KEN'S KORNER - DECEMBER 2003
CHICKEN HAULER SCHOOL
By Author, Educator and Big City Driver Ken Skaggs

There must be a secret school somewhere that teaches the fine art of chicken hauling. I say that because of the recent influx of chicken haulers on the road today. I suspect many of them came from this secret school. They all seem to have the same characteristics. They all drive the same, they all say the same things on the CB radio, they even all have the same accent. I would even go so far as to say they speak their own language. You can usually spot them by the rubber chicken sticking out of their back door, looking as though the door closed on it, while trying to escape.

Chicken haulers are much easier to spot at night. They pass you by like the sun – a yellow, hot ball of light, glowing in all directions. If it weren’t for the fact that they're usually going eighty miles per hour, you’d be blinded for sure. Thankfully, they pass quickly and are soon out of sight. But, just in case you blink and miss one, don’t worry; just turn your CB radio on. They are sure to be talking, non-stop, especially if there are two or more traveling together. They like to do that – travel together as one, like an American road-train. In Australia, they hook five trailers up to a tractor, but here, they travel so closely that they often look like one long vehicle.

This special breed of trucker always seems to have a super-duper CB radio too. You’ll sometimes hear them coming up to twenty miles away. They’ll be talking about the run they used to do and the truck they used to drive, which was even better than this one. They pause long enough for some one to answer “uh-huh” and then they continue on, about how well they drive, while they speed through the mountains. They’ll talk about the good old days, back when they used to make five dollars a mile and their truck went over one hundred miles per hour. They have plenty of stories for willing (and often unwilling) ears. They’ve all seen a moose before, in the road of course, trying to attack their truck. Most of them own ranches, with horses and cattle, and do a little NASCAR racing on the side.

Recently divorced, the chicken hauler is always looking for love in all the wrong places, namely, on the CB radio. Whenever he hears anything resembling a female voice, he asks whose “sweet voice” that was, every time, without fail. You could even lip-sync it along with him, it’s so expected. If she is going his way, he will bravely lead the way through the night, risking getting a speeding ticket, in order to impress her. He’ll tell her he knows these roads like the back of his hand as he drives beyond what he can see with his headlights. Then, he’ll offer to buy her a coffee and she’ll sneak off at the next exit when he isn’t looking and disappear.

But they sure love their trucks. I mean, really love them, like a wife. They’ll spend all of their money on them, buying them gifts, like chrome and lights, to decorate them with, like a girl wearing jewelry. The truck is the girl and he’s the sugar daddy. He has a name for her too, usually Betsy or Betty-Lou. He keeps her clean and shiny, even underneath, spotless. And what’s with that bandana sticking out of his pocket? It’s a dust cloth. He’s always wiping it off. He parks at the far end of the parking lot and doesn’t mind the long walk back to the truck – he gets to look at her longer that way.

Chicken haulers are usually the first one to stop and help you when you need a hand. One actually gave me a headlight one night. He wouldn’t even take my money. I offered him ten bucks but he refused. It left me feeling like I owed the next broken-down trucker I find a helping hand. He held a flashlight for me while I changed it and told me to pay him by helping the next one I find who needs help. I think it was the next day, I gave a guy a jumpstart. More than once, I’ve stopped to lend tools to truckers asking for something specific that I happened to have had. I’ve helped others many times and I have been helped many times too.

Hug a chicken hauler today. Wish them a Merry Christmas and buy them a cup of coffee. Then get the heck out of there! Happy Holidays!!