June 2009
Not Your Average Tow Truck Driver
by Karen Bohler
When you think about a tow truck driver, you probably envision a big, burly man with tattoos on bulging biceps, chomping on a cigar. Except for the tattoos, Jinnah Bates doesn’t fit that image. She doesn’t drink or smoke, and is slim. But she not only drives a tow truck, she owns Jinnah’s Towing in Tucumcari.
She spent the early part of her life in Cleveland, OH, the eldest of seven children. Her parents bought a Shell Oil gas station in the early 1960s, and for as long as she can remember. “We all worked there. All of us,” she says. “The oldest five of us (Bates and four brothers) really spent a lot of time there. We drove the tow truck. We ran the snow plows. We pumped gas. Everything, from cleaning the bathrooms.”
She began driving the tow truck at age 14, and when asked how, she explains, “Times were different then,” and launches into one of the many stories she has about her life.
She dropped out of high school before graduating, and drove a tow truck for a Columbus, OH, company before moving to Florida, where she spent the next 22 years.
She worked for a tow truck company in Naples, and drove a big rig for the U.S. government, hauling explosives, before she finally started her own tow business. But she eventually got “burned out” in Florida, and started taking time off to travel.
“I did travel all over and for some reason I landed in Tucumcari,” Bates says. “I don’t even know why. But then I met Jim.”
A road construction driver for Versatile Construction, Jim Bates had been widowed after 44 years of marriage. He and Jinnah hit it off. They married in 2002, and the pair moved to Tampa for two years. “But Jim didn’t like Florida at all, and I didn’t like the Tampa area,” Jinnah says. “He was really so unhappy,” that they decided to move to New Mexico for good. “And I like it out here. I think it’s nice,”says Bates.
At age 49, she received her GED, and, to her surprise, did so well she earned a scholarship to a community college. There, she took classes in diesel technology, and bookkeeping and accounting. “I about cried my way through that semester,” she says of the business classes. “I’d rather tear apart an engine any day than sit and try to keep the books.”
In 2007, she opened Jinnah’s Towing. “It’s not a life for everyone,” Bates says. She’s on call 24/7, which means she rarely gets a full night’s sleep. She’s able to handle the physical aspects of the job because she works out, but says physical strength isn’t always needed. “The trick is, not how big you are, but knowing what equipment is available and how to use that equipment,” she says.
Bates has two tow trucks she uses—a 1997 International 4700 and a 1994 Ford Super Duty Flatbed. She also has plans to get her favorite truck, a purple metal-flake F-350 wrecker, repainted to fit the New Mexico locale.
But most important, she’s always waiting for that next call.
“I love what I do, and in the middle of the night when they call me to get up and go out, and the officers are waiting, you never know what you’re going to come up against,” she said.
If you know anyone who'd make a good profile for this column—including yourself—let us know at sespinoza@enchantment.coop.
Return to top