Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 12, 1994 TAG: 9408120059
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LEIGH ANNE LARANCE Special to the Roanoke Times & World-News
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
The rule is a round-the-clock proposition for the Christiansburg couple, who spend most of their time rolling across pavement. The truck-driving pair hauls everything from aluminum to lumber to chili peppers to every corner of the country and spend only a few nights each month at home.
While trucking usually brings to mind a lonely lifestyle, the Eaneses are anything but lonely. In trucking they've found a profession where they can work for themselves, travel and spend time with each other.
The couple own and operate their own truck but contract with a company called Ligon, which schedules hauling jobs for independent truckers.
"The thing I like most is the freedom to go basically where I want and be in business for myself,'' Harold said. But once they take a job, they're committed.
"When we go pick up a load for GE, we're working for GE, not Ligon, not ourselves," Helen said.
They've been married since 1962, but they paired up on the highway after Harold, hauling a load to Michigan in 1983, fell and injured his back and wrist. He could still drive, but he wore a cast and had a hard time managing tarps, chains and other tools, so Helen rode shotgun to help. About four months later, the cast was gone, but Helen was there to stay.
Harold then encouraged his wife to try out the driver's seat, and they've been a trucking team ever since.
They consider themselves lucky. "We've talked to other drivers who've said, 'My wife came with me for a week. ... I couldn't wait to get her home, and she couldn't wait to get home.'"
The Eaneses do know of others like themselves, though.
Pat Jones of the American Trucking Association said it's fairly common for couples to drive together.
"It's more desirable for some owner-operators to operate as a team, whether husband and wife or otherwise ... so they can keep the equipment moving," he said.
The advantage for the Eaneses and for Ligon is that the loads keep rolling. If Harold gets tired, he crawls into the double bed in the rear of their spacious cab and lets his wife take over the wheel.
Truck and automobile drivers alike will envy one of the Eaneses' claims to fame: They're accident and claims free. That's no small feat, considering Harold has logged more than 3.3 million miles as a driver, and his wife has put in more than 200,000.
There was one little bump that did damage the truck but didn't count for the Eanes or their trucking company as an accident - a run-in with a moose in New Hampshire.
Harold said he'll never forget that trip. He jumped out of the cab and ran to check on the load and the truck. Even in the dark, he knew the crunched metal would mean a hefty bill. Helen rolled down the window and stuck her head out, and the look of concern on her face told Harold she was worried about the extent of the damages. He was wrong.
"Her first question was 'How's the moose?'" he said.
The moose didn't make it, but with $6,000 in repairs, the truck did. And to mark the occasion, the trucking company had a toy moose head mounted on a wooden plaque. That trophy hangs in their living room, a brass plate under it engraved with Helen's quote, which is now famous among family, friends and other drivers.
The couple met at Auburn High School, where Harold played basketball and Helen, two years his junior, was a cheerleader. He still remembers driving the school bus to away games - students were trusted with such jobs back then - with his favorite fan riding along.
They still live in the modest, immaculate house Harold built for his wife when they married, but the rural landscape that once surrounded them has evolved over the years into suburbia.
Helen described their neighborhood as a wonderful place to raise their son, Mike, who died of cancer at 15. His memory is with them everywhere - he smiles a bright-eyed smile in photographs throughout the house, and his bedroom is still the domain of a teen-age boy.
And one award in their living room - a 1980 safe-driving award from the Independent Haulers Association - makes both parents proud. "Mike nominated Harold for that award," Helen said. When he was 14, he'd read about the award in a publication delivered to the house and decided his dad was a sure winner. Harold didn't even know what his son had done until the association called to tell him he'd won.
Family ties are important to the Eanes, who grew up in Riner and Pilot and whose families still live in the area. Harold used to drive trucks for his father, a grocer who hauled his own produce from Florida. After graduating in 1959, he tried business school, but it wasn't long before he was back on the road, driving trucks and delivering merchandise for a local furniture store.
Soon he went into business for himself. Harold bought his first truck in 1968 for $19,000. The couple's most recent truck cost $92,000.
That truck, which is often parked on U.S. 460 near the bypass, is an impressive machine with Harold's and Helen's names painted on either side. Their son's name is in larger, cursive writing, on the outside of the cab.
It's got a television, refrigerator, and the equivalent of a closet and a small bureau. But don't call it their home away from home.
"It's a job," Harold said. "I would never give up my home for it."
That doesn't mean they don't like to travel.
Sometimes after they've made a delivery, they'll rent a car and see the sights. That's how they toured the Grand Canyon, Pike's Peak and Yellowstone. Harold has been in 48 of the 50 states.
The work isn't always easy. The Eaneses said one of their worst trips was taking a load of transformers to Utah. It was snowing a little as they climbed a winding, mountain road to make the delivery. By the time they were ready to drive back down, the road was blanketed and treacherous.
"I was apprehensive, because if it [the truck] breaks loose, you don't know what will happen," Harold said. But with a little luck, a lot of caution and white knuckles, they made it down safely.
For every bad trip, there's a good one. "The flag trip was our most memorable," Helen said. On that trip, they carried the Great American Flag - a seven-ton flag as long as 1 1/2 football fields - to a Freedom Festival in Evansville, Ind.
Each star is 13 feet across, and the stripes are 16 feet wide. The Eaneses brought the flag from its home in Washington, D.C., where it is displayed every Flag Day, to the special celebration. Evansville residents had a special claim to the flag because workers in an area factory stitched the cloth together. The festival was only the second time the mammoth flag had left the nation's capital.
Another highlight close to home was a trip to a local elementary school.
"You would have thought I was a movie star," Harold said. Students climbed in and out of the cab, examining every inch of the truck and asking questions. "They wanted to know if the TV had cable," Helen said.
The Eaneses keep pictures of the kids, along with pictures of past trucks, like a family album. Then they tuck the pictures away and climb into their cab, blow their horn and give a wave. They're off to pick up another load and log a few more miles.
by CNB