High fuel costs, a stroke and then even higher fuel prices have one trucking couple leaning heavily on friends and family. And thinking it’s time to get off the road.

HARTFORD – Long-distance trucker Herman Brown Jr. sat in the driver’s seat of his 2005 Peterbuilt last week, parked in his yard near Bear Pond.

He switched on the ignition and the shiny black-and-chrome big rig rumbled to life. Brown, 49, savored the moment.

Since suffering a stroke on Jan. 21 – three days after returning from a hauling job – he’s been recovering slowly and unable to work for Brown and Associates, the trucking company he and his wife, Kimberly, own.

They also own the rig and had been hauling heavy equipment for friend Jerry Emerson of Emerson Trucking Inc. of Rochester, N.H.

The Browns attribute the stroke to stress about rising diesel fuel prices, which, last May, forced them to drop their $800-a-month health insurance coverage. Life insurance coverage was also let go.

“It was either pay the fuel or health insurance,” Kimberly said. “He wants to go back to work, but the chance of him having another stroke has increased because of the first one.”

So now, instead of semi-retiring in two years like they’d planned when the rig would be paid for, the Browns put it up for sale on April 7. If it sells, they will use the money to pay bills and reimburse family members who stepped in to help when creditors came calling.

Herman, a Farmington native, and his wife have been married 31 years, and have lived in western Maine for more than 26 years.

When the stroke hit, they were two months behind on their house payments.

They live in a 76-by-14-foot trailer, paying $28,000 for it in 1991.

However, after working 19 years as a mechanic for Decoster and then hauling wood for Stratton Lumber in Eustis, they refinanced the home to buy their own rig in 2006 for $100,000.

“I haven’t made a cent since the stroke,” Herman said. “If it weren’t for working for Jerry, the bank would have come and got the truck. … My daughter and her husband are also taking care of everything. Every time someone comes banging on the door for money, she pays them. I owe her a fortune.

“My family has been taking pretty good care of me, and my mom and step-dad have been sending me money. It ain’t easy to take money from your family.”

Last year, the couple hauled heavy equipment across the country, grossing $194,000, Kimberly said.

However, they paid out $194,400 in fuel, fees, tolls, taxes, permits, surcharges, trucking-related bills and other bills. Diesel fuel alone accounted for $50,000 to $75,000.

At 2007 diesel fuel prices, it cost them $1,000 just to fill the truck’s 300-gallon tank. Depending on load weights, the rig only gets 4 to 4.5 miles to a gallon. Annually, they averaged 97,000 hauling miles.

That’s why they try to get $3 a mile for hauling jobs. However, due to the high price of diesel fuel, good-paying hauling jobs are now scarce because no one is moving equipment.

“Last year was the first year that we went in the hole. We generally average $100,000 to $150,000 and half of that goes to fuel. Everyone’s out to take money from your wallet. By the time you get done, there ain’t a lot you got left,” Herman said.

The Browns also pay $3,000 a month for the truck and trailer. Rig insurance costs another $700 a month and regular maintenance totaled $14,000 last year.

“When I was a kid, we used to buy (diesel) for 15 cents. Diesel was always cheaper than regular gas because it isn’t refined as much. In 2001, the price of diesel was $1.25 a gallon and I thought that was pretty high. We all said that when diesel hits $3 a gallon, we’d give (trucking) up, but we hung on, and now it’s up above $4. It’s getting bad,” Herman said.

On Thursday, around Farmington and Rumford, diesel was $4.39 a gallon. Nationwide, it was $4.20.

“There are a lot of truckers like us who are going under,” he said.

“Somebody’s got to do something for the truck drivers,” Kimberly said.

He has even sought help from Congress by writing to U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, but has yet to get a response.

Herman said recent trucker strikes and fuel protest stoppages – including a large one planned early next month in Washington, D.C. – are ineffective.

“On April 1, I knew they were having a strike, but CNN only covered five seconds of it. I said, ‘Wow, that’s going to help a lot.’ If you let your truck roll over and it goes off the road, you get half an hour” of news footage, he said.

The only way such fuel protest stoppages would work, he said, is if every trucker parks their rig in New York City and refuses to budge for a week.

“If everyone stopped delivering to New York City for a week and did something else, they’d be heard, because New York City couldn’t get by without trucking.

“But you’ll never see everybody get together, because people can’t afford to stop. People now are ready to lose their trucks and equipment, so they’re picking up any loads they can get to get money so that when their truck gets (repossessed) they will have the money to go and get a cheaper truck and start over,” he said.

As for the Browns’ future, Kimberly said that depends on if their truck sells and what the doctor will allow Herman to do for work. It doesn’t look like it will be trucking.

Even though her husband’s father and stepfather were long-distance truckers, Kimberly and other family members don’t want Herman returning to it. That’s why they’re selling the rig.

“My wife wanted to do it (sell the rig) all along, but I said, ‘Wait, I’m going to get better,’ … But the price of fuel went up and the price per mile of jobs is still the same, so it blew that all to the dickens,” Herman said.

Go and do:

A benefit supper will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 24, at Boofy Quimby Hall in Turner. Cost is $10; with dancing until 10 p.m., an additional $5. Donation jugs are also available in various stores in Turner for anyone who would like to help Herman and Kimberly Brown Jr. FMI: Bonnie Pease, 685-9072.

“We all said that when diesel hits $3 a gallon, we’d give (trucking) up, but we hung on, and now it’s up above $4. It’s getting bad.”
Herman Brown