Rocky Is Back !

I've been checking back here every once in awhile.The old site isn't what she use to be. Old Capt.Chicken,(hater of all who are non-white),makes me sick.I hope Editor throws the bum out.I will go ahead and post a short story for the folks who still come here for truck related issues and entertainment.Now for the true fiction.I have to admitt that this story goes back a few years.I had just bought my first truck and was leased with Tarmac Transportation.I had been out for three weeks,running mostly Northeast,pulling a flatbed. Back in the yard felt good.Ray the dispatcher had his feet on his desk and never looked up as I entered his office.I glanced over the trip board, which was a black board, with chalk writting in the outbound loads.There really wasn't much to pick from.I heard Ray as he hung up the phone and shuffled over. "So how they hanging Rock?" I didn't know which I hated worse.Being called Rock or waiting for the slap on the back.After the back slapping and small talk Ray got to business. " I got a hot load that picks up in Dallas and goes non-stop to Amarillo.Hell,I know your wanting a day or two off.Just run this and we'll let you take four days off.That'll even give you the weekend."

I knew not to argue with Ray, so I took the hand-written directions from him and headed out.I bob-tailed down I-35,to I-20,passing thru Arlington,Grand Praire,and entered Dallas.The shipper was just off the freeway and I had made good time.The security guard handed me the BOL and pointed to the rear of the huge facility.I knew something was up as soon as spotted the load.Man,what a load! She stood 15 feet tall,was 10 feet wide,and weighed over 70,000 lbs.I stood there for a minute.This had to be a joke. No-way. How in the hell? What was Ray thinking? My thoughts were interrupted by the Professor. He looked just like Adolpf Hitler without the mustache.
" Yooove come to bring thiiss to Ameeerrlooo!" I swear his heels clicked as he spoke. I tried not to laugh.
"No! Well,theres been a mix-up.I don't do heavy haul.See this thang here is way too big for me. I do just regular hauling.You know. Like regular trucking.There's no way I can get legal with that and even if I did my little truck probably couldn't pull it.Ya'll need a heavy hauler.I'll call my office and get this sorted out." I quickly headed for the phone. We had an 800 number and Ray answered on the second ring.
"Say, Ray.This load isn't going work! It's way too big.Ya'll need one of the heavy haulers for this thang." I tried not to sound like an idiot.Ray's reply dashed my hopes.
"Who the hell told you that? Your permits and dolly are all legal.Just hook-up and go.There waiting for that boiler in Amarillo.The whole plant is shut down till it gets there.You know this outfit makes military weapons and is paying us plenty.Your getting $4.00 per mile and stand to clear a bundle for a days work.Now get going!" Ray slammed the phone down.
I walked back to assess my stuation.Sure enough, just behind the beast was a dolly that had an oversized load banner and all the permits. I felt stupid but hey what did I know? Now I had to figure out how to hook-up the dolly.As luck had it another driver pulled in with the exact boiler in tow.I gave him a minute to park before walking over.
"Hey there. Man, I'm glad you showed up. I've never hauled one of these. You think you could help me get set up." I hung my head down and gave my bassett hound sad eyed look.The driver of course was a real horse's ass.
"What's your problem? All you do is pull that dolly in front of the trailer and hook on your fifth wheel.Then back her up and hook the dolly under the trailer. Hook up your glad-hands and your pigtail.There's a valve on the side of the trailer that raises the legs.You know, you have to have oversized load permit for that and you can't run but a certain route.Matter of fact you can't haul after 30 minutes before sundown or before 30 minutes after sunrise.One more thing your going to be a good foot and half over 13' 6". You get off route and you'll eat a bridge! What else do you want to know?" The driver turned his back to me and mumbled under his breath.
I stood looking at the dolly."Now what did he say? I hook up the dolly and back under the trailer? Thats' not going to work,the dolly is facing the wrong way.The tongue should be facing out,but it's facing in. Maybe I can hook up the trailer and pull it forward. Then I can hook onto the dolly and pull it in front of the trailer. That way I can back the dolly under the trailer.Wait a minute. That won't work. That trailer,with that boiler on it weighs 70,000 lbs. That means at least 35,000 lbs on my fifth wheel. It'll blow my rear tires. They can only hold about 23,000 lbs total. Well, wait a minute, how the hell did the last driver get the dolly to face the back of the trailer? How would I know? I wasn't here!" My mind continued to argue as time flew by.
" Vell, you need help? I help. 200 hundred men are ot of verk.Their families are counting you to be there. We need to get gone." Hitler had been standing there the whole time I'd been talking to myself.
Hitler grabbed hold of the dolly and rolled it to the front of the trailer. Of couse I thought. Man. How stupid can I be? This time it wasn't out loud. I hooked up the dolly to my fifth wheel and backed under the trailer. I then connected the pigtail and glad hands.A quick pretrip inspection, fastend the oversized load banner, and away I went.( to be continued...promise)

