AUBURN – Perched on the back of Alton “Sandy” Wing’s living room couch is a shiny black plaque, thanking him for 60 years of service to the trucking industry.
It was a little premature.
Wing, 92, actually retired two weeks ago – for real, this time – after 75 years in the trucking industry.
“I’ve always been fascinated by trucks. … I just love them,” said Wing. “Everything – what you wear, what you eat – had to be trucked. Trucks will always be essential. It’s a matter of supply and demand.”
A native of Canada, Wing began his career in 1930 running errands for his uncle’s company, Wing’s Express in Haverhill, Mass. He soon got his driver’s license and spent the next five years hauling goods all over New England.
In 1935, his uncle decided to branch into Maine and sent Sandy to Lewiston to check things out.
“I supposedly came to Maine for one week, and I’ve been here ever since,” said Wing with a chuckle.
He continued to work for Wing’s through 1962, delivering raw materials and picking up finished goods from dozens of area mills.
“Shoe and textile manufacturers were the primary customers,” said Wing, noting that there were 62 shoe-making businesses and nine mills in Lewiston-Auburn at the time. “Now it’s all in China. It’s too bad.”
The company was sold in 1962 and Wing elected to go to Sanborn Express in Norway, where he spent the next 24 years, working primarily as a sales rep. He worked with customers and oversaw safety guidelines as the company grew.
And in 1977, at age 65, he took his first stab at retirement. But he said that “over a good meal and a cold beer,” H. Blaine Sanborn, the company’s CEO, convinced him to bring his nearly 50 years of experience back to the firm and work as a consultant.
Wing continued to work for the company even after it was sold in 1986 to APA Transport Corp. He was on the road by 5 a.m., calling on customers in the wood products industry throughout the most rural sections of Maine.
With the forest-based industry in decline, he made a second run at retirement in 1990.
“Sandy is not only a terrific guy, which is an important asset in sales, but nobody knows the business better than he does,” said Kevin McCauly, an APA regional sales coordinator, in a company newsletter acknowledging his retirement
But after four months, Wing was summoned back, this time by Fowler’s Express.
“Mr. Fowler called me and asked me to work for him,” said Wing, smiling at the memory. They agreed on a part-time arrangement, with Wing working familiar territory as a sales rep.
He’d still be at it, too, if it weren’t for advancing arthritis in his legs. His 94-year-old buddy, Horace Fields, is still working at Fowler’s.
Fields was among the 55 people who feted Wing at a retirement party at the Village Inn. Many were customers Wing worked with over the decades he’s been in Maine. Among the gifts was the plastic bust of a man’s head, its exposed brain delineated by function. It was given to Wing by company president L. N. Fowler, as a thank-you for allowing him to pick his brain for the four years Wing worked there.
“The party made me feel pretty good,” said Wing, displaying some of the cards, letters and gifts he received.
He figures this time he’ll stay retired, although he’d be open to offers of occasional work. He enjoys his neat-as-a-pin home, which he shares with his son, Bill, and cat, Glory. He still drives, and took a quick trip to Massachusetts recently for a look at his old Merrimack Valley stomping ground. And he stays active in church and civic groups.
“I don’t know how I found time to work before,” he said with a chuckle.
Will he miss the trucking business?
“Oh sure. I still have some ideas, you know …”
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