Rollin' 18 Podcast

AT&T Data Breach Alert, Miss Flatbed Red's Artistic Journey, and Truck Show Highlights

• Walter Gatlin • Season 1 • Episode 31

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Could your personal data be at risk? We kick off this episode of the Rolling 18 Podcast with urgent news about a significant security breach at AT&T that has compromised customer information. This alarming incident underscores the importance of safeguarding our personal data in today's digital age. Following this critical update, I'm excited to bring you an inspiring conversation with Miss Flatbed Red, a gifted artist and social media maven who has carved out a unique niche capturing the charm of classic semi-trucks. From sketching pet portraits to immortalizing the grandeur of historic rigs, she shares how a trip to the Mid-America Truck Show in 2017 transformed her artistic journey. You'll hear about her ventures at the Iowa 80 Truck Show, her dream trucks, and how her artwork has evolved over the years.

Next, we'll shift gears to discuss various truck styles and preferences, featuring her top 20 list split between cab-overs and conventionals. Managing a bustling social media presence across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube while juggling a rigorous schedule—teaching piano and creating digital truck renderings—is no easy feat. We also highlight memorable truck shows, such as the Great Lakes Truck Club event in Ontario, known for its warm and welcoming vibe. A recent investment in a new computer marks a significant commitment to improving video content quality. Wrapping up, we reflect on the joys and freedoms of life on the road, with a special nod to Miss Flatbed Red’s captivating YouTube content. Buckle up and join us for an episode packed with updates, inspiration, and a deep love for the trucking community.

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Email me anytime with news, suggestions, and stories at rollin18podcast@gmail.com. God bless, be safe, and keep it between the lines drivers.

Speaker 1:

welcome to rolling 18 podcast. This 40-year veteran is here for anyone wanting to stay up to date with the trucking world. Grab your coffee, hop on board and let's get on down the road with walter gatlin hello drivers and welcome to rollingin' 18 Podcast.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate you folks listening to and or downloading my podcast. I have some good news and some bad news for you today. I know it's been a while. We had a busy week last week. I had to do a bunch of editing for other people, so I took the week off from podcasting. We knew this to be a situation that would come up every once in a while, because I'm a truck driver and that's what happens to us truck drivers.

Speaker 2:

Not everything goes as planned. Now I'm going to give you the bad news first. The bad news is that you need to contact AT&T if you use their service. They had a major breach and unfortunately, somebody stole all of your contact information and all of your text messages. So if you are one of those texters that puts out information that could be seen as volatile or dangerous, somebody may be knocking at your door pretty soon. So thank you, at&t, for allowing all of our information to get stolen. I'm not with them, but I'm with another major carrier and chances are it could happen to me.

Speaker 2:

Now the great news I interviewed Ms Miss Flatbed Red and, if you haven't heard of her, she is an awesome person. She is a great artist, she is a great musician and she is a great social media influencer and, thank God, she chose the profession and the love of classic semi-trucks and truck drivers because she goes to a lot of truck shows, her and her husband, and they have a great time. They interview truck drivers. They get all kinds of information. Well, you're going to hear all about this in the interview that I'm going to play here in a moment, but remember, check out Miss Flatbed Red at miss M-I-S-S flatbed F-L-A-T-B-E-D M-I-S-S flatbed F-L-A-T-B-E-D dot red. I don't know why it's not dot com. I didn't even know they issued a dot red, but that is so cool. So, missflatbedred, missflatbedred, you're going to love it. Go check out all of her stuff on YouTube. The videos are just amazing to watch and the information you're going to get from these truck drivers that have been on the road for years and years and years is going to be so valuable and so important and the entertainment of looking at these classic trucks is going to be awesome. Anyway, check out the interview I did. I'm going to play it right now and then when I get back we're going to close out the show, so today's going to be a little bit longer of a podcast than normal, but it is well worth it.

Speaker 2:

All right, drivers, today I have the pleasure of interviewing Miss Flatbed Red. I put a link to her website in the description of this podcast. Now, when you visit her website, be sure to read her about page and in part, the about page says Spring of 2016 brought Red and her beloved cat Tasha back to Ohio. She married an avid historic truck lover in May and in March of 2017 she went with him to the Mid-America Truck Show Sketchbook in tow. Now, while drawing her very first semi, she received her first truck commission and since then she has refined her technique and developed her own unique style. Ms Flatbed Red was born in the summer of 2017. Hello, ms Flatbed Red, how are you today?