It was around 2pm when I left Dallas. A wonderfull Indian summer day. Not a cloud in the sky and a steady breeze. The temperature was in the upper 60's and a fall scent filled the air. I read over my permit which was issued by the state. According to it I was to route myself back West On IH20, go North on IH35 E, turn West on SH114, take the US 287 split all the way into Amarillo. My biggest problem was the size and weight of this beast. Since the load wasn't over wideth, nor over length, no escort was required. However, being so heavy, ( 70,000 lbs of trailer, with boiler, plus my Mack tractor, put my total weight over 100,000 lbs. It the height that worried me the most. 15' feet tall doesn't seem that high, unless you come up to a 14' 9" bridge. I had to trust that some state employee had done their homework. Of course the Dallas traffic was my first challange. It was right at 3 pm when I made it to IH35 E. Dallas rush hour traffic begins around 3:30 pm and last till around 5: 30 pm. All was going well untill I saw the sign, " Lane closed merge right." Great! Every 4 wheeler on the IH began swarming over into my lane. I kept a steady speed of about 30mph and my hands tight on the wheel. Of couse traffic began to slow. We were still half a mile before the lane being closed when we began creepy at 15 mpg. Not long after that we came to a dead stop. Wonderfull ! I inched up a few feet at a time. Finally I approached the slow down and realized this dog ain't going to hunt. The road crew didn't have one lane closed. They had 1 and a 1/2 lanes closed. It was't a problem for the cars. They just squeezed over and used the shoulder. I couldn't do that. There was concrete bridge support right at the edge of the shoulder. My West coast mirror wasn't going to clear it. I had rolled to a stop. The dang cars kept shooting by me. I had left turn signals on and tried to move just a foot over to my left,but the 4 wheelers wouldn't let me. Finally a big rig saw my situation. He managed to squeeze over and block both lanes. That gave me the room to snake thru. The rest of IH35 was uneventfull, except having to make the exit for SH114. That's a chore on a good day for any driver, muchless an oversized load. I finally made it all the way to Us 287. I was beat. I decided to shut down in Boyd, Texas for the night. My home wasn't but 15 miles South of there in Briar, Texas. I parked behind the local lumber yard. A friend of mine gave me a lift home. It had been a long day.

A nights sleep in my own bed felt good. Margie my room mate had to work the night shift. I had the house to myself. I left her a letter ontop of the kitchen table. I'm sure she had no idea that being involved with a long haul trucker meant only seeing each other for a few days a month. It had turned nippy during the night. Dew was glistening off the grass as I walked to my neighbor's house. Old man Earl was already drinking his first beer of the day. "Hey, Rocky, When did you get in ?" Earl shook my hand and invited me in. His house was cluttered with empity beer bottles, dirty dishes, and cat crap. " Earl I need a ride to my truck. It's back in Boyd hooked to an over-sized load. Otherwise, I'd driven it home last night."
Earl plopped down on his couch and took another swig. " Where's my honey at? I told you. A few more weeks with you gone and I'll be moved in over there."
" I know Earl. Margie thinks you hung the moon. You really think a 70 year old man, like yourself, could handle her ?" Earl gave me his ear to ear grin. " Hell, just cause there is snow on the roof don't mean there ain't fire in the belly." Earl patted his stomach and rubbed his white hair. I noticed white flakes drift down. One of Earl's 50 cats jumped on the coffe table and took a whizz.
"So, think you can run me up there ? I'll give you some gas money. I hate bothering you." Earl flapped his arms like shooing away flies. " Don't insult me. I can buy all the gas in the state of Texas ! I told you before. You need that car. Take it. It needs to be driven anyway. I got my pickup. Bring it back or keep keep it as long as you want."
With that I made my way to Earl's sled. She was a 1956 Cadillac that had seen better days. An old Coupe Deville that ran like new, but looked like hell.When I opened the door 5 cats jumped out and 3 beers cans tumbled to the earth. The keys were in her and she cranked up the first try. Her worn out mufflers gave notice that I was headed out. A quick stop to pick up my gear and I was gone. Ten minutes later I doing my pretrip inspection. I pulled slowly out onto US 377. My poor Mack was doing all all she could to pull that monster. I figured to make at least Wichita Falls by lunch time. The crisp morning air helped out. No A.C. was needed which helped save power for the pull. There wasn't much traffic and I was on my way.

