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Loneliness on the road? Not for this trucker traveling North Carolina's seafood highways

Truck driving is a notoriously lonely job but not for George Harvey. The people he meets along North Carolina’s seafood highways feel like family to this longtime tractor-trailer driver who has 18-wheeled up and down the East Coast.

Harvey, 76, started driving in 1995. He tried to retire in 2006, but the roads beckoned, and Harvey was back behind the wheel by 2019. While delivering live crabs, crab meat, oysters, and fish throughout the marshlands and creeks of Hyde, Dare, and Beaufort counties for Evans Seafood in Washington, North Carolina, Harvey always makes time to connect with the people he meets in the seafood industry.

“This is an industry where there's a lot of places that people don't see, but they are beautiful places, and you meet a lot of different people in your lifetime traveling as a driver. And the most important thing about driving is you meet people that you talk with, people that's in the seafood industry, and you learn a lot from them,” Harvey says. “They tell you about what the past was and what the future looks like.”

Harvey also understands workers’ worries about increasing fishery regulations. Each closure or restriction means job losses. "It hurts," Harvey says, "because that's our livelihood."

Harvey shared his story during a 2024 interview with NC Catch’s “Recognizing African American Participation in the North Carolina Seafood Industry” project team. The following excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.

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This story is part of NC Catch’s “Recognizing African American Participation in the North Carolina Seafood Industry” project. North Carolina’s Black seafood business community has partnered with researchers in this historic project conceived by NC Catch to build understanding of the vital role African Americans and people of color play in the state’s seafood industry. Narratives, video and oral histories tell the stories of Black fishers, wholesalers, chefs and others working in seafood. A N.C. Sea Grant 2024 Community Collaborative Research Grant has helped fund the project.

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Tell us about your journey in trucking.

I was born here in Washington (North Carolina), and that's where I lived all my life, back until ’67. I went to Washington, D.C., and stayed there to about ’68 and moved to New York City where I was a resident for almost 30 years. My father talked me into coming back (to Washington, N.C.) in ’95. After 2006, I just didn't do too much, no more than fish or shop or something like that.

Then all of a sudden, I decided to come to work. I found a job here at Evans Seafood. When I got here, I was hauling trees, soybeans, used to go to the freezer unit to pick up different types of seafood. Most of the seafood we pick up is from Beaufort, always at Engelhard, Wanchese, Belhaven. Some places I went, I hauled mullets all the way to Port St. Joe (Florida). And I've been all the way up to Gloucester (Massachusetts), also, hauling fish.

Did anyone in your family work in the seafood industry?

No. My father was a mechanic for Edward Trucking Company trucking in Washington, N.C. That's where I got into wanting to drive a truck when I used to be out there helping him on the weekend. Washing trucks and stuff. I didn't drive at first. I did different work in New York City, like furniture, mechanic, and learned how to do refinishing. After I came back to North Carolina, I decided to go get a job. I went to J.B. Hunt Trucking School, graduated from there and then I got into trucking with J.B. Hunt. Stayed there until I retired. My son-in-law, I got him into trucking, because it's a way of seeing things and meeting different people. And you haul a lot of different things from fish, any product that needs to be hauled on trucks. It's a good life.

While you and your eight siblings were growing up in Little Washington, did your family eat a lot of seafood?

Yes. My grandmother, most of the time, made fish head soup. You take the head of a bass, striped bass or puppy drum, the drum head with all the meat in it? Onions and peppers and make a soup. And you put potatoes in it also. All the meat comes out of the head.
Why did your grandmother use just the fish heads to make her soup?

Back then, it was slow and kind of hard to get ahold of money. It was not too good. But we figured out living. My father used to sell wood. Me and my brother would go to school and when we came back in the evening, we cut up the wood. My father, he’d come home after work and haul the wood and sell it to different people. We survived mostly on that as we were growing up. A lot of things that we had to do to survive back then, mainly used to pick tobacco, cucumber, things like that in the summertime, mainly tobacco because you made your money to buy your school clothes in the wintertime. But most everybody that had to work like that; it was a blessing. In a way, God gave us a way to do things like we need to do in our lifetime.

My father instilled in us that you need to work and do the best you can and survive. And I had a chance to tell him before he died: What I did and didn't lack when I was younger, it made me a better man than I thought I'd ever be.