Speaker 3:

Hello, I'm great. How are you?

Speaker 2:

I'm good. How did the truck show go at Iowa 80?

Speaker 3:

Other than always being really warm. It was fabulous. It was super, super hot, but everyone was in a good mood. There were lots of cool trucks they're always the ones that are there pretty often, but plenty of new ones too. So lots of stuff to see.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. Yes, it was hot, and I believe it cooled off the very next day after it was over, so that was a shame. So anyway, on that fateful day in 2017 that your About Me page talks about what impressed you the most, and did you even come close to the realization that this day would redirect your life to where you are now?

Speaker 3:

Oh well, every artist wants to find their niche and until that point all I was doing was pet portraits and portraits, basically, and everybody does that as an artist at some point. So when Tom Sircombe came up to me who of course I had no idea who he was at the time now we're friends and asked for a drawing, I'm like, hey, there is, like there's a potential here. So it definitely had me thinking from the very beginning, and as I was sitting there drawing the truck in front of me, more people started coming up and asking me to draw theirs too, and I was not prepared for that. I will tell you, I did not take any real art supplies. It was just a little sketchbook and one like liner pen not even a ruler or anything and lots of straight lines on trucks. So things have changed a lot since then.

Speaker 2:

Well, if you could pick one truck out of all the trucks that you've seen since you've started this adventure you know, the cab overs the long hoods and you could own that truck and put it in your garage. Which one would it be, do you think?

Speaker 3:

Well, I own a cab over a 352 Peterbilt, but my dream truck is probably a 4300. Wow.

Speaker 2:

What year.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I don't care, I just want one with an original paint scheme on it like a factory, multi-colored, awesome, straight on it. Um, that's, that's probably the dream truck. Or a 47 db, just a trans star international now.

Speaker 2:

Could you have over? I'm not picky could you give us an example of what type of transmissions those would have, because I know things have changed over the years drastically and everybody keeps talking automatic. But what transmission?

Speaker 2:

do you think would be in those probably a 10 speed, I would think yeah, because I think my first truck I ever bought right out of the army I bought an 84 kenworth cab over. It was the first year they came out with super queen sleeper. That's what the salesman told me and that's what I've been telling all my friends for years. But I was excited about it. And then I went down and bought a trailer. And then I went down and got my chauffeur's license because I didn't realize you had to have a special license to drive a semi. All I know is I got out of the Army, I wanted to be a truck driver and I did it.

Speaker 3:

You bought it before you had your license.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, we drove everything without licenses back in those days. I rode my motorcycle for nine months before I realized I needed to get a motorcycle license. Yeah, me and my friends were all crazy about that.

Speaker 3:

Oh my goodness, At least you got it eventually. No drama.

Speaker 2:

Now I know which truck you would love to own and I know which truck you do own. Tell us a little bit about your truck real quick.

Speaker 3:

It's a 1980 352 Peterbilt and it's a factory box truck. It's got a 20-foot stainless box on it. No, it's not refrigerated. It did not haul produce. It came from JD Hollingsworth in South Carolina and it hauled machines JD Hollingsworth in South Carolina and it hauled machines. Teams drove it all over the place to go get broken machines to take back to the main place in South Carolina to have them repaired. They made, I think, fabric, something like that. So that's what it did and eventually the fleet and the company closed. The fleet was sold and it ended up in Alabama and I ended up with it.

Speaker 2:

How long ago did you end up with that truck?

Speaker 3:

2020. That was a COVID purchase. I'm sure everyone's familiar with some wild COVID purchases.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, I've been there, done that. So is it safe to say that the truck style that you prefer is the cab over, or are you still lean towards the long hood?

Speaker 3:

I'm not really picky. So last year I realized I'd been asked so many times what my favorite trucks were that I made a top 10 list. At first it was like a top 40 list and I wasn't able to whittle it down much. I got it down to 20 and realized that it was basically half cab overs and half conventionals. So I have a top 20. Yeah, it's top. Is it top 10 or top? I don't remember if there are five on each one or 10 on each one, but I couldn't get it narrowed down any more than that. So I'm split 50-50.

Speaker 2:

Would that happen to be on your website, or is that privileged information?

Speaker 3:

I think I just posted it on Facebook and Instagram.

