I believe this happened during the Christmas break of my senior year in high school. Word got out that anyone who was 18 years old or older, could get a job driving a dump truck loaded with hot mix to the portion of U.S. highway 82, where they were re-surfacing the road west of Gainesville and all the way to Saint Jo, Texas.
This was immediately jumped on by several us seniors. All we had to do was show our drivers' license and social security cards to get hired. I suppose they were quite desperate to hire high school kids.
The dump trucks would haul four tons of hot mix and the trip was almost 20 miles. As a driver, you got a receipt ticket for each round trip. It wasn’t a big money maker, because you seldom could make more than three or four trips per day. But it was something to do with an element of danger.
The hot mix plant was just outside of Saint Jo, so we would get there and line up with our trucks to receive a load of hot mix, then with the 8,000 loads take off as fast as possible to where it would be dumped into a Barber Green machine to spread and resurface the highway. If the state had specified the temperature was acceptable, the driver was given a ticket. If the temperature was not acceptable, then the driver had the responsibility of getting rid of that load and go back for another load!
Only one time did I have a load rejected. I came back into Muenster and stopped at the Ford Dealership and asked if anyone there wanted a load of hot mix for their driveway. I accepted a bid of $10 and directions on where to take my load, I drove to the location, dumped my load, and then on back to the plant. As I’ve previously mentioned we didn’t make much money, but it was fun driving these dump trucks as fast as they would go.
After all these years, I can still see where some of my classmates dumped rejected loads they couldn’t sell and the state would not accept because of the temperature wasn’t in the correct range. Where the highway in Saint Jo splits and highway 82 goes on west, there is another highway going toward Montague. In the piece of vacant land in this Y there remain some piles of hot mix dumped there because the driver had to get rid of his rejected load before receiving a new load. Just Sayin…RJS
Robert J Samples wrote:
I believe this happened during the Christmas break of my senior year in high school. Word got out that anyone who was 18 years old or older, could get a job driving a dump truck loaded with hot mix to the portion of U.S. highway 82, where they were re-surfacing the road west of Gainesville and all the way to Saint Jo, Texas.
This was immediately jumped on by several us seniors. All we had to do was show our drivers' license and social security cards to get hired. I suppose they were quite desperate to hire high school kids.
The dump trucks would haul four tons of hot mix and the trip was almost 20 miles. As a driver, you got a receipt ticket for each round trip. It wasn’t a big money maker, because you seldom could make more than three or four trips per day. But it was something to do with an element of danger.
The hot mix plant was just outside of Saint Jo, so we would get there and line up with our trucks to receive a load of hot mix, then with the 8,000 loads take off as fast as possible to where it would be dumped into a Barber Green machine to spread and resurface the highway. If the state had specified the temperature was acceptable, the driver was given a ticket. If the temperature was not acceptable, then the driver had the responsibility of getting rid of that load and go back for another load!
Only one time did I have a load rejected. I came back into Muenster and stopped at the Ford Dealership and asked if anyone there wanted a load of hot mix for their driveway. I accepted a bid of $10 and directions on where to take my load, I drove to the location, dumped my load, and then on back to the plant. As I’ve previously mentioned we didn’t make much money, but it was fun driving these dump trucks as fast as they would go.
After all these years, I can still see where some of my classmates dumped rejected loads they couldn’t sell and the state would not accept because of the temperature wasn’t in the correct range. Where the highway in Saint Jo splits and highway 82 goes on west, there is another highway going toward Montague. In the piece of vacant land in this Y there remain some piles of hot mix dumped there because the driver had to get rid of his rejected load before receiving a new load. Just Sayin…RJS
I believe this happened during the Christmas break... (
show quote)
Enjoy reading, I have haul many tons of hot mix working for the state. The paving machines of today have come a long way from the old Barber Greens.
Robert J Samples wrote:
I believe this happened during the Christmas break of my senior year in high school. Word got out that anyone who was 18 years old or older, could get a job driving a dump truck loaded with hot mix to the portion of U.S. highway 82, where they were re-surfacing the road west of Gainesville and all the way to Saint Jo, Texas.
This was immediately jumped on by several us seniors. All we had to do was show our drivers' license and social security cards to get hired. I suppose they were quite desperate to hire high school kids.
The dump trucks would haul four tons of hot mix and the trip was almost 20 miles. As a driver, you got a receipt ticket for each round trip. It wasn’t a big money maker, because you seldom could make more than three or four trips per day. But it was something to do with an element of danger.
The hot mix plant was just outside of Saint Jo, so we would get there and line up with our trucks to receive a load of hot mix, then with the 8,000 loads take off as fast as possible to where it would be dumped into a Barber Green machine to spread and resurface the highway. If the state had specified the temperature was acceptable, the driver was given a ticket. If the temperature was not acceptable, then the driver had the responsibility of getting rid of that load and go back for another load!