How many children do you have?

I had two sons and two daughters. My two sons ran into violent deaths…But life goes on, I still got two daughters that I'm very proud of. One of my daughters, she worked herself up to where she’s a postmaster here in Washington (North Carolina). And my other daughter, in Georgia, she wound up in charge of Job Corps down in Fernwood, Georgia. And I’ve got lots of grandkids, so I'm good.

Did your late sons have children?

My youngest son, he had two. And my oldest son, he had three. And my granddaughter that my youngest had, I'm kind of close to her in a way because she acts just like her daddy. And my oldest son, most of his kids, I'm proud of them because they always don't forget who I am as their grandfather. They don’t forget my wife. We play a role in their lives by talking to them. They’re always talking with us. And we've learned from them, and they learn from us. My granddaughter, she's in Virginia, and my other grandkids mostly in New York City.
Where do you call home these days?

I live in Grimesland. I lived on East 11th Street here in Washington, N.C., for over six years, and I kept getting harassed by the police department telling me that the truck and trailer I had in front of my door was illegal on the street. So, my wife looked around and found a double-wide (mobile home) out there in Grimesland. The man (landlord) rented it to us for about six years, and he sold it to us…God blessed me to get the house, and I have it for the rest of my life and then my grandkids can have it.

We have a lot of cookouts and stuff, and we mainly have fish fries. And by working here (at Evans Seafood), and I worked in Hertford, used to haul crabs, I would bring home a bushel of crabs every weekend and we have crabs and fish. We still have the same thing now today, fish and crabs. Where I'm at now, I go to Mattamuskeet (Seafood) crab house, they give me crab meat. I get fish from O'Neal’s (in Wanchese, N.C.) if I want it. And Carolina Best (Seafood), they do oysters and give me oysters.

Everybody that I meet in my travels in the seafood industry, they are good with people and they don't mind helping you. They give you something to say ‘thank you.’ That's how I always been with people. They always give you something. That's how I wound up eating our seafood.

You work Monday-Thursday and Saturday. What is a typical week like for you?

My week starts on a Monday. I get here (to Evans Seafood) about a quarter to 9 a.m., supposed to start at nine, but I'll come early. I have to load up the stops I have to drop off on my way out, down through Belhaven and Swan Quarter, Mattamuskeet, Engelhard, Stumpy Point, Wanchese. I have different people that we have to drop fish off to, oysters and things like that. Most of the (seafood) comes from the North that customers order, and our job is to deliver to those customers what they order from the North.

And then in the afternoon, it’s in reverse. When I'm in Wanchese, we have three customers there which is Fresh Catch, O'Neals, and Etheridge. We pick up whatever seafood they have. Their seafood is mostly going north, like up to Maryland, Virginia or sometimes they get freight going to New York City. We pick that up, and I work my way back from there to Stumpy Point, they might have freight. I go to Engelhard — I got three stops in there: Sammy Williams, Engelhard-Mattamuskeet, and Diamond Shoal Seafood.

On the way back, I stop at Carolina Best, he might have oysters that need to go back. Mattamuskeet Crab, that should be my last stop. But sometimes I have to go back to Swan Quarter, Belhaven. Places that I missed out with the truck. I just back it up. You're grabbing them on the way back out.

So you drop off in the morning, pick up in the afternoon and the seafood that you pick up comes back here to Evans Seafood. This is a hub. And from here it gets shipped up north.

Yes, right. The warehouse. It's more like a distribution center. Going out and coming back in.

What kind of seafood comes into North Carolina from up North?

Different types of fish that they want where you can't get it here. In North Carolina, we got tuna. We got different types of puppy drums. We got sheepshead. We got a balance of fish here. Swordfish mostly comes into Beaufort, N.C., a lot, they have a lot of swordfish that comes in there that we haul. They got fish sometimes from up North like porgy, sometime porgy might come in at B and J (Seafood in New Bern, N.C.). The biggest thing in North Carolina is flounder, and also they bring a lot of flounder that might come from South Carolina or upstate Jersey. They bring it in here and distribute it.

Another company that's really big on fish and stuff is Nixon in Edenton, N.C., which is also a place that seafood is represented a lot. He has a distributing place and a market that you can go to and buy wholesale. You got Quality (Seafood) also in Elizabeth City that buys a lot of the fish, and they do oysters. You got Baccus (Seafood) right there in Herford. They do a lot of crabs, main thing we haul out of there is a lot of crabs that you have coming out of Hertford, N.C.

