, so do the math. I wonder how and why I was spending half a day cutting and loading the wood to make $80 before I paid the help in addition to fuel, truck, and chainsaw expenses - in the mean time - I was a senior in college at the time majoring in accounting, working at night in a factory and still carried a full college load. So even then I was always biting off more than I could handle - I even had a girlfriend then!
Those were the days my friend!
On the positive side I was thinner and did not have grey hair. Well friends I hope I have entertained you with my discourse and a look at the past. Keep the chains sharp, water jugs full of ice and all will be well. As always, comments are encouraged.
2 comments:
We had to load pulp wood the same way! My Dad ran a pulp wood business in SW Georgia and if we wanted to go to the beach, we had to cut and load enough pulp wood to pay for the trip. I weighed 85 pounds but I could put my entire body weight on the levers and pull the wood up and onto the truck. I bet I was the only blond haired blue eyed girl at the beach who loaded truck after truck of pulp wood to pay for the trip. I was also the strongest girl around.
Also our chainsaws were different, big bow chainsaws not the little bar chainsaws we have now.
Oh the memories! Mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, ground wasp, sap, and the heat - all for a trip to Wilson Beach cottages. We longed to go to Panama City Beach or even Mexico Beach....
Hello Flint,
Thats how I got my start, my dad dragging me out of bed on the weekends and during the summers. I hated it at the time, I wanted to hang out with my friends and get into trouble, but my father had other plans. What's amazing is that its true the nut does not fall far from the tree. Despite working all my life in the professional world, I am back cutting trees down.
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