10-4 Magazine December 2021

Cover Feature: By Daniel J. Linss was not in school. At about 10 or 11 years old, he got tall enough and strong enough to push in the clutch on those old trucks, and he began washing trucks on the weekends. His dad, and many of the other drivers at the company, would leave money in the truck and C.G. would unhook it, drive it into the wash bay, wash it, drive it out, and then re-hook it. C.G. was so excited to drive everyone’s truck, he would have done this job for free – but they paid him ($20 for a daycab and $25 for a sleeper truck). We could earn up to $200 on any given weekend, and this was in the 1980s – and he was only 11 years old, so that was a lot of money. Leaving Trevis Berry Transpor tation in 1988, Corny moved the family to Merced, CA. Every time we leave our house there is a chance we won’t make it back home. Whether we are heading out on a cross-country delivery or just going to the store, we should always consider what could happen and do all we can to alleviate those chances as much as possible. C.G. Soza (46) of Atwater, CA is painfully aware of this danger after a terrible accident claimed the lives of his wife and son. They left and never came home. As a daily reminder of how fragile life can be, and to keep him focused on his family, he added the phrase “Always Headed Home” to the back of his visor, because from the moment he leaves on a run he is already thinking about getting home and vigilantly working to assure that he makes it back safely. With trucking in his DNA, C.G. Soza is a third generation trucker. His grandfather, Cornelio Valencia (C.V.) Soza lived in Phoenix, AZ and star ted hauling hay and produce in the 1920s. C.G.’s dad, Cornelio Silva (Corny) Soza, was born in 1939. He star ted hauling hay out of the fields at 14 years old, and then began running to California, hauling produce, at 18 years old in a gas-powered 1936 GMC with a 20’ flatbed. At the time, it was the biggest and baddest truck on the road! Corny loved California so much, he moved there. And not long after that, he got a job at Trevis Berry Transpor tation out of Gilroy, CA. Staying there until 1988, Corny ran for this outfit for 36 long years. Always an owner-operator with his own trucks, Corny loved 2-axle Freightliner cabovers, and had several of them over the years. He bought a brand-new one every ten years, and these are the trucks C.G. cut his teeth in (actually, he probably grew his first teeth in one of them). Meeting C.G.’s mom Virginia at a truck stop in Tucson, AZ where she was a waitress, the two got married in 1971. C.G. (Cornelio George) Soza was born a few years later in 1975. Strapping the car seat to the doghouse of his Freightliner cabover, Corny took C.G. and his mom out on the road with him almost every day for four years until C.G.’s younger brother Carlos came along. The other drivers teased Corny that he had put diesel fuel in C.G.’s baby bottle, because this kid loved trucks from day one (still does). Going out with his dad whenever possible, C.G. spent every moment in the truck when he 10 10-4 Magazine / December 2021 ALWAYS HEADED HOME