Trucker Language

Trucker's often speak in their own language. And I'm not referring to the language which causes movies to get R or PG-13 ratings. Here's an example of what you might hear between two truckers. Picture two drivers sitting at the diner counter carrying on a conversation.



Anything new?



Not much. I was running across the Buckeye yesterday. Called out for a hand to tell me which word was out at the coop. Big word was out. All locked up and nobody home. But there was a full grown sitting in the middle at the 11 with the porch light on and one in the Hoosier at the the 142 shooting my side. I didn't worry about the Hoosier full grown cause I was against the wall at 68. Even with a 475 Cat and 13 on the stick I was doing it all.



I was heading for the speed circle and was feeling the rumbles. I stopped at a choke n puke and filled up then went a little further for some go juice. Got to the speed circle and took the bottom half cause the middle was shut down for me.



I stopped at the flying hook at the 4 to catch my comic book up and get some shuteye. Had a lot lizard knockin about 3 wanting to know if I needed any company. I was cool, so I said no thanks.



A reefer had pulled in next door while I was out and there was no way for me to get back down so I headed out. I usually look for drop decks or skateboards as neighbors. Much quieter.



Got down the road a piece and a wiggle wagon had hit the get off for a quick whiz. Soft shoulder so he laid it down. There were two hookers and a county mounty trying to help when I went by.



It was a busy morning cause a little later every one hit the granny lane to let a meat wagon by.



Got to the big muddy arches that afternoon and had to get a lumper to hustle the load out. Needed that time anyway to let the comic book catch up with me. But there was no bedroom in the yard so I headed out for the next pickle park. Rolled in there with the jake on and growlin'. Found me a spot next to a wide load and drew the curtain.



Another day in paradise.

My supervisor

Hey everyone,



I just wanted to take a moment and tell you a little bit about the wonderful supervisor that I have at my shop. He is truly a phenomenal individual. Not only does he treat all of those that he supervises with grace and mercy but he is constantly teaching us and instructing us on more and better ways to do our jobs more and better efficiently.



He always has a smile on his face when he comes to work and he often brings us doughnuts and coffee to get our morning started off right.



As we work through out the day he is always there with an encouraging word.



"Good job"



"Such a fine product you are building, John"



"You make me proud to work here, John"



"John, you really look good in those jeans this morning."



These are just a few of the gracious comments that he has for us everyday.



Since I am a truck driver and not in the shop much except for Fridays and some Thursdays, I am not as lucky as some of the other employees who enjoy his special attentions every day of the week. Some of the other fellows will ask, "Are you working Saturday?" just for the opportunity to spend another day with this fine man.



I only wish that the rest of the world had a supervisor that was as kind and compassionate as mine. I truly believe that there would be less poverty, less war, less human suffering, and I am sure less unemployment.



His name is Donny...but we all call him a gift from God.



Thank you Donny...



and thank you God!







(PS. How's that sound, Donny? Sound good to you?)

Yard Salers

As I have said before I live on a busy corner in a nice little small Mayberry type town. Whenever someone has a yard sale they always hang the sign from the telephone pole that sits on the corner in front of my house



Then for the next week folks are stopping in the middle, yes, I said in the middle of the intersection to read the sign to try to figure out where the yard sale is so they can go buy someone else's trash to add to the trash that they already own.



I like to sit on the porch, drinking my coffee, and watch the parade of mini-vans.



Sometimes I get lucky and someone asks me for directions.



This is the part I love.



No matter where the address is that they're looking for, I always give them directions to my bank. I figure if they've got money to buy junk with then they have money to put in my bank account.



Life is grand!

Too Long

17 days. I just realized that it's been 17 days since I've posted anything. Life has just been too busy. It seems that I say that a lot. Oh well, at least life goes on.

Isaac and Sheila went down to Columbus last night where Isaac was admitted into Children's hospital in an attempt to get his diabetes under control. It has been progressing and his sugars are running around 400 to over 600. He feels fine, just that his sugars are way too high. they said that the insulin that he is taking could be dangerous for him if it's not controlling his sugars.

So I'm here with the rest of the kids for the weekend.

I have a toilet that needs fixing. Maybe I can get that done today.

A friend of mine would like me to go to the vet with her to see her dog that she admitted yesterday with Parvo. A little beagle puppy and they think she'll make it but my friend just wants her pup to know that she hasn't been abandoned.

