Ed Cridland’s 111-year-old home in Altadena, shrouded by towering oaks and thick shrubs, wasn’t much to speak of.

The one-bedroom, 738-square-foot cottage on nearly an acre was barely big enough for the 94-year-old former truck driver, let alone his prized collection of Martin guitars or his best friend, Dennis Chapman of Diamond Bar, during his frequent visits.

Yet the cramped but simple confines perfectly suited Cridland, who lived in the home his entire life and eschewed conveniences such as television, the internet and a bathroom shower in favor of a clawfoot tub.

And if the burned-out walls of his modest cottage could speak, they would tell the story of a man who cared deeply about his parents, friends, country and the open road.

“His life began and ended right there,” said Chapman, 73, reflecting on the Jan. 7 Eaton fire that gutted the house and killed Cridland. “He loved everything about the place.”

Born in 1930 at Pasadena Women’s Hospital, Cridland — who never married and lived alone — dutifully cared for his parents until their deaths several decades ago, according to Chapman, who had known him for 34 years. Cridland’s older brother and sister also are deceased.

A life on the road

Cridland began driving trucks at age 14 and later big rigs for nearly 50 years, retiring in 1993, Chapman said.

From 1952 to 1954, he was a driver in the Army at the height of the Korean War. He didn’t like to talk much about his time in the military but occasionally offered up harrowing vignettes of near death experiences on the battlefield.

One story involved a close encounter with a hail of enemy bullets as he charged in a Jeep to the top of a ridge, Chapman said.

In another tale, Cridland said he contracted malaria and was picked up by an Army ambulance for a ride to a medical facility. During the trip, medics encountered several severely wounded soldiers along the way and loaded them into the ambulance with Cridland. “Ed didn’t like to talk about that incident for very long because it was pretty traumatic,” he added.

After his discharge from the military as a sergeant, Cridland served in the Army Reserve until 1960. He also jump started his trucking career, hauling anything that didn’t “breathe, spoil or blow up” along Interstate-5 and State Route 99 stretching the length of California, Chapman said.

Chapman, already a veteran trucker who drove the same route, met Cridland in 1990 over coffee in a greasy spoon in Kettleman City, a popular spot for drivers who dropped off and picked up loads for points north and south.

Cridland, who was in the twilight of his career, and Chapman hit it off immediately and were soon using their CB radios to stay awake and birddog speed traps for each other as they traveled. The chit-chat between the two often was lively, with Cridland using the handle “Single Screw,” referring to a truck with only one drive axle, while Chapman went by “3 1/2,” a nod to the number of driving hours from Kettleman City to Los Angeles.

In 1991, two years before retiring, Cridland convinced Chapman to join the Downey trucking company where he worked. Chapman remained with the firm for 11 1/2 years and went on to work for several other trucking companies before retiring in 2020.

Miles of memories

Untethered by the constraints of their full-time jobs, Cridland and Chapman took long road trips together, navigating old trucking routes in 26 states, including Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Wyoming, New Mexico, Texas and California.

When they weren’t traveling, Chapman frequently spent the night in Cridland’s cramped living room, sleeping on a day bed next to a 5-foot baby grand piano, a stereo, a treadmill and a couple of chairs.

He also often accompanied Cridland to medical appointments for treatment of his Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder that damages the peripheral nerves. Other times, Cridland would drive Chapman to their favorite doughnut shop.

“Ed drove until the day he died,” Chapman said. “He had less accidents than me and I always felt safe.”

Deadly devastation

Cridland and Chapman usually spoke by phone at least twice each day. Their last conversation was at about 7 p.m. Jan. 7, when they talked about breaking news reports of the Eaton fire that had erupted less than hour earlier in a nearby canyon. Cridland uncharacteristically kept the call short, saying he needed to keep his cellphone line open in case the fire department called with evacuation orders, Chapman said.

The next morning, Chapman raced to Cridland’s home, reaching it before firefighters and law enforcement cordoned off the neighborhood. However, when he saw the twisted, blackened skeleton of a pickup truck in the driveway, he knew his friend hadn’t made it out alive.

“It was like an atomic bomb had gone off,” said Chapman, who believes Cridland removed his hearing aids before going to sleep and didn’t hear the phone or if anyone knocked on his door to help him escape. “The fire took the whole neighborhood out.”

Since the blaze, Chapman’s emotions have run high, particularly in the morning and evening when he would typically have long phone conversations with Cridland. He believes if Cridland had survived, the anguish of losing his beloved home would have destroyed him emotionally.

“It would have been too much,” he said. “Everything he loved about the place was gone.”