10-4 Magazine May 2022

10-4 Magazine / May 2022 55 appealed to us, so we just kept driving. Somehow, we got on the subject of old time truck stops, then began naming as many as we could remember. Back in the early 80s, I ran a lot of local loads between northern Ohio, southern Michigan, and the eastern tip of Indiana. In those days there were many union freight companies operating in that region. Almost every town along the major routes had a mom-and-pop diner or a hamburger stand that catered to those drivers on a schedule. At the time, I was working for a tanker company, delivering food grade oil for a major potato chip supplier. We loaded just south of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and then delivered a couple miles from the Detroit metro airport. These were fill-in runs and not very desirable, but every driver took his turn, whether they liked it or not. The only bright spot doing these runs was you could stop at the Vagabond Diner and Fuel Stop on Hwy. 24 at US Route 127 in the town of Cecil, Ohio. The name now is the Vagabond Village. I had heard rumor they were still open but didn’t really believe it would be the same as before. Since the age of Covid it’s hard to find any restaurants that still have a buffet or even enough wait staff to take your order in a timely fashion. I have to remind myself from time to time the problem isn’t with the waiters who are serving us, it’s with the ones who still haven’t returned to work. For those of you not familiar with this area, the “new road” (Interstate 24) runs two miles to the south of the old road and all those drivers that roll past now do not realize there is an awesome meal waiting for them just off the exit. There is still limited parking and no overnight space available, but back in the day we rolled right past their front door. We called that diner “the supper club” and all our company drivers knew where we meant to stop (if we said the real name on the radio than everybody would stop and we wouldn’t be able to find a parking spot when we got there). Barb and I stopped at this place right at the dinner hour on a Sunday, and the place was packed with local folks. I inquired as to why they were all there on that day, expecting to learn of some civic event taking place in town, but nope, not that, they all said, “It’s the food!” I have to agree, by the time we left I was sold, and we will be going back again to support them and help to ensure they stay in business for years to come. As we finished our meal and were waiting to pay, I couldn’t help but notice how little the place had changed over the years. Sure, they had spruced it up a little, but it still looked and felt like the diner of the old days. They still have counter service and a few booths, but the rest are tables with wooden chairs. The young girl running the cash register couldn’t believe I had been stopping at this place for over 40 years. Oddly enough, the more we change, the more some things just stay the same. After leaving the restaurant we continued to meander our way through the countryside and talking about where I used to go and the kinds of freight I hauled in or out of those places. The town names are still the same, but most of the businesses have changed, grown, or are gone all together. It is sad it see so many of these small businesses fall by the wayside. Even before this last couple of years and the Covid thing, many of them were on the way out due to the cost of technology, labor, and the fact that so many of the jobs were sent overseas. Somewhere in the past I had heard that as long as people live here there will always be a need for truck drivers. Well, that may be true, but along with all those businesses that closed, we too may be replaced by driverless trucks or people from someplace else. I was getting a little bit nostalgic by the time we reached our little town, and when we turned down the road to Aunt Barb’s Cafe (our house), I got a real blast from the past. Driving by one of our neighbor’s farms, there sat the first new truck I ever drove. The one I ran New York City with for almost three years. In my mind I saw the truck as it was 40 years ago when we picked it up at the dealership. The pages of 10-4