Ducks on the hoof

I’m sitting here in my truck writing this even though I’m not connected to the internet and have no way of posting this just yet, but I figured if I write it now, then when I get home I can just add it and it’ll seem like I’m really fast. That’s a good thing, well, usually.

I’m parked in front of Supreme Windows in St. Louis and it’s eleven o’clock local time. I have a bag of parmesan herb baked pita chips that I bought from a Target store in Chicago last week and I’m snacking as I type this and watch The Sum of All Fears on the TV.

It was a pretty uneventful day. I thought I was getting a ticket this morning but the police officer went after the car on my left instead of getting me. By the time I realized that he wasn’t after me I was nearly on the shoulder. I was so relieved that I nearly laughed out loud. Not that I was doing anything worth being pulled over for but when your driving a truck there never has to be a reason to be stopped. Sometimes it’s just your turn to be checked out.

I left Cincy and headed to Indy where I was to deliver to a warehouse in which all the employees leave in the middle of the day and come back at five. I have a key but apparently someone forgot to tell me that the company had installed a new alarm system, for which I had no code. Interesting thing was that it was one of those silent alarms. Sooo…here I am unloading my bay windows and the cops come flying up, sirens wailing, lights flashing, tires squealing, guns drawn, dogs barking, cats meowing, canaries chirping and ice cream melting. The situation was quickly brought under control and no one was hurt except for a sore throat from the tear gas, but I’ll get over it.

I hit my second stop in Indy and headed on towards St Louis. Everything went well for the rest of the day. Effingham, IL is about 3 hours from Indy and that was probably where I was going to stop for the night, at least as far as my logbook was concerned. Now you need to understand, I usually go from Indy to Lafayette, IN on this run but the folks in Lafayette didn’t order anything and so it was a straight shot to St Louis for me. Having not been on the west bound side of I-70 between Indy and Effingham for a while I was not aware of some of the changes that have occurred on that road.

You see, each highway has it’s own personality. I-76 through PA is a rough windy road, I-95 up the east coast is crowded with intermittent spots of scenery, I-90 through South Dakota is mostly just grass (the scenery, not the highway itself) and I-10 across the south is so flat and boring you can fall asleep in a heartbeat if you’re not careful.

As for I-70 through the Midwest, well, it’s the Midwest, average in every respect. Some flat stretches, some small hills, mostly grass and crowded only around Columbus, Indy, Effingham and St Louis, as far as I go anyway. A fairly boring road for the most part, that is until this week.

I was coming up on Brazil, IN and a flatbed hauling crates full of ducks going to slaughter had passed me not 10 minutes before. Apparently, the driver came around a curve and discovered a deer standing in the road looking as if he was wondering where all the grass went. Braking hard, he swerved to miss the deer; they can really do a lot of damage to the front end of a Pete, and lost control, sending the truck into the ditch. Trying to save it, he got it back on the road but couldn’t keep it upright and laid her over on her side.

Ducks went everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. There were ducks in the trees, ducks in the bar ditch, ducks on the shoulder, and ducks standing on the yellow line pondering their newfound freedom. It seems that these ducks were no longer capable of flight and so they just wandered around looking a little lost and dazed.

The driver climbed out through his window and jumped to the ground, a little bruised and battered, but basically unhurt, walked a few paces away and sat down in the grass.

His truck, on the other hand, was going nowhere anytime soon, and besides that, it was blocking the entire highway, shoulder to shoulder. So the traffic behind him was going nowhere either.

In a situation like this there is really nothing you can do but sit and wait. A semi can’t negotiate the median strip like a car and since both shoulders were blocked, there was no way around this fellow. You make the best of the situation that you can. Which means that everybody gets out of his or her vehicles and, after determining that there is no more danger at hand, walks around and talks about how beautiful a sight it was to see that truck just slowly lay down in the middle of the road. There is always one or two idiots who figures that their time is more important than anyone else’s and they think we should all just walk up and pick that truck up and move it by hand so he can get home and take down his Christmas lights.

So we walked and we talked and we discussed the finer points of interstate design and we bided our time until the staties showed up. We also watched the ducks wandering around.

“It’s a shame those dead ones can’t be put to use”, said one driver. “Sure seems a shame to let em go to waste like that.”

“What’d you have in mind”, I asked.

“A barbecue would be nice”, and an idea was born.

It didn’t take long. I got on the CB and found a fellow hauling Weber grills to Colorado Springs and there was a Wal-mart driver right behind him. I was sure he would have some charcoal and lighter fluid. If he wasn’t carrying lighter fluid we could always suck a little diesel out to get the fire going, but he had some fluid so that was cool. The party was really getting going. We set up about 15 grills and got them going while a couple of little old ladies from Arkansas started plucking ducks. You should have seen the feathers a’ flying. Those old women were going to town. After a few more calls on the CB we had a bunch of lawn chairs, four large picnic tables, the entire load of a Coors truck, two medium sized wading pools and all the fixin’s for the barbecue. There was a van about a hundred yards back that had a band in it that was trying to get to California to get a break. They snagged about a half dozen generators off some RV’s that were in the line and set their equipment up about 100 feet from the grills. I believe they called themselves Pukin’ Dogs.

Just as the band was setting up the staties showed up and started looking over the situation. Since so many ducks had been killed in the wreck they were calling it a fatal accident and the highway would be down for some time as an investigation ensued. The highway had been blocked at the last exit and we were given the option of turning around and going back to the last exit or waiting it out. The majority of us decided to wait it out. Why miss a good party when it’s just getting started.

The first batch of ducks had been grilled and the Arkansas ladies were starting on the second batch when one of them mentioned to me that if the party lasted more than another two hours they would have to start killing some of the ducks that survived the accident. There just wasn’t enough to go around. I told them to do whatever they had to and carried a platter of grilled duck and potato salad up to the staties and the wrecker driver.

When I got back I sat down in a lawn chair on the side of I-70 sucking on a duckstick and working on my third adult beverage when up walked 11 gorgeous ladies in bikinis. “So this is the hold-up”, one of them said. The fellow who found the lawn chairs said, “This accident just keeps getting better and better.”

Seems this bevy of beauties were on a tour bus about 200 yards back that belonged to the Hawaiian Tropics Bikini Tour. They had just finished a competition in Columbus the night before and were headed to St Louis for the next event. Imagine that. St Louis. And me going there as well. Well, I’ll be, I though.

As the band cranked it up (they knew a lot of classic rock which was cool) the cars ladies started dancing in the road and whatever cars weren’t empty by then soon were.

Well, all I can say is you should have been there. It was the best wreck I’ve ever seen. No one was hurt except about 430 ducks and one young fellow who tripped over a croquet wicket and broke his wrist when he grabbed the side of the trampoline to try and break his fall. About 730 the staties started back down the line saying that the wreck would be cleared shortly and we needed to wrap up the party. The bikini ladies took down their kissing booth and the table where the were signing t-shirts and photos and just about anything else anyone brought them. The little old ladies from Arkansas finished pitching out all the duck innards and the rest of us broke down the tables and chairs, the wading pools, the trampoline, the croquet and miniature golf courses, and the climbing wall. The wreck had only been cleared for about 45 minutes before we finished cleaning up. We sure didn’t want to leave a mess. We were civic-minded folks you see, just making the best of a bad situation.

So if you find yourself running west on I-70 through Indiana in the next few days, keep your eyes open around the 19 yardstick. There will probably be quite a few fat buzzards feasting on duck leftovers.

And who says truckers can’t be environmentalists as well.