Too much fun

by Brad Nelson

My son Daniel, the second-generation hay hauler, brought me a torque arm from one of his trailers. It was rather scrunched on one end. I told him it could be fixed, but that I didn’t want to fix it. In fact, it would be a better idea to replace it. He said that he already had. He even had a used part that fit perfectly. His little finger was straight, and working well again. The torque arm and the finger were the only damage done from his latest “incident”.

They had unloaded, and were on the way home. From the view behind, it appeared he needed to check on the rear trailer. He found the first available, supposedly safe place to stop, pulled “Waaaaay” off of the road, asked Ryan to hold the trailer brake for just a minute, and stepped back to check the trailer. He climbed up on the deck of the back wagon, made the adjustment, and turned to walk back to the front. Then the trailer moved, causing him to lose his footing. His first thought was that brother Ryan had somehow kicked the truck into gear. Then he saw the grill of a pick-up slide by. “That”, he said, “was the first indication I had that we had a problem.”

Looking back, there was a 2001 Dodge pick-up parked at the corner of his rear trailer. It was not in good shape. The driver was uninjured, but the right front corner of the pick-up was now in the passenger’s seat. About this time, Dan noticed that his little finger didn’t point the same direction it had before the upset. It was also numb. Nothing seemed to be broken, and when he applied a little straightening pressure, it “snapped” back, kind of in place. Later that evening, his mother spoke to him about setting his own bones.

When the “Law and Order” arrived, the first question Dan was asked was whether he was wearing his seat belt at the time of the accident. “No.” “Why not?” “I wasn’t in the truck.” “Where were you?” “Standing on the deck of the rear trailer.” “Were you hurt?” Dan, momentarily forgetting about his finger, and/or not thinking of it as an injury, answered, “No.” “Why not?” “Probably because my wife prays morning and night that I will not get hurt.” The noble constable then cited the driver of the pick-up for driving on the shoulder of the road, and the boys all came home.

Many years back, a hay grower from Idaho became the proud owner of a nice Peterbilt tractor and a nice set of hay trailers. One of the first incidents was while backing into a hay shed, the owner, at the same time talking and directing his son (who was driving) was almost observant enough. The gist of the conversation was that the hay grower had never delivered hay to him in a truck this nice. About that time, the top of the doorway in the shed bent both shiny chrome exhaust stacks forward at about 90 degrees. The dairyman, being quick-witted, added that the hay grower had never done that before, either.

They had difficulties at the Farewell Bend port of entry in Oregon also. The truck insurance they carried was seen by the state of Oregon as “home state farm coverage only”, and they were being reluctant to let them proceed through the state. After exhausting all possibilities, and also all patience, the son who was driving got on the phone to his father. In disbelief at the way his son and his shiny new truck were being treated by the state of Oregon, the father asked the son what kind of a person he was dealing with. The son, also very much out of patience, and lacking the observation skills he should have used, replied, “Oh, he’s a great big fat so-and-so!” The weigh master was standing right behind him as he spoke. Two days later they tried again with a new type of insurance on the truck. And avoided the heavy-set weigh master all they could. They did fairly well with the truck. But after about the first winter, they hauled less and less of their own hay. Something about gaining too much experience and having too much “fun”.

The year the volcano blew up, we met a number of new hay haulers. Idaho hay was almost clean of volcanic ash, and the state was swamped for awhile. One fellow (I honestly can’t remember his name, so I don’t have to disguise it) could get to the stack to load no earlier than late Monday or early Tuesday, and had to be on the road with his last load of the week by Thursday afternoon. We found out why. He was spending rather long weekends in jail. In fact, he wasn’t even supposed to be out of his home state. It seems that some time back, while crossing the Willamette River on one of the many huge bridges in the Portland area, one of the local constables stopped his truck. One thing led to another, and after a bit the constable was abruptly put to sleep by the large right fist of our friend. He then placed the fellow in the back seat of the patrol car, closed the door, and then used the car’s radio to state that whoever belonged to it might come and tend to their man, who was out like a light in the back seat. Then he left. About five miles up the road, about five hundred police cars pulled him over, and used very poor manners in the way they addressed him; were rough as they put handcuffs and leg irons on him; and took him off to the dungeon. When he finally got out, it took him about a week to find where they had hidden his truck. He said that he’d learned his lesson.

Dealing with those boys, he said, was kind of like letting your bride teach you how to play strip poker. “They makes up the rules as they goes along.”

The all-time best one, however, concerns parking tickets. One fellow would park in a perfectly suitable place while he ate. Only problem was, that there were “No Parking” signs right there. The food was good, and the parking ticket was a minor annoyance; cost him about $15 a month, so he just kept parking there and paying the fine. This exasperated the locals.

So one fine day, as our hero was eating his favorite food, the locals had a two-ton tow truck try to tow away 80,000 pounds of eighteen-wheeler. The cab was locked, so they couldn’t take the transmission out of gear. After a few minutes of great difficulty, the little wrecker got the monster to move. They had loosened the slack adjusters on the parking brake, and as they got it to move, the engine started. The 318 Detroit Diesel engine, in granny low gear, pushed the wrecker through three buildings before they could get things stopped. After he got his truck out of the body shop, all clean and shiny, he parked in the same spot, and went to eat. After paying for three buildings, one wrecker, and repairs on an eighteen-wheeler, the insurance company of the little town told the locals to just leave things alone. The “No Parking” signs remained, but never again was our hero even given a parking ticket. PD