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, I'll have to check that out. Yeah, I go through. I have so many people that follow me because of what I started, and then people that I follow because I'm so interested. You know I'm one of those ADHD guys that's like oh, look a squirrel. Next thing you know I'm following, follow this such and such. I'm like no, there's.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I already spend so much time of my day editing videos for my YouTube channel and monitoring comments on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and YouTube that I don't really have time to watch that many videos that require focus and attention, so I'm like a mindless TikTok scroller personally. Yes, I do watch other stuff sometimes, but only when I'm not exhausted from everything else.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've seen some real funny ones out there and I'll tell you what. I'll watch that one 1000 times because it's just amazing. Some of the short videos they do. They're so funny and you just have. You can't believe they just did that and did it perfectly.

Speaker 3:

Yep, I need silly stuff like that to help me unwind. At the end of the day, I also teach piano, so I spend about. Let's see, well, I have 26 students, so 13 and a bit hours a week teaching, plus all the video editing and drawing, and I have a wait list of students. I have a wait list for artwork and I have probably, at any point, about 30 videos that need edited for YouTube.

Speaker 2:

So it's safe to say you don't have somebody working in the office with you.

Speaker 3:

It's just me.

Speaker 2:

Well, when you start branching out and getting much bigger and it looks to me like you're going to.

Speaker 3:

you're probably going to have to hire some help. Yeah, it's actually at the point where I think it would make me more efficient to be able to hire someone to do the editing and all that. And I do digital renderings of trucks, so like I'll use my iPad to change the stripes or something, add different stacks, change bumpers, lower it, stretch it, all that stuff. I do a lot of things.

Speaker 2:

So let me, let me ask you how many truck shows have you been to? Do you think that you can just guess? You know, since you've started all this, and which ones stand out the best for you?

Speaker 3:

Let's say I go to about 12 a year on average. At first it was probably significantly fewer and then now this year I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up at 15 or 16. Let's see the best ones. I actually there's a show in Ontario. We go to the great lakes truck club in Clifford. Ontario does a show every Canada day weekend and we say that's like a. It's like a family reunion where you actually like your whole family Right and everybody's super friendly. It's a good range of trucks, basically 25 years or older, or if it's a newer truck it has to have exposed air cleaners and stacks to make it fit the vintage vibe. So I definitely prefer antique shows, so ATHS shows all over the place. Even if it's just a little local chapter show with 20 trucks, still plenty of stuff to see and plenty of people to talk to. In general I like how friendly people are at truck shows. If you go to a car show it's not necessarily likely someone's going to chat with you, but at a truck show everyone's happy to talk.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. Yeah, I hit as many truck shows a year that I can because I work 12-hour shifts. I started working for a farm about three and a half years ago and I can tell you that working a 12-hour shift, five days a week, is sometimes harder than actually being out on the road and you get less rest. So, out of all the things that you have done since your 2017 explosion into the world of trucks and paintings and going to truck shows, Do you see any significant changes in the near future other than adding somebody to your employee list Because you're getting you know? Piano is cool. I was raised partly by my grandmother and she had a piano and I loved piano. Never learned how to play, always played by ear, but I loved piano and people that can play piano excite me greatly. Do you see any directional changes you're going to be making in the near future?

Speaker 3:

as far as Miss Flatbed Red, Well, I made a big purchase yesterday to help with my whole YouTube especially side of my social media. If I haven't made that clear so far, just by mentioning it so many times, that's definitely my favorite platform. At the York ATHS convention this year, I started doing my interviews a little bit differently, so that redirection is actually already begun. I've started clipping a microphone to myself and the person I'm interviewing rather than like holding my microphone phone in their face, so it's a little bit more casual laid-back and they they actually talk about three times more, so my videos are at least three times longer than they used to be. So more information, better videos, and all of that is taking more time to edit. So I finally splurged yesterday and I bought myself a new computer. So rather than using my phone to edit everything and my 10-year-old laptop obviously couldn't even handle the videos I've ordered a new computer, so I'll get to start editing everything much better, much more professionally, and hopefully that improves the viewing process for everyone.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I ended up having to buy a laptop because my older one wasn't keeping up and my older computers on the desk. I have two on the desk, three monitors, and I just can't edit video on a on a smartphone I can't do it, it's too small. I don't know how people do all that stuff with their little finger touch and everything. It's just like I'm. I end up dropping the phone and it's crazy. So how involved is your husband in all this?

