Whenever possible here at the newspaper we try to anticipate our supply needs and order when we expect the weather will cooperate. But sometimes, it doesn’t work out like we expect.
During the lunch hour on Monday a paper company truck driver appeared at the front counter telling us he had four pallets of paper to unload.
When we placed the order, we knew the alley and the drive that serve our north storage building would likely be coated with ice and snow so we made other plans. We were thankful the paper was to be delivered on Monday, a day the Corner Nook is normally closed. We cleared and had an ice free path from the street in front of the Corner Nook to our south pressroom doors. Our plan was for the driver to stop his truck in front of the Corner Nook and use his electric pallet jack to roll the pallets across the street, through out pressroom and bindery into the north storage area. The person taking the order was told to instruct the driver to telephone about 15 minutes before arriving and we would explain the unloading plan.
When he arrived at our front counter, he reported he had parked the truck in the alley near the large garage door. We questioned his ability to unload there with all the ice and snow. He expressed confidence that it could be accomplished.
The garage door was frozen down but with persuasion it opened.
The first pallet was brought out onto the truck’s hydraulic endgate and lowered to the alley. But at that location, the pallet jack’s drive wheel spun without moving the load.
The driver moved his truck forward a couple times until he found a place where the jack would work. It took a few tries to find the route with the least ice but finally the 2,000 lb. load was inside the building. The driver went back for another load.
I didn’t want to venture out onto the ice and I waited. I couldn’t see what the driver was doing but I could see the endgate wasn’t moving. I was about to venture out to see what the problem was when the driver reported there was something wrong and his endgate was not going up.
Oh no! With the endgate in the down position, we couldn’t unload the truck with a forklift and the truck could not be moved though it was blocking vehicles parked on the west side of the alley.
The driver tried to call his boss in Omaha but his cell phone was not working any better on that call than it did on the one he attempted to our office.
Clinton and I went back inside where it was warmer and returned to work on the current issue of the newspaper.
After 30 minutes or so, the driver came in said he thought he could get the lift to work if he had a battery charger.
No problem. I said I could provide a battery charger. He noted it would take a long extension cord to power the charger. He was amazed when I reported we had both a charger and a long extension cord. After charging the battery for an hour or so, he was back in business. The lift apparently worked. When he next returned to the newspaper office, he reported the load was off and stored without my assistance. He didn’t hang around to visit as he had more stops to make before returning to Omaha.
Thankfully, he hadn’t taken my suggestion and parked in front of the Corner Nook for my extension cord would not have reached an open power source.
When I joined The Express crew about 55 years ago, All 130 boxes would have been taken off the truck one at a time and the trucker’s dolly used to wheel them inside where they would have been stacked by hand. That would have meant lifting more than 7 tons of paper.
But we wouldn’t have had to do that for in 1970 we didn’t have room to store that much paper and ordered smaller lots.
Sometimes change is for the good.
I marvel that about 100 years ago my grandfather moved the Superior water tower from the train yard to its current location at the north edge of the community. Sure, it was in pieces awaiting assembly but those pieces couldn’t have been light. Not sure how he hauled it, but the biggest truck he ever owned was a Model T Ford. Likely it was moved with mule power.
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