From Prudhoe Bay to Miami and just about everywhere in between, Norma Bradford (62) has seen our country over the last 46 years, and stopped to smell the roses and take pictures along the way. She was born to travel and travel she has, be it in trucks, planes, motorcycles or trains. Norma’s first ride in a truck was while her amazing mom Ginger Jenkins was pregnant with her. At four months old she took a ride with her dad in a truck and, as they say, the rest is history.
Like her mom, Norma was born in New York City. Ginger was born five days after Pearl Harbor was hit on December 12, 1941. She grew up in an apartment in Manhattan that her mom rented. Norma spent her first nine years in that apartment, located four blocks from the George Washington Bridge. The apartment stayed in the family until 2008 thanks to a rent lock.
On a trip to California with her grandma when she was five, Norma met Tim Bradford and his cousin, and when the boys asked if she could come out and play, they played with Tonka trucks. Over the next few years she would spend the summers in Mohave, CA with her grandma visiting her aunt. Over the years, Norma and Tim’s friendship grew, and when he got older, he told her mom he was going to marry her one day.
Another move took the family to Oregon and at 14 it was here that Norma ran away from home to Florida where she got in a truck with her dad. And she didn’t just ride along – he taught her how to drive, laying the foundation for the Old School driver she is today. Her dad may have taught her how to drive a truck, but I think she got a gypsy gene from her mom. Once her mom figured out where she was, she took a bus bound for Florida to go get her. Thanksgiving that year was spent on a very tense ride in a Greyhound bus from St. Petersburg, FL back to Medford, OR.
Then, at 16, Norma was hit by a car, causing her to miss a lot of school. She made up her mind to drop out, and in August of 1979 she moved to Alaska. In Alaska, Mike Doyle, who became like a second father to her, got her a job driving a truck. Back then, all you needed was a car license to drive a truck in Alaska.
In April 1980, Norma went back to Oregon to take the test to get her GED, which she accomplished in one day. It was her 17th birthday present to herself. Then, right back up to Alaska she went. Occasionally she would come down to California to visit friends and then drive a truck to Florida to see her mom and Tim, who at the time was working at an airport in Sanford, FL.
In 1982, Tim asked her to marry him, and Norma said yes. But, when she got back to Alaska to finalize everything, she got cold feet. In early December of 1984, Tim and Norma’s mom Ginger concocted a story that her grandma was really sick, and that she needed to get down to see her. When Norma got to Florida, she found out that her grandma was fine. Later that month, Tim asked Norma to drive back to Mohave, CA with him to visit his family. On January 3, 1985, on their way back to Florida, when they got to Barstow, Tim asked if they were going left or right – a left would take them to Vegas or right to Florida. They went left, and got married in Vegas that day, then had the church wedding in St. Petersburg on January 26th.
After moving back to Mohave, their daughter Jamie was born on July 18, 1986. Tim was working on planes at Mohave Airport. Norma did a little local driving work and also helped Tim work on the planes. She was an apprentice mechanic under Tim but never got her pilot’s license. She was driving local when she was pregnant with their son Tim Jr. until a week before delivering him on March 3, 1988.
Life took a horrible turn on July 3, 1991. Tim was on his way home on his motorcycle on a dirt road that he had traveled many times and there was a tragic accident. They will never know exactly how the accident happened, only the sad outcome – Norma lost the love of her life that day. In 1992, she got back on the road full time and a friend named Gary Bohannon gave her the handle “A Little Bit of Heaven” because a little bit of Norma went to heaven with Tim when he died. In 1994, Karen Bisbee and Carl Smith of Bisbee & Smith Trucking hired Norma. That year, for Christmas, they had a custom bug screen made for her that said “Little Bit of Heaven” on it.
When her kids were young, they would go on the truck with their mom. When they were in school, she would work locally, and when they got out of school, she would run long haul. Her mom Ginger helped out with the kids a lot when they were younger. The kids had many adventures out on the road with their mom, and after they grew up and had kids of their own, the grandkids got to take their turn riding in the truck with grandma. Norma and her mom have had several adventures of their own. She has been on the truck with her on a few occasions and they have done road trips that always include stops along the way to see the sights and take pictures.
The first furry co-driver Norma had was Blade – a puppy that was born in her bathroom to her dog Cricket in 1996. Blade was her constant companion until he died in her arms in 2010. After losing Blade, Norma waited six months and then she found Atlas at a rescue called “Heaven Can Wait” in Las Vegas. Atlas got on the truck on August 18, 2010, and has been full steam ahead ever since. By the time he’d been on the truck six months he had already been to all 48 states. He has since traveled to Norma’s beloved Alaska eight times and to British Columbia several times, as well.
In 2016, Norma had a bad asthma attack and Atlas alerted people to the attack. Because of this, he got to stay with her while she was in the hospital. The doctors convinced her to register Atlas as a service dog, since he had picked up on things before even the monitors she was hooked up to did. She believes Atlas saved her life that day.
Since then, Norma and Atlas have been all along Route 66, from Chicago to LA, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the Seattle Waterfront, the Embarcadero in San Francisco, Santa’s house in Alaska, numerous zoos and aquariums, the Field of Dreams, and Graceland. They also lived in Glouster, MA, above the Crow’s Nest, where the fishermen would bring Atlas his own lobsters, and braved an F5 tornado in Oklahoma together, as well.
Because he is a registered service dog, Atlas has been able to travel with Norma everywhere. He’s enjoyed riding in train cars from California to Seattle, on the Coast Starlight in a sleeper car, been on the Grand Canyon Railway to the Grand Canyon twice, and Southwest Airlines know Atlas by name (they even celebrated his birthday on one flight). Not only airplanes, but he once got a helicopter ride in Lebanon, TN in 2022. Atlas also enjoys boating, as well as the beach. Just like me, the beach is our happy place. Everyone loves Atlas, and the pictures taken of him are countless.
Norma and Atlas were also in our wedding. Afterward, Norma, while still wearing her purple bridesmaid’s gown, drove her truck filled with all our stuff from the wedding venue back to the Iowa 80 Truck Stop, where their annual “Jamboree” was taking place. Atlas was looking quite dashing in his tuxedo that day, too. Now, sadly, he is fighting a heartbreaking battle with cancer on his right front leg. At over 16 years old, Atlas is completely healthy except for that, and he still enjoys going as many places as he can. Please say a little prayer for Norma and Atlas, because when that final day comes, it is going to be really tough.
These days, both Norma and me remember the good old days, but our desire to be “out there” has faded. We have memories that can’t be taken, friendships that have lasted decades, and thousands of pictures to remember all we have done and everyone we have met. One memory Norma shared was that she once hauled edible pansies (flowers) to the White House for a special dinner. Over the years, she’s hauled a lot of fish and produce, done oversize work, and so much more. Today, she is semi-retired, but if it has an E-log or doesn’t go faster than 62 mph, she’s done.
Forty-six years on the road has afforded Norma a life that many people, other than truck drivers, might never know, but it has come at the price of missing so many holidays, birthdays, school plays, and plenty more. On the other side, trucking has taken her to places that she knew what she was doing made a difference – like the hurricane relief she was able to do recently and being a part of the People’s Convoy in 2022. Trucking isn’t for everyone, but for my dear friend Norma Bradford, it has been a “Little Bit of Heaven” for almost five decades.