More from our agent in VA...Hampton Roads

The way I became an Arpin agent in the beginning is somewhat interesting. I had a very small operation in mid coast Maine. So small that I was Mr. Mom quite often, having fashioned a “crib” for Chad out of a 6.0 cube in my little office. I was looking for a carrier to work with, and after calling all of them, Arpin was the only one willing to talk to me. Jack Cotter came up to see me, but I had to meet him in Bath, ME as I guess he didn’t want to drive the rest of the way up. We meet in a Holiday Inn restaurant and signed right there. Why I didn’t turn and run then I’ll never know.

I had a job out of Rockland, Maine. It was for one, if not the last fish canning companies to can sardines and herring in the state. They were moving their corporate office to Anderson, SC. We had to load on Friday and have them all set up by Monday morning. The last piece on and first off was a ticker tape type of a machine that their worldwide orders came from. One part of the office stuff was a “lab” that they used to test the canning process. They would deliberately try to spoil the contents, causing botulism. That way they knew what abuse the can could take I guess. Well any way, I had an overflow of non-priority items that I asked Arpin dispatch to try and cover for me. So a few days after I get back from SC, I get a call from Don H. saying he has a driver for the shipment…but there is a problem. Seems the drivers ex-wife lived in Maine, had some kind of a restraining order on him and he wasn’t allowed in the state. Don wanted to know if I could meet him in New Hampshire. By now the customer was looking for the “non-priority” stuff, so Brenda and I, with Chad in a car seat between us, travel to Portsmouth and in the parking lot of the state liquor store at Portsmouth circle, we transfer this shipment. Well part of the non-priory stuff was 8-10 cases of canned sardines and herring steaks. These never made it to South Carolina. As a matter of fact, you could still find a quick lunch of sardines at the warehouse at corporate for many months after that. I never did know if those cases were from the “lab” or not.