When complete this page will contain information on my interests, my family, my life along with pictures of myself and my truck(s). At the moment, it is under construction and probably will take a while to complete. I will add more links to either business opportunities or just great places to visit on the web.
The picture of the truck I would like to buy is now added below, as well as one of me which was taken on Mother's Day weekend, 1997. There are more to come! The one I am dealing on is Mignight Blue Metallic, I couldn't find a red one. ;-( ... Have to settle for what is available at this time!!!
Well, sorry to say the Mack will be put on hold for a while. I haven't been able to find the financing I need although I do have a good down payment for it. I am going another route to owning my own truck and the folks I am dealing with deal only in Peterbilts and Freightliners. Since the new Freightliners now have the distinction of being the ugliest trucks on the road these days, I am opting for the Peterbilt. At least, I can get a RED one! Within 2 years I will be able to get the RED Mack I want! So hang in there, I will get it yet!! NOTE: September 14, 2000: No Peterbilt or Mack yet - did a mojor addition to my home instead. Still in the process of finishing that. Working on financing again for the truck.
Thanks,
Classy Lady - or as I'm known in the trucking world, Rainy Day Lady!
ELNORA
Some Basic History
I was raised in a small town in West Texas - Seagraves, born in an even smaller one - O'Donnell, whose claim to fame is that Dan Blocker was also born there. He was my mother's grocery boy before I was born. My parents were Eugene Fulton Riggs and Henrietta Elnora Bayer Riggs. My parents and my brother, Eugene A., arrived in Southern California with me the day I was one month old. We settled in Lincoln Village division of Long Beach. My father worked in the Long Beach shipyards as a welder and ship fitter during WWII. We moved back to Texas when I was 3 years old.
We spent one year in O'Donnell working on my father's uncle's farm, then moved to Seagraves. I attended school in Seagraves for 12 years. I hold 10 perfect attendance awards from the Seagraves school system, having missed only 2 days in Second Grade with the measles and 1 one hour class in my Senior year. I graduated High School in May, 1959. From there, I attended the University of Texas in the Fall of 1959.
I was married to my first husband, Perry Davis, on January 29, 1961. We were married in the Interfaith Chapel on the campus of Texas A&M. Perry got a job teaching school beginning in the Fall of 1961 in a small town Northwest of Dallas, Coppell. Our first son, Tony Allen, was born on November 4, 1961. I worked for a short time as a receptionist/trainee bookkeeper in Dallas. I quit that job to stay home and be a full time mother and wife.
Our second son, James Anthony, was born on December 25, 1963. I got to bring James home from the hospital in a Christmas Stocking. What a thrill to have a son born on our Lord's Birthday!!
Our third son, Clay Ashley, was born on January 22, 1965. He weighed in at 9 pounds, 6 ounces. I decided I had better quit having babies before I had a really big one!
We moved from Dallas to Denver, Colorado, as a family in June, 1965. The boys, our two dogs and half my household belongings in my 1963 Comet convertible went through the tail end of the "Great Flood" that hit Denver in June, 1965. Perry had gone ahead about a month earlier to get a place to live and start his new job there. The boys were 3 years, 7 months old; 1 year, 6 months old and 5 months old respectively. That was a scary time for me, almost getting washed off the road at times. There is still one truck driver out there somewhere I owe a big Thank You to for bringing oranges and sweet rolls to my car to feed the boys when we were all stranded by the flood just below Raton, New Mexico. If perhaps you see this, Mr. Trucker from Trinidad, Colorado, know that I have thanked you more than once in the past 30 or more years.
Perry and I were married 17 years, six months and thirteen days when our divorce was final on August 11, 1978. After the initial disappointment, bitterness and hurt, we became best friends. Something we just didn't do while married - or maybe we did, just had too much other activity with raising the boys and jobs.
There's a lot more in between those events, the current ones and the coming one(s). I just had to put this picture of "my" new truck on here. I just found it on the Mack Trurk page the other night while surfing the web. I have been busily adding it to my personal pages ever since!!
I am also currently taking a course in creative writing for children and teenagers. I am almost finished with the course and have two manuscripts suitable for presentation to a publisher at this time. Along that same line, I am also writing a novel about the 3½ years I spent with and married to my last husband, con-man/bigamist Daniel W. Reul. He was married to another woman when he married me. That was bad enough, and we got a divorce from her. However, when I started researching his past, I found that he made a habit of having 2 and 3 marriages at a time since his arrival in the United States in 1979. He is French and was born in Switzerland. His story is that he is a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel, a POW in Viet Nam for 44 months and a lot more. The name of my book is "Who Needs a Soap Opera?". I am over half finished with it. I will keep updates on these two projects here on this page.
I came to a standstill in writing my book. There is a particularly painful segment of that part of my life that I just could not write about. At the present time, I have a new love in my life and have gotten past the block I had at that time and am able to write again. I guess the Joan Rivers adadge is true: "The best way to get over an old love is to get under a new one!" (I heard her say this on a talk show quite some time ago and had not thought of it until I started 'getting over' my last husband.)
I became a truck driver in the fall of 1986. I pulled my first load on September 30, 1986. It was an oversize load. I fell in love with truck driving and have been in and out of a truck ever since. I am now in the process of obtaining financing that will enable me to purchase my own semi tractor again.
I have driven for several companies as well as having my own trucking authority and running my own trucks. I have been a driver trainer with the training of three girls who thought they wanted to be a trucker. I know one made it for sure, as we still stay in contact. I don't know about my first trainee, all I know is that she wasn't working for the same company where I trained her only three weeks after getting her on her truck. My third trainee washed out after two weeks with me. According to her, that was all my fault - I was too hard on her and no one had told her of the hardships a woman driver goes through out on the road. (?)
When the financing and dealing is all done, I will be "On the Road Again" doing what I love best! Hopefully, it will all come together for me in the next few weeks. Check back regularly for updates on this venture. See you down the road!!
I went back to work on October 4, 1998, driving for a company I won't mention. That didn't work well as they didn't stand up to their promises made when they hired me. I changed companies in January, 1999. Went to work for Texas American eXpress, Inc. (TAXI) I did very well there. I trained my third trainee there, as well. When I took a team partner (now my sweetheart), my miles went down and down, so we changed and drove for North Texas Express. In order for us to make any money there due to the slow weak truck we were assigned, we separated to single trucks. After a while, he went to another company, Wither's Brothers Trucking, for better mileage, and I followed after five weeks. There I was treated as if I were handicapped (the only woman driver. After a month of that, I was fed up, he was fed up with the boss nosing into our private affairs (being very verbal about it) so we both quit and came home for a month.
Now, I am still home, he is on the road and I have time to update my web pages and do some more finishing on my home.
Elnora
efr327@msn.com
or
ClassyLadyII@USA.net
Rt. 1, Box 289
Brownwood, Texas 76801
United States of America