skyking1
Senior Member
I was recalling and writing a story from Slim, a dear friend who left us 15 years ago at 55 years young. He was a Viet Nam vet, musician, fellow pilot and as good a friend as we have ever had. He was also a truck driver by trade.
Ken was tired, really beat. He was only 5 hours into a 10 hour one way run to Boise from Seattle. In Yakima, he had swapped trailers and doubled up for the run to Hermiston, where he would get a third trailer for the last leg. Triple trailers are legal in Oregon, even if not very much fun.
To save precious time and miles, they cut across the Horse Heaven hills on 221, a flat and very straight two lane road through farmland. It was as featureless a drive as you can imagine, and completely dark at night with hardly a farmhouse light.
He struggled to keep focus, using the old tricks of cold air, small pieces of candy, changing up the lighting. Sometimes you just had to take a power nap but the logbooks rule the day.
You might meet two or three vehicles on this 27 mile stretch. One of those fellow truckers was approaching and he blinked at the unwelcome high beams. Something was not quite right with the picture, but his brain struggled to acknowledge the horrible truth. The truck was in his lane and closing with him at a combined 120 miles an hour. In that split second that stopped time, he had to decide how he might survive. Do you take the other lane and hope the other driver does not wake up and correct?
He went to the right, off the road onto the shoulder and into the dark unknown. As they passed he glimpsed his back trailer and a 2' gap between it and the other truck.
Now he brought the steering wheel left, and watched that trailer lift up off the left wheels as he plowed the shoulder and some mystery crop with his right wheels. It was a slope down from the road to the farm that he was riding now, and he was at the mercy of some nameless grader operator who shaped that shoulder with care.
As he clawed his way back onto the pavement the trailer rode the downhill wheels but never did roll over. Cresting back onto the pavement, the 75' long combination started a vicious crack-the-whip as the trailer slammed back down on all the tires. He corrected and corrected again and again, and braked down to a halt. He was completely awake now!
As he sat there with a racing heart, he looked in the mirror and a mile away, he saw the brake lights of the other trucker. they both sat there on the lonely road, and he gathered his wits and walked around the truck looking for damage.
The two never talked to each other, perhaps on different CB channels. What would you say? Ken waited and shared that distant bond, until the brake lights went out and the brothers in cargo continued on into the night.
Ken was tired, really beat. He was only 5 hours into a 10 hour one way run to Boise from Seattle. In Yakima, he had swapped trailers and doubled up for the run to Hermiston, where he would get a third trailer for the last leg. Triple trailers are legal in Oregon, even if not very much fun.
To save precious time and miles, they cut across the Horse Heaven hills on 221, a flat and very straight two lane road through farmland. It was as featureless a drive as you can imagine, and completely dark at night with hardly a farmhouse light.
He struggled to keep focus, using the old tricks of cold air, small pieces of candy, changing up the lighting. Sometimes you just had to take a power nap but the logbooks rule the day.
You might meet two or three vehicles on this 27 mile stretch. One of those fellow truckers was approaching and he blinked at the unwelcome high beams. Something was not quite right with the picture, but his brain struggled to acknowledge the horrible truth. The truck was in his lane and closing with him at a combined 120 miles an hour. In that split second that stopped time, he had to decide how he might survive. Do you take the other lane and hope the other driver does not wake up and correct?
He went to the right, off the road onto the shoulder and into the dark unknown. As they passed he glimpsed his back trailer and a 2' gap between it and the other truck.
Now he brought the steering wheel left, and watched that trailer lift up off the left wheels as he plowed the shoulder and some mystery crop with his right wheels. It was a slope down from the road to the farm that he was riding now, and he was at the mercy of some nameless grader operator who shaped that shoulder with care.
As he clawed his way back onto the pavement the trailer rode the downhill wheels but never did roll over. Cresting back onto the pavement, the 75' long combination started a vicious crack-the-whip as the trailer slammed back down on all the tires. He corrected and corrected again and again, and braked down to a halt. He was completely awake now!
As he sat there with a racing heart, he looked in the mirror and a mile away, he saw the brake lights of the other trucker. they both sat there on the lonely road, and he gathered his wits and walked around the truck looking for damage.
The two never talked to each other, perhaps on different CB channels. What would you say? Ken waited and shared that distant bond, until the brake lights went out and the brothers in cargo continued on into the night.
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