Great-grandfather retires from truck driving after life spent on the road
Jim Olson isn’t one of those guys who was counting the days until retirement.
Indeed, the 70-year-old great-grandfather said the decision to leave his almost four decades of truck driving for Wenberg Transfer was quite difficult.
The decision literally marks a milestone.
Without a single accident, Olson has traveled over four million miles of highway, tucked inside his freight-hauler’s cab. The environment becomes a very personal space, he said wistfully.
“It was bittersweet — cleaning out my truck Saturday morning by myself,” Olson recounted. “It’s really hard to leave.”
In the age of job-hopping, a singular employment the length of Olson’s becomes more and more unique. Olson has delivered thousands of shipments from Borderland to the Twin Cities and other locales in the tri-state region, unloading them and then reloading for the return trip.
Part of the reluctance Olson feels is due to the bond he shares with the Wenbergs, whose trucking business began in 1924. In his 38 years of service to Wenberg Transfer, the Wenbergs have been like family, Olson said, sharing the hurts and the joys in life.
“‘Little John’ and I are more like brothers; we started about the same time,” Olson said, referring to the company’s current owner, John Wenberg, grandson of founder and patriarch Sig Wenberg.
“Best part about it is that in 38 years with John, we’ve never had an argument,” Olson noted.
But after two knee replacements, two bouts of cancer, and a recent hip replacement, Olson said it is time to turn a corner and discover some new avenues.
Olson said he’s missed a lot on the home front because of his constant traveling. Although wife Jeannette still works two days a week at a local care center, the couple hopes to make up some lost time with Jim no longer on the road.
Soon after their marriage in 1962, the Olsons arrived in International Falls from the Baudette/Warroad area. The Falls is a place in which the young couple had said they’d never reside — mainly because of the paper mill’s trademark odors. “But God has a sense of humor,” Olson said.
During an initial six-year stint at the Falls mill, Olson’s over-the-road career was ignited when he answered the Wenbergs’ need for a driver to haul furniture for the local Kordel store. The part-time job soon found him traveling to the Twin Cities on his days off from the mill. That work grew to an offer by John Wenberg Sr. for a full-time position in which Olson began hauling the belongings of families who were moving in and out of the tri-state area. The job then progressed to procuring freight at northern Minnesota sites.
Olson’s responsibilities ultimately evolved to hauling Boise paper and Sploxes from the local mill to Minneapolis, five round trips a week. Often reloading with LTL (less than truckload) freight, he’d head home to Borderland each day.
“That’s one of the hardest parts of leaving — those people at stops along the way ...,” Olson lamented.
There are other strong memories from his travels, one being a close call on Interstate 694 one treacherous morning. Seared in Olson’s mind is a near collision on glare ice and the image of a little girl’s terror staring up at him from the back seat of her car.
“I was just holding on waiting for the crash,” Olson remembered, thankful that a guard rail changed a potentially tragic outcome.
Olson’s schedule routed him around the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, but he was one of the first truckers to cross the new bridge in the summer of 2008. Olson also remembers driving on Christmas Day to haul a load of Insulite to Minot, N.D.
But it’s family time now, Olson said, and he and Jeannette who live a faith-based life will have more time to continue involvement in their church. Jim conducts a Promise Keepers Bible Study at their home on Saturdays.
They’ll do more entertaining, including having friends over for dinner and traveling to see their son Jeff, who resides in San Diego, Calif.; and daughter and son-in-law, Janelle and Russ, who live in Brainerd. Two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren will also sweeten retirement, Olson said.
“It’s OK to go — much as I hate to,” he added. “I’m going to miss them (the Wenbergs). Life is going to be different.”
