Mud and oatmeal

by Brad Nelson

Wind and water. Either in the form of rain or snow, we can’t live without it. Now if there were only a means to control the timing. I’ve given up keeping count of the times in my trucking days when on a particular haul I’d have stiff headwinds in both directions. And when the rain seems to quit when it doesn’t matter, and start up when you are ready to load or unload.

There are some who feel that the weather runs in cycles, but often that is limited to an observer’s memory or lifespan. I once felt that the South-western Idaho desert had a five-to-seven year wet and dry cycle. The dry years were simply grand for hay hauling. No mud. No top bales that were soaked through. And no snowdrifts. The wet years had all of the above in spades.

We were rudely disturbed from a late dinner in Mountain Home, Idaho one evening, as a member of the local constabulary insisted that the hay truck was too far out into the street. He was right. The street side tires were on the fog line. But the ditch side tires were on the edge of the pavement and to have parked the truck father to the right would have laid it on it’s side, due to two months of steady rain. After moving the truck two blocks away, to avoid a ticket, I set my soggy self down to finish my now cold supper.

That little cafe on the West end of Mountain Home (I think it was called the Desert Oasis, but my memory could be failing me) was the scene of a number of memories. One evening it was infested with several of us. Norm was back washing up when the hapless waitress came to take our orders. As she took orders for things like chili burgers and chicken fried steak from the rest of the group, she inquired of Norm. Holding a straight face, and looking her right in the eye, I asked her to just bring Norm a big bowl of oatmeal. “I think I’ll wait for him to order for himself,” was her halting reply. She had obviously been waiting tables for the likes of us for a good long time. Upon Norm’s return, looking much better than when he left us, we told him of waitress’s decline to bring him his meal. When she did return, Norm asked for a big bowl of oatmeal. Without missing a beat, the waitress said, “Coming right up.” The effect gone, Norm then changed his order.

In the springtime of a wet year the trick was to get into a stackyard, load and get out before the frost that was in the ground went away. The surface melt, that was half an inch to two inches deep, and slippery, was a gross annoyance. It was usually solved by use of a moderate sized farm tractor, or by throwing on a set of tire chains. What constituted a gross problem, was finding mud two feet deep. Now we would never purposely drive into such a situation, but usually discovered it when all forward motion ceased and sometimes included a bad listing to one side. Finding myself in the latter situation one fine morning, I was able to unhook the trailer, and with about a half-an-hour of work with the shovel, drive the truck out. I kept it going until I was out on the gravel road. There, I put on two pair of three-rail chains. I walked over the area around the trailer, and carefully backed the truck toward it. Then with a chain, I pulled the tongue of the trailer in a direction so that I could hook back up to the truck. I was able to pull the trailer out, and kept going until I was not only on the gravel road, but had traveled far enough to get most of the mud out of the tire chains. I should have left them on.

Leo was loading in the stackyard just up the road, about 3/4 of a mile away. I stopped at the end of the lane leading to this yard, and walked (sloshed) up to the yard. There I found Leo, truck and trailer loaded, tied down, pulled away from the stack, and stuck. Had he made it another thirty feet, he would have beat me home. Leo was in a foul mood. I told him to smile. He asked why he should smile. “Because we’re having fun, that’s why you should smile,” I said. “Now smile, doggone you, smile!”

Leo broke into an honest smile, followed by a good laugh. With the attitude adjusted appropriate to our circumstances, we made a list of alternatives, and I went back to my truck. I convinced Lyle to get out and help. We unhooked the trailer, and put back on the two pair of three-rail chains. Then, hoping to avoid falling into any more holes, we drove in, backed up to Leo’s stuck rig, connected the two with heavy chain, and pulled Leo out all the way to the road.

As we cleared the stackyard, Leo called on the CB radio about stopping to close the gate. My reply was that this train was not stopping until every wheel was parked in the middle of that good solid gravel county road up there just less than a quarter mile away. “Well what about the gate?” he asked. My polite and reserved reply was that if he wanted the gate shut, he could walk back and shut the dang thing after we were done being stuck in the mud. Leo pulled rank (or his pistol, I’m not sure which,) and sent his nephew back to close the gate. PD