It didn't take long before I pulled into a small truck stop located just outside of Wichita Falls, Texas. The October Texas sun had taken the nip out of the air. I fueled and got quite a few looks from other drivers. I learned that the dolly was actually called a tag axle. It was a dolly, but since it added an extra axle, and 4 extra wheels, it was better know as a tag. All this was still new to me. I parked near the back of the lot. I knew there was no way to back that monster up. It was like driving a centipede. A big, fat,100k lb,worm. I made it to the restaurant, and ordered my lunch. Of course it was the chicken fried steak, with fries, cream gravy, home baked bread, with a jug of coffee. I did some mental calculations. From what I could tell my poor Mack was only getting 5 mpg pulling this over sized load. She usually got between 7, to 8 mpg. So, a 360 mile trip would take, about 70 gallons, at $ 1.00 per gallon, ( I mentioned this story goes back aways), came to around $70 bucks for fuel. Now, at $ 4.00 per mile, for 360 miles, came to $1,440.00. I guess Ray was right, this load wasn't a bad deal at all. After lunch I did another inspecton of the rig. It was strange, instead of 18 wheels, there were 26. The usual 18, plus 4 on the tag axle, and 4 that were built into the rear of the trailer. Just thumping the tires took awhile. I also noticed that my Mack had used a full gallon of oil. Of course that's about equal to a quart in a car. I head out and took her slow. This thing was real top heavy. The whole rig felt like it wanted to fall over. I was happy to get a good paying run, but sure looked forward to dropping this beast. The Hwy was a 4 lane with plenty of room. I kept in the snail lane and my speed at 50 mph. The truck speed limit back then was 60 mph during the day, and 55 mph at night. I didn't see the need to push my luck. All went well till I was about 50 miles East of Amarillo. Of course the dreaded construction zone. One lane,with the orange barrels,just wide enough to squeeze thru. I kept the CB on and had the windows down.The weather was still excellent. The worse part about that construction zone, was it lasted for 12 miles. Geez ! 12 stinking miles of white knuckle driving. They had bulldozed away the shoulder. So, if your wheels went off the pavement, there was a 3 foot drop. The way I figured it, just enough to topple my whole rig. Now, this is where the story gets exciting. If you've read my other post on this site, you know to brace yourself. Don't let the young ones near the screen. Make sure to to sit firmly in your chair. Don't forget to come back for the rest of the story. ( to be continued....).

been awhile sense i have been on the site love your stories glad your bkl

Hey Stormie, glad your still here. Hope this tale lives up to the hype. I'll try to
finish her up soon. Again, good to see you. Now the rest of the story.

Have you ever got that sense, that somebody was watching you? You know,
like that odd feeling you get. It's hard to explain, but you know. It's like, you
just sense it. Normally, it's just a friend, or neighbor that has caught you off
guard. It'll kind of startles you. You, weren't expecting anyone to be there.
It's that feeling you get right before anyone says a word. You get the feeling,
you turn, and look, and there they are. I never understood how that works,
but it happens all the time. Well, I got that feeling. There on that Hwy, just
tooling along. That feeling hit me. Now, I was trying to keep that rig in line.
It wasn't easy. Seems like the futher I traveled the rig got harder to handle.
Usually the longer you drive a rig, the easier it is to control. It sometimes
takes awhile to get use to it. This load from hell was top heavy. It made the
truck steer real slugish. Like, it took a secnd longer to responde. Stopping
was the same way. The brakes just took longer to react. Now, I guess that's
normal. Remember, we're a good 20K lbs over the 80K lb limit. It was more
of a load than I'd ever pulled. So, I had hands full. But, that feeling kept
getting worse. I glanced over to the passenger seat. Nope, nobody there,
I cut my eyes back towards the sleeper, and quickly turned my head. My
curtains were open, and not a soul was there. Humm, maybe I'm just. Then,
I spotted him. At first I thought it was something from a joke shop. it was
way to big to be real. Then he started that jerky walk. You know how they
walk, kind of jerky. Like the their leg joints need oiling. It always bothered
me to see those ugly alien thangs up close. Well, he was there. That's why
I'd got that feeling. He had at least 10 of his 1,000 eyes trained right on
me. He walked across the dash, like he owned the joint. I didn't dare take
my hands off the wheel.

