BELFAST - Family Dollar got a delivery of dry goods in the middle of yesterday’s snowstorm. Two hours later, the cashier called down to Rockland, the next stop on the route, and learned that the driver had never arrived. When she hung up, she spotted the branded truck passing along Cedar Street at the far end of the parking lot. 

“I thought I was seeing things,” she said. “We had no idea he was still here that whole time.”

Evan Fletcher was carrying a small container of ice melt pellets when I came across him a little bit earlier. He looked in good spirits considering he’d been trying for over an hour to get his 18-wheeler out of the loading area behind the store. There was a modest incline, but nothing obviously insurmountable.

Still, Fletcher said, any more than about two inches of snow on the road and the truck tended to lose traction. He confirmed that this was scary information.

His dispatcher at Family Dollar had told him to wait it out. Later he talked about the company being understanding in these situations. They weren’t going to put him at risk to get the goods to the other stores. Then again, it was supposed to snow for another 12 hours.

When Fletcher isn’t shuttling loads of paper towels, potato chips, bottled water and other non-perishables from Family Dollar’s regional distribution center in Rome, New York, he lives in Stockton Springs. He said he’d rather pass the time there, but the way he said it suggested that wasn’t one of his options.

“I’d rather be there right now,” he said.

Earlier, he’d managed to get the truck as far as the lip where the loading dock access meets Franklin Street before he hit a small berm of snow left by city plow trucks.

He didn’t have a shovel, so I went home and got one and we cleared away the obvious obstacles. 

On the next try, the truck made it into the street before the wheels started spinning. The trailer was still hanging back in the loading area. From a short distance it looked like a toy train trying to go up a hill. Like it might be possible to reach out and give it a little sideways push with one hand.

A public works truck happened by and the driver, Aaron Seekins, offered to sand the road if Fletcher could back down into the loading area. At the same time, Vic Tredwell, a caretaker for a seasonal home nearby, arrived on foot and offered to spot the rear corner of the truck, which was dangerously close to a fire hydrant.

“I used to work as a long-haul mover, so I know about the blind spots and I've had lots of practice directing trucks,” said Tredwell in an email the next morning.

While Fletcher tried to maneuver the truck to a better angle, Seekins watched from a distance. After a minute, he casually took a shovel out of his own vehicle and scooped out a lump of sand from the spreader mounted over the rear bumper.

He arrived at Fletcher’s truck, just as it started forward, and tossed the sand under one of the dual wheels. This time truck didn’t slide back. Fletcher drove up the hill and turned onto Cedar Street, passing into view of the cashier inside the Family Dollar store.

Seekins walked back to his truck like a relief pitcher who had just closed out a game. Like it was no big deal.

I asked him how he’d thrown this one shovelful of sand in just the right place.

“Sometimes that’s all it takes,” he said.

Contact Ethan Andrews at: news@penbaypilot.com