KEN'S KORNER - AUGUST 2009
TALL TRUCKER TALES
BY AUTHOR, EDUCATOR & DRIVER KEN SKAGGS
A couple of weeks ago I was waiting to unload an oil rig, along with about ten other heavy-haulers. The crane was delayed and we all knew it would be a while. It was cool weather up in the higher elevations of New Mexico that day, so we all got out of our trucks and stood around talking for a while. We were ten different characters, with ten different hats, ten different backgrounds, ten different trucks and ten different loads, but we all had tanned left arms. We met in the middle of nowhere, and it became a verbal party as we stood around comparing our trucking adventures. Granted, most of these guys have been doing what they do for a good many years, and probably have seen just about everything, but as with any tall trucker tale, I listened with a grain of salt.
The conversation started with all the hats – cowboy hats, ball caps, company logos and one bandana. A driver mentioned the fact that we will all need to wear a hardhat when we get up to the crane. One driver had a genuine Texas Smokey Bear hat that was supposedly given to him at a weigh station, simply because he asked for it. He loved that hat. He said that it was his Texas hardhat, and that he would rather leave than take it off. And he surely did wear it when he unloaded.
I told the story about how I got my Hollywood Squares hat directly from Whoopi Goldberg, but I think some of them didn’t believe me. It’s really true though. I was in Hollywood one day a few years ago with some time to kill. I walked to the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and was handed some free tickets to go see Hollywood Squares live. Before the show started, Whoopi came toward the crowd and started tossing out free hats and t-shirts. I caught a hat. The short guy who stood in front of me complained that he should have gotten it, and that I reached over him to catch it because I was tall. That may have been true, but as far as I was concerned I caught it fair and square, and would surely wear it from time to time.
When the crane operator pulled up in his pickup truck, he told us he would be moving the crane two miles back and we’d all have to back up two miles to get to the spot to be unloaded. There was a barely visible break between some trees and we were all supposed to turn there, but we just naturally assumed we should be by the crane. So we all backed up two miles, staying in line, then got out of our trucks and continued the tall tales.
We then compared stories on long distance backing. One guy beat us all with a story of how he had to backup eight miles one day. He said he got off route and suddenly saw a sign that said 5-ton limit. The driver was pulling an eleven-foot wide, 110,000-pound oversize load and there was nowhere to turn around. He stopped in the road wondering what to do, when a state trooper pulled up. The trooper told him he had to back up because the road led into a trailer park, which was a dead end. So, with the assistance of the flashing blue lights, he proceeded eight miles down a winding, two-lane road in reverse, until he finally crossed a 4-lane highway. Then, he turned the corner and waited for the trooper, expecting a ticket. Instead, the trooper pulled up and said, “I think you had enough punishment,” and let him go.
Then there was the story about the 600-mile load that took five drivers – the first one had to go home on an emergency, the next one got put out of service for a drivers license issue, the next two broke down, and the last one only took it two miles and got paid for the whole thing.
One driver had us all cracking up when he told us of how he had to unload a truck one day. It was a tandem axle railroad truck, and his removable gooseneck wouldn’t remove. So, he thought he’d back up to a small hill and drive it off the back of his truck (it sounded like a good idea). He said the front tires went up on the back deck just fine, but then the back axles wouldn’t. He had to back it up what little space he had and floor it to get it over the hump. The truck bounced violently as it jumped up on his back deck, and at the same time the steer tires hit the dirt hill. Then, the small hill collapsed and fell to his right, and one side of the back axles fell off his deck, so he turned into the direction of the fall for fear of flipping the truck, as he screamed and gunned it. He bounced off the deck, over some railroad ties and into some trees, and miraculously didn’t do any damage. He said all the railroad guys were just laughing about it, but he was all shook up from all the violent bouncing. He never thought thirty seconds of driving and bouncing could make him sweat so much – he said that he was completely soaked when it was all over.
We talked about tickets, accidents, jobs, business ideas, marriages, kids, child support, even fights and politics – and all without arguing. I even told them about 10-4 Magazine and my website (www.bigcitydriver.com). Yes, heavy haulers can tell some whoppers. But, like I said, these are mostly old-timers who have seen just about everything out here on the road. There were no lessons learned in this rendezvous, but I wouldn’t mind finding myself one of those genuine Texas Smokey Bear hats some day. That really was a pretty cool hat!