Diesel Smoke Dangerous Curves

In the recent few weeks the suggestion that I’m either lazy , or have lost my love of truckin is just not thinking. As far back as mid 1974 my entire life, even mixed in with things Hazzard , has been based on moving freight.

From the TeenAge Truckers Association, to the Knytes-of-Anarchy which is not a MC but a classic and custom truck organization coupled with a trucking historical preservation organization.

From the chain drive wallet to the ball cap on my head and many other things that few know, except those who know me. Trucking and trucks has been and will be part of my life and dreams.

However , I will say this, I contracted to do some tater truckin at the start of the Idaho tater harvest season. First, the truck the farming operation put me in was so old it creaked when it hit a bump, had no juke box radio, shifted terrible , had no muscle , plus that tiny ladder on the back of the bed to tarp with was too short, too skinny and unsafe. That discouraged me to begin with. The brakes were shot, and needed service, the list goes on, but I love trucks and truckin , but love livin better. Then there was the realization that instead of the promised $9.00 an hour I was supposed to be makin, I was really only taking home a little over $6.00 an hour. I may love truckin, but I also have my pride. I’ll be damned if I’m going to get all dirty, with dirt flyin in my face, from the rear of a harvester, get my nuts racked by a too skinny, too short bed ladder, hot sun, no water, no food and so on, for $6.00 an hour. Which is why, my truckin is done via toew truck, not spud truck.

Now then there is the legalities. The BMCS along with D-O-T, sezz any body driving a truck over 26,000 pounds GVW, for hire must have a COMMERCIAL DRIVERS LICENSE, at least a class B for a Ten Wheeled spud truck, and / or a Farm or Agricultural Exemption Certificate, for operation within a 100 mile limit from field to market. Violation penalty? $25,000.00 each for both employer, and driver, and / or 1 year in a state prison. Neither was in my plans, so ultimately, I bagged the job. It was a con job, and yes FYI, the UAITA is looking into the condition of the situation, and will look at bringing fines against American Staffing, the farmer that contracted with them for allowing people to drive commercial trucks that are not safe, and not licensed appropriately.

So no, I am not lazy, just cautious.

Okay then, plans are under way to engage a thing that’s been on the books for several years.

The project is called, TruckFest . TruckFest will drop the hammer in 2013 at the Bingham County Fairgrounds in Blackfoot Idaho. Good food, trick trucks, hot honeys, lots of entertainment, and all.

More next month here in HazzardAyre.

Good Numbers to ya’ll

  

NO MORE 24 HOUR TRUCK STOPS

 

Long b4 I ever began to grind gears hauling, or toewing, I used to hang out at what was the RoadRunner Texaco Truck Stop in Bliss. So then after that found that our family had a financial interest in the Flying J chain, but I always liked going to the mom & pop truck stops. Most were open 24 hours, had good food usually home made, lots of it and at a reasonable price. In our neighborhood, Bliss had three, The RoadRunner Texaco, the Y-Inn, and the Oxbow. All remained open 24 hours, and what was really cool, was sitting there slurping down 100 mile sea,(coffee) hearing those freight haulers yap about their trips. The bears, the roads, fuel prices, the whole shebang.

Of course that was old skool truckin, something I think we have lost, is the independence of truckin. Like the industry itself, Trucking has become too technical. Automated and too focused on the dollar , rather than the pride in the industry, that we used to have.

Truck Stops if ya’ll want to call them that, are more like travel stops. Real truck stops do exist , but not many if at all, in Idaho any more. The ones called a Truck Stop, few have cafe’s that stay open 24 hours like they used too. The ones that do usually have pit bulls in there rather than the truck stop angels we used to see. The old adage gleaned from a old movie sezz, if you build it they will come., I have considered several times of sticking my neck out and building a truck stop, even a small one, but my financial limitations makes that a wish that will never be crossed off of my bucket list.

In Diesel Smoke, I’d like to get your thoughts on the memories ya’ll have of the old skool truck stops. I’m sure ya’ll have some. Maybe even a few of you got your Cherry popped at one, that was not an uncommon happening.

The only real truck stops left in Idaho, that are true truck stops are Wright Brothers’ Idaho Falls Truck Plaza, The Boise Stage Stop or what’s left of it, and Burns Brothers in Boise. In Nampa is a Flying J along with one that took the steam out of what is in Heyburn, where the Knytes meet, called the WaySide. Used to be spelled WeighSide, but got changed several years ago, when the place quit fueling trucks. Now about the only thing fuel wize here is Loves. Problem is they are a fuel stop, with a Carl’s Junior , but not a REAL CAFE. Then of course truckers lounges. These were where drivers with too many miles, not enuff Hours for service rested. If ya’ll wanted to go trucking and wanted the real skivvy on the industry, forget the truck magazines, go listen to those old pros. Thing with me, even though Dad had driven a rig even b4 I was born, if fact I was born in a 58 Pete COE, pulling a bull hauler. I teethed on the steering wheel of a 62 Pete COE that Dad bought from Cady Auto in Hazzard. But I was too damn ignorant and arrogant to be interested in trucking. For in 1963, Dad took a reassignment at Hill Air Force Base in Utah so much of my truckin days would be furloughed until we all moved back here to Idaho.