My first thought was to grab something to swat him with. Hell, of course
there was nothing to grab. Plus, I really couldn't do much swatting. By now,
there was on coming traffic to deal with. They had shut down both East
bound lanes. So now the two West bound lanes were actually just a two
lane road with traffic facing each other. Some of those 4 wheelers were,
as usual, going 60 mph, in that 40 mph constuction zone. Geez. There I was
trapped inside with this sob, and nobody knew. Man, what a deal. Great, he
kept coming towards me. Beads of sweat began popping up on my fore head.
Don't look, maybe he'll turn around. Sure, just ignore him. Then I heard that
awfull sound. Jeeeeeeez. It was amplified, being in that closed cab. My worse
nightmare had just started. He landed right on the tip of my nose. It kind of
reminded me of that movie jaws. Doon don, doon don, doon don, the horns
blaring, du du du doon. The guys argueing it's a 20 footer, no, it's a 25 footer.
Hell' he looked like a 50 footer. There he landed. I guess what pissed me off
the most was that front leg rubbing. You know how they do. Kind of like they
are washing up for dinner. I figured if hung my head out the window the air
would blow him away. So, there I was, both hands on the wheel, and my
head stuck out the window, running 40 mph. The lane seemed to shrink in
size. It was all I could do, to hold her in her lane. Well, that king sized wasp
decided the air felt good. He began buzzing his wings. Not flying anywhere,
just buzzing. The wings viobrated so loud, it sounded like he was inside my
ears. Jeeeeeeez. Then he decided to take a walk. Yep, up my beak, across
my forehead, and into my hair. It was more than I could deal with. I popped
my head back inside the window, and with my right hand brushed my hair. I
felt the contact, and knew I had knocked him somewhere. I had no idea
where he ended up. I focused back to my driving. There they were, stopped
dead in their tracks. Holly crap ! ( to be continued....)

It took about half a second for me to react. Another half second for the airbrakes to lock up, but of course time stood still. It was like watching things in slow motion. The only options I had weren't good. Slamming into a car with 100k lbs, or swerving off the road for a sure roll over. I decided to go with the roll over. I just couldn't kill folks if at all possible. So, I jerked the wheel to my right, and braced myself. Smoke from 26 wheels engulfed the spring air. The jolt from leaving the asphalt threw me out of my seat. I was half way standing, and my face was pressed against the windshield. My belly was riding the steering wheel, and my feet were dangling in the air. The second jolt was when I felt the rig lean to her right. The steering wheel spun to the left, so now I was facing the driver's door, with my feet ontop of the passenger seat. A final jolt came when the rig jackknifed. The trailer pushed my tractor sideways for a good 50' feet. The smoke completely blocked my view. I released my death grip from the wheel, and slowly rolled on my back. Now I was lying across the driver's seat looking up. That's when the hot shooting pain hit me. It felt like I'd been shot in the back right between my shoulder blades. I slowly sat up. To my amazement I had not rolled over. The tractor had come to rest about 20' feet from the road. It was facing the stopped traffic. The rear of the trailer was still on the road. It took me a minute to get myself pulled together.

A construction worker was the first one to reach me. He swung open my door. After assuring him I was okay. We did a quick walk around my rig. There was no visable damage, other than every item in my truck being tossed all over the inside. The engine was even still idling. So, I climbed back in, and away I went. Of course I couldn't get back on the hwy with that 3' foot drop off. So, I just drove beside the stopped traffic in the dirt. I got quite a few looks as I passed all the stopped cars. Luckily, it wasn't more than a mile to the end of the construction. I managed to creep onto the shoulder, and merge back on the freeway. I ended up being ahead of all the stopped traffic. I pulled into a rest area to check myself out. My nose and lips were swollen. I guessed from kissing the windshield. I took off my shirt and shook it. That 2 lb wasp fell out. The stinger was still stuck in my back. I rearranged the contents of my truck, put a fresh shirt, and tried again. This time I made it. There was a welcoming party at the entrance. Those folks hadn't been able to work and were glad to see me. Looking back, it's kind of funny. That wasp sting had swollen up so much, I must of looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. With my nose swollen to twice it's size and my lips sore. Yeah, a drunk, hunchback, wearing a Jimmy Durante mask. Some hero, hey ! (The end )...Rocky.