At 83, age hasn’t slowed Howard Crover much as he’s still haulin’ logs

Sarah Brown

Some people are so married to something that the phrase, “It’s in their blood,” rings true for them.

That could be said of Howard Crover, who’s likely got splinters and fuel in his blood because he’s been haulin’ wood since he was a child.

He played with toy log trucks as a boy, delivered papers as a teen, and has driven trucks and hauled logs for more than 60 years.

Crover, who turned 83 last week, is still hauling logs and hasn’t stopped enjoying it.

He first drove in 1957 for Jerry Elliott, who had converted a dump truck into a log truck.

After a couple years with Elliott, Crover moved to Bend for a family emergency. There, he picked up odd jobs, doing custodial work and manufacturing balsa wood airplanes for North Pacific Products.

He also delivered fuel and stove oil – and did some choker setting for three days.

“That was three days too much for me,” Crover said. “I just was not ready to run up and down the hills.”

When he moved back to Lebanon, his dad warned there’d be no work because all the mills were on strike.

Crover said, “‘Dad, I got a wife and two little babies to support. I’m gonna find work.”

So he went out to Albany and spent the day searching. Upon returning, his dad asked with sarcasm how the job search went.

“I found three of them. I gotta figure out which one I want,” Crover told him.

Crover gets a kick out of that story, laughing when he recalled how his dad walked off and wouldn’t talk to him the rest of the day.

His first job was driving for Kenny Forslund, digging ditches and running jack hammers, odd jobs like that. After that, Crover drove a cabover for the first time, hauling gravel above Sheep Creek Road, followed by a stint driving crushed rock to build a wide lane for Euclid trucks to use while building Green Peter Dam.

Roy Stevens liked Crover, and hired him to haul logs. Crover stayed with that job for the next 15 years, up until 1978 when Stevens sold Crover his 1973 International.

“I never run anything but International up until 2016,” Crover said. “We used to call it the Cadillac of trucks, but now everybody calls Kenworth the Cadillac of trucks.”

That’s what Crover drives now for Schuster Brothers Trucking. He was 80 when he started working for Chad and Shaun Schuster.

“We bought a used truck, and Howard come with it,” Chad joked.

Though Crover was born in Portland, his parents were originally from Sweet Home, so the family moved back to the area in Lebanon in the early 1950s.

He joined the National Guard, graduated from Lebanon Union High in 1956, and met his wife, Charlene, at the Cottonwoods dance hall.

The pair had three sons together, Jimmy, Larry and Timothy.

Crover has lived eight decades and seen a lot of changes in the wood industry.

“The trucks used to be like that first one, small. They went from single axle to tandem trailer. Now they got three or four axles on them. They just keep gettin’ bigger and bigger and bigger,” he said.

And the trees have gotten smaller.

Safety regulations have tightened up a bit, too.

“I can remember back in the good ol’ days, somebody got hurt, they just threw the body out and took him home later at night. (They) don’t do that no more. If somebody gets hurt, you shut everything down and you call OSHA and they come out.”

He’s been through the housing boom and the spotted owl, and all that went along with the highs and lows.

“I went through all that. I never missed a lick,” he said.

And still he won’t quit.

“Why do I keep workin’? ‘Cause I like it. I just like drivin’ truck. The guys I work for are one of the best bosses I’ve ever had.”

He jokes he’ll probably retire when he’s six feet under.

“It’s getting harder and harder. I’d like to work another year if I could. When I start making mistakes, it’s time to quit.”

But even if he could go back and do his life over, driving log trucks would still be his choice.

“That’s all I wanted to be, as long as I can remember,” he said.

People who know Crover praise him as a respectful, generous and kind man.

“He’s a good ol’ guy,” Chad Schuster said. “He’s one of those guys you could ask him for anything.”

There’s just one thing Crover said he won’t do.

“When they say, ‘Kiss my what,’ I will not do that,” Crover said.

Even when he’s done hauling logs for the day, Crover will brush hog and till gardens for people, Schuster said.

“He’s as alert and smart and jokes as much as we do,” he noted.

And he loves everybody, he said.

“If you can have 100 people like him in your life, you’d be better off,” Schuster said.

Total
0
Share