Only one time did I have a load rejected. I came back into Muenster and stopped at the Ford Dealership and asked if anyone there wanted a load of hot mix for their driveway. I accepted a bid of $10 and directions on where to take my load, I drove to the location, dumped my load, and then on back to the plant. As I’ve previously mentioned we didn’t make much money, but it was fun driving these dump trucks as fast as they would go.
After all these years, I can still see where some of my classmates dumped rejected loads they couldn’t sell and the state would not accept because of the temperature wasn’t in the correct range. Where the highway in Saint Jo splits and highway 82 goes on west, there is another highway going toward Montague. In the piece of vacant land in this Y there remain some piles of hot mix dumped there because the driver had to get rid of his rejected load before receiving a new load. Just Sayin…RJS
I believe this happened during the Christmas break... (
show quote)
I worked for my uncle who was a paving contractor for 25 years and when ever we had any leftover loads we would take them out to the ranch and do some gravel road overlays. Just roughed it in with the grader and wheel rolled it…
🐟on
Robert J Samples wrote:
I believe this happened during the Christmas break of my senior year in high school. Word got out that anyone who was 18 years old or older, could get a job driving a dump truck loaded with hot mix to the portion of U.S. highway 82, where they were re-surfacing the road west of Gainesville and all the way to Saint Jo, Texas.
This was immediately jumped on by several us seniors. All we had to do was show our drivers' license and social security cards to get hired. I suppose they were quite desperate to hire high school kids.
The dump trucks would haul four tons of hot mix and the trip was almost 20 miles. As a driver, you got a receipt ticket for each round trip. It wasn’t a big money maker, because you seldom could make more than three or four trips per day. But it was something to do with an element of danger.
The hot mix plant was just outside of Saint Jo, so we would get there and line up with our trucks to receive a load of hot mix, then with the 8,000 loads take off as fast as possible to where it would be dumped into a Barber Green machine to spread and resurface the highway. If the state had specified the temperature was acceptable, the driver was given a ticket. If the temperature was not acceptable, then the driver had the responsibility of getting rid of that load and go back for another load!
Only one time did I have a load rejected. I came back into Muenster and stopped at the Ford Dealership and asked if anyone there wanted a load of hot mix for their driveway. I accepted a bid of $10 and directions on where to take my load, I drove to the location, dumped my load, and then on back to the plant. As I’ve previously mentioned we didn’t make much money, but it was fun driving these dump trucks as fast as they would go.
After all these years, I can still see where some of my classmates dumped rejected loads they couldn’t sell and the state would not accept because of the temperature wasn’t in the correct range. Where the highway in Saint Jo splits and highway 82 goes on west, there is another highway going toward Montague. In the piece of vacant land in this Y there remain some piles of hot mix dumped there because the driver had to get rid of his rejected load before receiving a new load. Just Sayin…RJS
I believe this happened during the Christmas break... (
show quote)
Nice story RJ makes me think back to when I was 18.
Sounds like a lot of people missed a golden opportunity to get their driveway paved! Too bad!
Billycrap2
Loc: Mason county,W(BY GOD) Virginia, 🇺🇸🦅
Robert J Samples wrote:
I believe this happened during the Christmas break of my senior year in high school. Word got out that anyone who was 18 years old or older, could get a job driving a dump truck loaded with hot mix to the portion of U.S. highway 82, where they were re-surfacing the road west of Gainesville and all the way to Saint Jo, Texas.
This was immediately jumped on by several us seniors. All we had to do was show our drivers' license and social security cards to get hired. I suppose they were quite desperate to hire high school kids.
The dump trucks would haul four tons of hot mix and the trip was almost 20 miles. As a driver, you got a receipt ticket for each round trip. It wasn’t a big money maker, because you seldom could make more than three or four trips per day. But it was something to do with an element of danger.
The hot mix plant was just outside of Saint Jo, so we would get there and line up with our trucks to receive a load of hot mix, then with the 8,000 loads take off as fast as possible to where it would be dumped into a Barber Green machine to spread and resurface the highway. If the state had specified the temperature was acceptable, the driver was given a ticket. If the temperature was not acceptable, then the driver had the responsibility of getting rid of that load and go back for another load!
Only one time did I have a load rejected. I came back into Muenster and stopped at the Ford Dealership and asked if anyone there wanted a load of hot mix for their driveway. I accepted a bid of $10 and directions on where to take my load, I drove to the location, dumped my load, and then on back to the plant. As I’ve previously mentioned we didn’t make much money, but it was fun driving these dump trucks as fast as they would go.
After all these years, I can still see where some of my classmates dumped rejected loads they couldn’t sell and the state would not accept because of the temperature wasn’t in the correct range. Where the highway in Saint Jo splits and highway 82 goes on west, there is another highway going toward Montague. In the piece of vacant land in this Y there remain some piles of hot mix dumped there because the driver had to get rid of his rejected load before receiving a new load. Just Sayin…RJS
I believe this happened during the Christmas break... (
show quote)
Enjoy your piece of history there RJS 👍🏽👍🏽
Thank you 👍🏽👍🏽
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