When I got to the age of 17 , Mom bought me a VW Diesel Rabbit, it was new got great mileage, but I really wish it would have been a truck. Any mile, I painted my Mini Mack as I called it, put on some bulldog air snorters, crafted a couple of stove pipes for stacks, put on big elephant mirrors, and some Mack mud flaps attached to the bumper.

So I went to the truck stops, soaking in every bit of trucking  411 I could get, course I was so naive they most likely told me stuff that was not real, but I believed every damn thing they told me. Course a few years later LexiBelle and I got together and albeit a mini rig as many called it, still a 1-1/2 ton Chevy with a 500 Holmes was by all accounts a commercial truck so I was trucking, well sort of. I rapidly found out the realities of owning a truck and trying to make a living with it. It was easier  back then since  fuel was not as high, insurance was reasonable, even for a green horn like me, and we had the shop and all in Hazzard. Back then the big gig on the weekends was going to Bliss to the truck stop. Have java, play Packman , and swap bullshit stories with those freight haulers.

Back then it was not bad and life with that 79 VW Rabbit, going to most of them was cheap. I’d make up reasons to go, until, one cold morning in Gooding City, I used some starting fluid to start the little diesel, blew the head off of it, bought a 69 Chevy Caprice, turned it into the General Jackson, and in 81 bought General Lee. The rest is history, but one night in early October,2011, I sat at the WaySide in LiL Lexi, looking at the old fuel pumps of the old fueling area there, remembering what it was like, wishing that same pride, and spirit would come back to American trucking. Maybe it will after the USA , becomes the UCSA and the Confederate party is in charge of the government, and the nations capitol is in Georgia.

Good numbers to ya’ll

Can you afford to work any more?

Independent thinking and living , from off the Feds, is not only over rated, its impossible.

Dig this friends, Cuzzin Bud gave me a double L , on the Sunday this is being carved out, to tell me that SSI is going to deduct a small amount from my SSI checks.

Normally telling SSI to stick it, would not be a problem if , and only IF this tater truckin job, was year long. Hell that’d be a groove, but it ain’t , so since the tater truckin job is a temp job, and SSI is my safety net the rest of the year, I had to say adios to the tater truckin job. My other associated job with Charley, is through a partnership, in that I’m a private contractor, rather than a regular salaried employee. Thus, SSI don’t know, so I gets my dough.

Then I looked at my last pay check from AMStuffing, do ya’ll realize just under $35.00 was taken out of my earnings just for taxes and crap. Hell I worked for it, why not allow ME to decide what to pay in taxes, if I felt the need. Which I don’t. Why should I subsidize all these wetbacks and all when 80% of em  ain’t Americans or at least red blooded born in the UCSA ? When I have lost the ability to salute the American flag or sing the Union national anthem, but rather salute our rebel battle flag and sing the Dixie National anthem, why would I give $35.00 from work from my sweat to the USA?

The bottom line, although promised $9.00 per hour, I’m really making a little over $6.00 per hour. I’m spending more going to work than I’m making so I bagged it.

When I do $100.00 worth of business on my own, I keep $75.00. The rest is split between sales tax, operating expenses, and Charley at A1. But my blood sweat and gears are earned and kept by ME. Course I always contribute to SAMCRO of $30.00 , each toew or fix it job, but its my choosing, not the Man telling me I have to.

So ya’ll say , “ So what is supposed to support my SSI payments as well as all others? What supports our military etc? How about a flat domestic sales tax? Across the board. A Federal Sales Tax. Then when someone buys something we ALL pay for domestic programs, including the things under what is called entitlements like SSI.

How would this be a better system, because A; it means everyone pays, every time we buy something. More people would have more money to spend and that means the generation of more tax money. Not just a select few that were born with a golden spoon in their mouths, rather than the lead one I have to eat with any more.

Of course more savings can be had by our Federal Union government. Like giving priority to people born on our shores and heartlands. Getting people in Yankee federal jobs that SPEAK AMERICAN ENGLISH, not Hispanic , or such. Cut down all the bureaus and Yankee federal agencies, offices that do nothing, but we pay for. Simplify registering for things, with a person in the west or south. If the BP oil spill , and Katrina taught us anything, in a national disaster, the FEMA and other Fed revenuers, have no idea of what to do, or deploy resources.. So why have FEMA, etc? I say , let the local communities have their own resources from the people that live there , or here. Hong Kong phooey having Congress grant money to just none profit organizations, how about real grants to people wanting to start their own business’s? Not SBA or low cost loans, but GRANTS. In essence, the feds could excersize some philanthropic efforts rather than just , albeit I’m thankful for it, but something other than welfare, Medicaid or SSI. Give Americans the ability to do their own thing. Give us who want to start our own enterprizes the ability to do so, rather than cut us off at the heels b4 we even get out off the tarmac?

