10-4 Magazine October 2021

Trucker Talk: By John & Kim Jaikes Sometimes the stars align in the universe and people and things are brought together when they are supposed to be. One of my passions in life has been to preserve the thousands of photos taken by my dear friend Bette Garber, documenting trucking history, from the late 1970s till she passed on November 13, 2008. Since then, her boxes of slides have put on some miles, traveling from Pennsylvania to Mexico to Wisconsin to Florida to Wisconsin, then back to near where Bette lived in Pennsylvania, then one more trip to Wisconsin, as I have tried to find a way (and a person) to help accomplish this task. Well, I am happy to say, I think it will finally happen. The perfect alignment happened when our friends Chuck Kemner and Dave Sweetman told us about a young man named Mark Harter who helped them with the NAST calendars. They believed he would be able to help with Bette’s slides, too. Our goal is to get them out of the boxes and preserved, so the next generation, who probably doesn’t even know who Bette was, can enjoy them and learn from her work. Mark is friends with 10-4’s very own monthly poem author, Trevor Hardwick, and these two refer to each other as “brothers from another mother” – and both are walking encyclopedias of trucking information, be it trucks or people in the trucking industry. Growing up, Mark never deviated from wanting to be a truck driver. No one in his family was in trucking, but Mark’s inspiration came from the show BJ and the Bear. He fell in love with that red and white K100 Aerodyne and Greg Evigan’s character on the show. Later, at a truck show, he actually got to meet Greg and get pictures with him. Mark remembers his kindergarten teacher asking, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” And his answer was, “Be a truck driver.” His dad would take him to truck shows when he was still in school, even letting him “play hooky” in high school to go to the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY. Calvin Cochran, one of Mark’s friends, taught him how to drive while still in high school. He learned in a 1959 B Model Mack with a 300 Maxidyne and a Quadruplex transmission. While he waited to turn 21, he worked at Central Indiana Mack in Indianapolis. After he turned 21, he took his driving test and got his CDL, then started driving for PGT Trucking out of Monaca, PA. Fast forward six months and Mark was at a truck show hanging out with driving legend Dave Sweetman and Frank Malatesta, the owner of Horseless Carriage. Frank took a liking to Mark and offered him his dream job. Dave was very influential and helped Mark a lot with some “on the job” training. Mark loved his years hauling those awesome cars, but hauling steel was his favorite, so in 2001 he went back to PGT. Life was going great for Mark, and he had a job that he loved. Then, on August 16, 2005, his life came crashing down when he got into a motorcycle accident. Mark has no memory of the accident and there were no witnesses. Officer’s think it was a hit and run. Mark was in a coma for about a month. His driving career ended that night, as the accident left him legally blind, with only 20/400 vision in one eye. It’s been a tough road, but Mark has had good friends help him during the most difficult times. Duncan Putman was one friend who he met in 1990 through the ATHS. Duncan is his own story, but we will save that for another day. Oddly enough, it was in 1990 at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree that I met Bette Garber for the first time, and that is when Mark met Duncan. Others who helped Mark included Tim Begle, David Dudo, RJ Taylor, Dave Sweetman and Chuck Kemner. Even with his very limited vision, Mark can do some amazing things. He has a big computer screen, and he can still take some great pictures, like he did in Walcott, IA this year. He has helped put together the NAST calendars and has a lot of knowledge about how to use his computer and several programs. With the help of our friend Su Schmerheim, all of Bette’s boxes of 80 10-4 Magazine / October 2021 PRESERVING HISTORY