If You Respect Its Power, Delivering Propane Is a Gas ; Our Reporter Makes the Rounds with a Veteran Driver, Fills Up the Truck and Lives to Tell About It. Series: About This Series Maine at Work Takes an Interactive Look at Iconic, Visible or Just Plain Interesting Jobs Done by Folks in Maine. Reporter Ray Routhier Shadows a Worker or Workers, Reports What He Sees and Tries His Hand at Some of the Job's Duties. If You'd Like to Suggest a Job to Be Explored in This Feature, E-Mail Rrouthier@Pressherald.Com or Call 791-6454.

Summary

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Bob Beckwith handed me a pair of super-thick rubber gloves and pointed to the back of his Dead River Co. delivery truck.

"That stuff is so cold it can burn your hands," said Beckwith, standing at the Dead River offices on Lincoln Street in South Portland. "So I got these for you."

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If You Respect Its Power, Delivering Propane Is a Gas ; Our Reporter Makes the Rounds with a Veteran Driver, Fills Up the Truck and Lives to Tell About It. Series: About This Series Maine at Work Takes an Interactive Look at Iconic, Visible or Just Plain Interesting Jobs Done by Folks in Maine. Reporter Ray Routhier Shadows a Worker or Workers, Reports What He Sees and Tries His Hand at Some of the Job's Duties. If You'd Like to Suggest a Job to Be Explored in This Feature, E-Mail Rrouthier@Pressherald.Com or Call 791-6454.

Burn my hands?

Since I buy heating oil from Dead River, I just assumed everyone does, and I also assumed that's what all their truck drivers deliver.

But I was wrong.

Beckwith spends his long days - 10 to 14 hours in the winter - delivering propane heating fuel to homes and businesses around Portland. He uses a truck with a pressurized tank that holds propa...

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