So I ask, Can you AFFORD to go to work?

My answer is no.

L8R Ya’ll

   

Not Hearing the spirits calling

Ignoring the spirits or omens they bestow is one of those things we do but shouldn’t. Example; back in March of 2008 I was in good shape in Pocatello, had a gig on TV, was about to close on a place for the Reaper Club in Blackfoot, even had some babes on paper to give HCC and the club a boost, but got into a pissing match because some little snot nosed bouncer at some damn bikini bar there gave me the wrong kind of rub. Okay looking back, should have let the club handle that, and had I put it together then of who it was, would have just told the club, swat the little pest and been done with it.

So one nearly frozen Sunday, I was cruizing the Internet and caught this story of some damn nuke power plant up near Hammett, so thought , shit I can at least at that be a gopher, on the side set up the toew truck , and even get a place for the AyreWolvez.

So with little more than my monthly excretions from SSI, I trucked up to Goons Ferry, looked at this place up there, and the price was right, but what I saw was not what really was.

In July of 2008 by then I found that the membership of the Hazzard Knytes had dwindled to a very short few, and was about to collapse. So I decided , doing up this blog in the Mountain Home News might reignite the fuse of things Hazzard. My was I wrong. First the little prick from Pocky had to stick his nose in , then it was a free for all. Ya’ll know the rest cept it wasn’t because the spirits didn’t warn me. First on my way up , on my scouting trip to Goons Ferry, at the 141, mile post, the exhaust pipe on LiL Lexi, flat fell off due to rust. Then even though I had closed the deal on the place in Goons Ferry, I was at a point since I saw that the place was much smaller than advertised and the fact the place was up for sale, I wanted to back out of the gig. Called the guy, but he who owned the place, but he would not refund the money. Then at the 265 mile post on the way home to Pocky, the front tire blew, no big deal usually, but the nut had ceased on the lug bolt so I had to call out a tire truck. both the exhaust pipe and tire were omens from spirits having flown saying to me this is a really bad idea. But I was committed, so move I did. To round this out, in early September 2008 and nothing to do with the TV show by the same name, but caught an email from the Sons and the Sons bailed out the Hazzard Knytes from going under and disbanding. In October 2008 the Hazzard Knytes became the Knytes of Anarchy. The Knytes of Anarchy became a heavy truck enthusiasts group, retaining all the trappings of what was us throughout our Hazzard years, coupled with the Sons, of Anarchy or SAMCRO MC. SAMCRO are bikes and bikers, the Knytes , trucks, together  we rule the roads. SAMCRO remains headquartered in ChowChilla California, while the Knytes remains headquartered in Evanston Wyoming, with the Idaho Charter still looking for a place to drop anchor. In many ways still, the Knytes are just teething and still under rework status.

That said, might the Knytes been better off east of the Tragic Valley? Might things have been different if I had heard the noises from those spirits?

In closing the club is looking, east to eastern Idaho, but I ain’t.  The club is considering , putting our NOMAD President in Blackfoot Idaho as President, and me taking reins on the Utah Charter. Depends on what happens with Cuzzin Bud.

Bud is outta the hospital, but these diabetic mini strokes are becoming too frequent, and depending on ability I’m planning a run to Utah to be with Cuzzin Bud and Gordon, get things fixed financially for both myself and the club, then seeing what shakes as far as a place to hang my head, either in Morgan or Tooele. 

With the bad mouthing, back stabbing and all I have went through the club as far as Idaho is concerned might do better with new leadership. As far as me, I’m way to tyred and getting way too old to wait for this horse and wagon state to warp into the 21st century.

L8R

HazzardAyre TV True INDEPENDENT Community Television

There is this thing that starts , few if anyone knows why or its true origin ,but ideas come to those who are gifted, blessed or in some instances cursed with an abundance of intelligence and/or creativity, or at least innovative talents or genes or both.

You’ll be sleeping, dreaming of a picinic with dear sweet Daisy Duke, and BOOM, the idea hits. It could be words to a song , a book to be written, or in my case a design or color scheme to a customized truck.

Or it could be inspiration to help friends and associates in a cause that they been working on.

Such is the case.

But some background here is required, to get a complete grip on this.

For as many years that national or for that matter local TV stopped running one hour dramas, likewise for cable, TV as we know it took a serious nose dive into the hog trough. Let’s face it, when the bold and rich TV execs, along with a bribed FCC(Federal,Communications,Commission) decided to go digital, and pawned the idea off to the American public as a path for gaining bandwidth for improved Internet especially wireless, a move lobbied mostly by cell phone company Verizon, except for a very few LPTV(Low-Power-TV) stations , analog TV OTA(Over-The-Air)TV was gone.