Sometimes you don’t get home until 8 p.m.

The product that I have to get in one place holds me up sometimes. I get to Stumpy Point sometimes I sit there for three hours, or get there 4 o'clock and meet about 5, 5:30, almost 6, by the time I do my three stops in Engelhard and Mattamuskeet (on the way back) it's almost 7:30. So I get back here by 8, 8:30. The guys here get kind of angry because I get back (late), but it's not on me. If they can get the stuff ready and I can grab it, I can come right back down like that. But it don't work like that half the time. That's the one thing bad about the whole thing. People are holding you up. But you gotta have patience.

Sounds like you really love trucks and your job.

Oh, ever since I can remember. The first time I jumped in one (a truck), my father worked it…I jumped in one of the trucks, started shifting gears to go around the yard.

I love driving, that's the problem my wife got with me. She keeps asking when I'm gonna retire, and I keep telling her I don't think so.
I love it because the people and things I see are different every day. It's never the same when they come down and pick up and products are delivered. Everything is different every day.

The weather is beneficial. Like we've been blessed this winter between the snow and ice and stuff. The only thing now is most of these products is kind of slow. Most of the people that I see out there fishing or crabbing, not doing too much because the winds and the rains and stuff slowing everything down. The livelihoods of most all the fishermen now is cut short because of all the regulation where they put the regulation on certain fish. They can't fish it anymore. And it hurts more now because that's our livelihood. A lot of them stopped fishing and found other jobs. I know a young fisherman in Wanchese, he was driving the tractor trailer. And he stopped and went back out there crabbing. He's still out there crabbing at his age. He's loving it more than driving the truck.

You must pass the N.C. Department of Transportation medical exam every two years to keep driving. What does that involve?

Your blood pressure, can you see. Can you walk? How your heart is. It's basically a physical thing that your body has to be able to take. Monitor your heart, your lungs, and they ask you a lot of questions, they put you into tests if your heart is bad, if you have some kind of operation on your hip and stuff like that, but fortunately, they don't bother you too much. They know that — from pushing the clutch and the brakes —your hip can go bad or your knees. That's a fatality that we get as truck drivers. And old age arthritis... The DOT also has specifications about how many hours you could drive, how many hours you need to take to sleep. And mainly you have to keep up with the rules and regulations of the highway, which is not hard, it just makes sure you don't get in trouble.

You see a lot of the processing that goes into preparing seafood for the market.

Definitely see a lot of minorities working, (removing) shrimp heads and all like that. They have some Mexican mixed in right now. But when it comes down to minority of people that I see between Blacks and Mexicans, some minorities don't want to bother with (seafood processing) no more. Only Mexicans mostly will do it. And then you got a lot of Blacks that survive in Engelhard by (removing shrimp heads) and stuff like that because that's the only thing left to do down there. And it's beginning to be kind of difficult for the people there, for their livelihoods. One guy I know, Black guy that worked there, he had to go all the way to Wanchese to work, he was back and forth every day, from Engelhard to Wanchese.

Have you ever faced any hardships in your work due to being a person of color?

I've never met it (hardships due to being a person of color) since I've been here. If anybody said he did, I think something is wrong with him. Because all the guys here, the Blacks that work here, they could tell you the people that we deal with, my boss deals with, they are kind-hearted people, you know? I meet captains and stuff like that at O'Neal’s, they are very friendly. I'd be talking with them all about fishing and stuff like that. I haven't seen it.

You’ve made so many friends along your route, from the people who process seafood to the buyers and wholesalers. They really look out for you. You talked about people asking you to join them for meals, giving you a cheesecake, garden vegetables or tips, helping you lift heavy loads if you’re not able and going out of their way to help you when your truck broke down enroute. It's like you’ve got a whole community out there on the road.

Any place you can go and ask about me, you hear what type of person I am. Any place you go, ask about George and they'll tell you real quick about me…It’s surprising that they show me how much they like me. And that's why I love where I'm at on this route. And I wouldn't give it up for nothing.

NC Catch chair Barbara Garrity-Blake and journalist Liz Biro contributed to this report. Photos by Barbara Garrity-Blake.