Hana and Ben were supposed to take their drivers tests today to try and get their licences but I'm not sure that's gonna happen. Hana can't find her paperwork and Ben's been up all night reading the new Harry Potter book that he went out after last night at midnight. I doubt he'll be in any shape to drive for a test.

I have an appointment next Friday to get my first tattoo. The shape of Texas with the state flag colors inside it. Maybe I won't chicken out.

Backhauls have been slow what with the holidays and all. Got the Sports Illustrated load from Woodstock, IL to Dayton and Columbus, OH this week. If I call early enough I may be able to get that regularly. that would be cool. It pays good and it's a light load. Only 12 or 14000 lbs.

Sheila is getting her new knees on August 8th and all the work rearrangements are in place. She's been doing better lately as far as the pain is concerned but it still hurts pretty bad.

Apparently anyway. I keep telling her I don't feel a thing.

My black eye should heal fairly quick.

My tastes

This is personal.

I love cowboy music. Not country and western so much, although there are a few good songs there, but just the old western music. Anything to do with the cowboys. Maybe that's why I loved Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove so much.

Some of my favorites are Ian Tyson, Don Edwards, Waddie Mitchell, Sons of the San Joaquin, and Michael Martin Murphy. I also enjoy Willie Nelson but for different reasons. As far as country music goes that's about the extent of it.

I have an Ian Tyson album on my mp3 player that I listen to quite a bit while I'm driving and it really helps me relax. There are some days when I just need to mentally escape from wherever I am and go back to the wide open ranges and ride that dusty old dun across the hills in search of the lost herd. Maybe that's why I enjoy driving a truck so much. It's my way of "crossing the plains".

Anyway, Ian Tyson sings this song called Bob Fudge about a trail driver who lived in the late 1800's to early 1900's and it really speaks to me. I love the tune and the words as well. I just wanted to share it with you. Not everyone is familiar with cowboy music and some of it can be quite beautiful.

You can check out the album Live at Longview but here are the lyrics to Bob Fudge.

My name is Bob Fudge
I was born in Texas
Lampasas county
back during the war
Small pox and Comanches
took most of my family
left my poor mother
and my brothers and me.

So I headed north
for to ride for the Blockers
They were contracting herds
for the Montana range.
In the spring of the year 82
we left ol Lampasas
with 2000 steers
for the Little Big Horn

Crossing our trails
were many great rivers
all to be crossed
not a bridge could we find
in the cold roiling waters
and the wild plungin cattle
there was many a young man
took leave of his life

Well, we crossed at Doan's store
into the Indian nations
we saw the blood on the rocks
where those cowboys had died
And on to Fort Dodge
on the Arkansas River
where gamblers and whores
came to welcome us there

The great snow capped peaks
were on our left side now
for many a mile
in a great silent land
when I first saw Montana
I knew I would love her.
I'd ride her great ranges
for the rest of my days.

Well, she's all cut and dried now
and the trails are all gone.
I been to Yellowstone Park
in an automobile.
But I can still see em swimming.
Boy's I can still hear em running.
Yes, I came up the trail
when cowboys was king.

My name is Bob Fudge.
I died in Montana

You really need to find the song and listen to it. It's on the album Live at Longview by Ian Tyson. If I knew how to put it on here I would but alas, my skills do not reach that far yet. Maybe someone can tell me. I would reward them with a great pat on the back.

Have fun.

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.

At Least it's quieter

My sister-in-law and her husband got home last night and now the baby that lives with them, and their dog as well, have gone home. So it's a little quieter here right now. But my in-laws now have a woman, who's husband left her and her four kids while they were living in Germany, now living with them. Two of the kids and a neighbor boy are here right now as my wife, sister-in-law, and the now single mother from Germany are out yard saling. Or is that yard Sailing or Saleing. The family was, for some reason only allowed to travel with one suitcase so their out looking for clothes for the kids.

Anyway, I thought today was going to be a little calmer here, but alas, the Guitar Hero II game is going full blast. I just have to make sure I get my turn.

I wouldn't mind going out for some Karaoke tonight but I'm the only one that likes to do that and if I go by myself I'm libel to get into trouble.

Maybe I'll sit at home and play guitar hero with the kids.

Or I could show up at AM's house with some crabs and beer and cannonball in her pool.

The testicle festival is over so I missed that but I think the brat festival is coming up. It's right between the popcorn festival and the Possum Parade.

What a life I live.