Speaker 3:

He has a Marmon so we've been taking my trucks then at the mechanic a good chunk of the summer so far. So we've taken his truck to a few shows, left mine at home. I think I've missed four shows already this year. But Stu's home now. Everything's good, truck's ready to go to the next show. That's not going to be probably for a month or more. Nothing really happens end of Julyuly around me, which I appreciate.

Speaker 3:

I need the break no doubt but uh yeah, it's been a wild beginning of the year already. Oh, there's the blackbird.

Speaker 2:

I'm turning around so I'm, so I'm showing the next seventh annual gear jammer truck show. You know you won't be at that one I think a 14 hour drive for me oh gotcha I'm probably gonna give that one a miss.

Speaker 3:

So I think next for me will be harvester homecoming in fort wayne, indiana, the old international plant here or there that's awesome yeah well.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much for your time. You've been a pleasure. Um, I really appreciate all the hard work you do. Try not you and your husband, try not to work yourselves to death. You do provide a lot of great content for the drivers out there and we really do appreciate you.

Speaker 2:

There are times that I've watched many of your interviews with folks with classic trucks and the last question I have for you is to me, it would be hard to lose somebody. You know, you meet somebody, you interview them and then a year or two, or three or five or ten, whatever, down the road they pass away, and to me it's like we're losing an icon. It's like losing Waylon Jennings or Johnny Cash. You know, some of these drivers out there are just amazing and the stories they have to tell are awesome. What advice can you give to anybody that's at a truck show, just a normal person? When they walk up and talk to somebody, what are the good questions to ask them? Because this is the kind of stuff we need to try and retain. The old style of trucking was, I think, one of the best and had some of the most honorable people behind the wheel. What can we learn today from those drivers of yesterday?

Speaker 3:

Oh. So that's a very good question, and on my channel I have two different playlists. One is truck tours, where it's focused mostly on the truck, and then I have the trucker tales, where in those cases I either know or I find out when I'm interviewing them about their truck that they have a whole lot more to share that they are totally willing to share. So I sit down in the truck with them and they tell me their life story in a nutshell. So if you have a lot of time to kill, you can ask a different set of questions, but if you're just sitting and chatting, questions I like to ask to just sort of break the ice, are how old were you when you first got behind the wheel of a truck? You might be surprised with some of those answers.

Speaker 3:

I think someone said they were 10. Over the weekend at Walcott, someone I interviewed was 10 the first time they drove a truck on the road, huddling something. And another one I like to ask is what's the first truck you ever drove? Because that can often open a whole nother part of the conversation about why they ended up with that truck. Nobody else wanted to drive it, that's all there was Then I had to learn how to drive two, six, etc. So those two questions are probably good ones to start with it's just totally amazing to me this woman and her husband.

Speaker 2:

They go out there and they talk to truck drivers from the past, truck drivers of today, and we can learn so much from the past and move it to the future we can. There's a lot of information that can be allocated to the future truck driver, even if everything goes autonomous and all battery and all that stuff. I don't even like to think about that. But yeah, change is coming, big change is coming. And the cool thing about Ms Flatbed Red she is authentic. That's what made me reach out to her to begin with to interview her, because I love people like this and entertainment. Authentic, honorable entertainment is very hard to find these days and everybody's just scrambling to find out what's going to go viral, what's not Just relax, enjoy your life.

Speaker 2:

When you're driving down the road and things seem a little tough, drivers just remember there is a life out there and if you have to stop somewhere, get out of the truck, shut it down, get out of the truck, walk out in the field and just smell the flowers and go look for some lavender or some whatever and just enjoy your life, because it's not all about working. You know you're out there and you're experiencing the entire country. If you travel over the road, you're experiencing so much and we let life climb into our heads and say, oh, I can't do that, you know. Oh, we got to be there on time, or this or that. Yeah, that's understandable, but I know from experience that we let all this little stuff creep up into our head and it takes away from all the cool things that we can absorb that's out there in life. So enjoy your life and miss flatbed red, thank you so much for the interview.

Speaker 2:

You guys go check her out at miss m-i-s-s-f-l-a-t-b-e-d dot red. You will not be disappointed. Check her out on YouTube. You're going to have a blast. And some of these rigs are just amazing, just gorgeous engines. You know, it's just amazing. I appreciate you once again for listening to and or downloading my podcast and, like I always say, god bless, be safe and, as always, keep it between the lines. Driver WGBHorg.

Speaker 1:

WGBHorg WGBHorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg, wgbhorg.