In 1920 I met, in Seattle, a man who was selling dump trucks. He told me of the big money that could be made. The going rate was from $3.00 to $3.50 per hour. Since I had been counting my pennies all my life this sounded fantastic. I had some money saved up which was plenty to swing a deal. I bought a 3 ½ ton Service truck. A body builder made a dump truck body with a hydraulic hoist. The salesman guaranteed to get me a job, which he did. I was in the dump truck business. I had very little experience driving except for an old model T Ford which Carew had bought years before. The salesman gave me a couple of lessons in driving and I was on my own.
As I drove down a street approaching a street car track, I suddenly saw a street car heading my way. I was not used to making sudden stops and in a sort of panic kept going. The street car did not slow up much and hit me broadside. There were two men at the street car controls and in the excitement one man said "He is just learning to drive a street car." There was a trial and I told the judge what the man had said, but I said nothing about my inexperience. The man denied that he was a student driver, but they could not satisfactorily explain the presence of the second man The case was given in my favor. The truck was repaired and I continued to make money. I got a fairly steady job with a contractor who dug foundations and did road work. He had a huge steam shovel. It was a real job to transport in around. There was a series of heavy planks which had to be laid down for the shovel to run on. This was a constantly repeated process which was very slow.
Once he contracted to gravel some miles of road near the town of Pe Ell which is west of Chehalis. He opened up a gravel pit on a steep hillside near the road. His brothers, two of whom worked for him, climbed the hillside and dug holes and blasted the gravel down. It was screened and loaded on our trucks to be spread on the road. There was no handy place to stay, so I got a little tent and some equipment and lived there. Some huge rats moved in with me, but after dark I blinded them with a flashlight and broke their heads. Every day or so a gas truck came by. He would stop and fill a barrel as well as my truck tank.
One day he came bringing my mail. There was a young lad who liked to ride with me. I asked him to watch my tank so that it did not overflow while I went to the tent with my mail. As I returned I heard a shout and saw flames under the truck. The gas truck was still nearby and the driver ran back with a fire extinguisher. The fire spread to the cushion and a mackinaw coat, soon burning in all directions. I pulled out the burning cushion and mackinaw, then grabbed a shovel, smashed my rear cab window and started to shovel crushed rock all over the fire. This slowly put out the worst fire but it continued to burn. Then I noticed that gas was oozing up through the gravel and still flaming. The heat was expanding the gas and forcing it through a vent hole in the cap. I rushed to the gas truck and grabbed an empty 5 gal. can and a wrench. Crawling under the burning truck I disconnected the gas line from the carburetor and started the gas running into the gas can. This released the pressure in the tank and stopped the flow of gas out of the tank. The gas I drew out was very hot. After drawing out enough I reconnected the gas line and finished putting out the fire. The cab was a mess. The framework was of wood which was badly burned. The truck was still in good running condition so I did not lose any time from the job. On a subsequent occasion with a heavy load of gravel on a narrow road I edged to one side to allow a car to pass. The edge of the road was soft and my truck stopped and the two right wheels started to sink down. They kept going down until I leaped out to see my truck roll over on its side, dumping out most of the gravel. It was not serious, however, as I soon got two other trucks to hook on and drag it back on its wheels again on the road.