This left many Americans especially those financially challenged , such as the elderly on SSA or others on SSI, without TV. Retired military, etc were also effected. Many could not get cable and with the credit restrictions of both DISH and DIRECTV even fewer could opt for satellite TV.

Thus no access to both national or local news, to information when it comes to a natural disaster, with only RADIO being the only access. Sure newspaper is okay but print is limited time frame wise. Forget about being entertained reading a newspaper. Good comic strips are gone. Okay , again, radio is great and is the heart of HazzardAyre Radio, but still what about being able to kick off your boots , grab your pork rinds and suds, and watching TV and good wholesome TV at that?

The Hazzard County Knytes, and our parent organization SAMCRO MC, is working to change this situation and condition.

By building an LPTV with the attributes of a cable access community station such as that in Pocatello CH-12, only being able to be seen by everyone including those with the rabbit ears on top of the old analog TV.

Lets face it, TV period in the Mini Cassia area of Idaho where I live , TV reception , even with a good outside antenna and digital converter is a crap shoot, and outside of a maybe signal out of Pocatello(Fox-35) no LPTV , TV.

HazzardAyre/KDXB TV will be that TV salvation , but we need the publics help as well as the help of the local business community.

Currently we are looking for in kind fund donations to buy equipment. Likewise if there is someone here in this area with a building or usable space that could be used as a studio, that would be willing to give it to us for our use, please give us a call at 212-9653.

We are not talking of TV as a business, but rather community TV, where folks who want to be on TV or produce things to air on TV can do so, free of charge. We cannot charge for advertising, since this will be as said community TV , but hey at least its none cable FREE TV.

Want to watch a local High School sports event but can’t go to the game? It’d be on HazzardAyre TV, want to see a high school drama play but can’t go? It’d be on HazzardAyre TV. How about watching the city council meetings in Burley, Rupert , Heyburn etc? It’d be on HazzardAyre TV. Its free OTA TV for our area.

So give us at CooTer’s Toewing a supporting member and sponsor of the Hazzard County Knytes / SAMCRO MC, of Idaho. Our phone number is 212-9653. Help the Knytes, help Mini Cassia.

L8R Ya’ll

  

HELLBILLY TRUCKER DAILY BREEF

Of all the procedures of modern medicine that is done these days, getting dental health work done has to rate up there with going to the DMV , frustrating and while not always painful surely makes wonder. Then to top it off, some medical type there thought it’d be fun to take an ultra sound of my gastro insides as I was talking of the pains in my tummy. Seems as though ones gallbladder isn’t the only cause of gall stones. As both they say can grow back. So they gave me some barium so they could scan my insides. On a near empty belly, The barium wasn’t tasty nor getting the trots . So staying near to the domestic inside outhouse.

For all that think that the Rat Rod truck movement is my imagination, here’s pics,

 

And that as the woman said after church on one Sunday as she took off her spanx, “that lets that out”

Going 10-10 tonight headed for TV and bed.

More menyanna

Quote of the day:
It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated. - Alec Bourne

John 14:6“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Brought to you by BibleGateway.com. Copyright (C) . All Rights Reserved.

A trucker mag done Hazzard style

Sitting here in the shop office , with a tooth that feels like it wants to come out, but gum tissue prevents it. I only notice it when I bite down on it.

Happened in the same spot that I got that tooth fixed courtesy of Becky. What happened was , I was ratcheting down some chain on a Cat loader Saturday, and the handle came up a smacked me upside the jaw.

Haven’t went to the dentist yet, but got a few days off so going in a day or two.

Got the days off due to running near none stop going toewing. Snow hit, I’m reasonable rate wise so I get calls. Yes LexiBelle is up and going in her Rat Rod style attire. But at least going, which is better than last year.

So , you ask what is a rat rod. A Rat Rod is a custom ride done up in flat paint, little chrome , but lots of home brewed innovations. Kinda like Chopper bikes only applied to 4 wheels or in our case 6, 10, or 18 wheels.

No flash, just plenty of grunt.

Okay , so how did this new title from the HazzardAyre stable come about> ?

Purtty much like how we scrounged up the Knytes-of-Anarchy. Saw a thing in a magazine, Rebel Rodz to be exact, followed up by Ol Skool Rodz, at a meeting of the Idaho Charter of the Knytes-of-Anarchy, and we said lets try this out.

So we did and our printed version smelled so good we decided to not just make it a part of HazzardAyre Gazzette, but as a stand alone publication.

So as they all used to say on HeeHaw, her tizz.

Now I leaned on both local newspapers here in HazzardAyre. The Voice as well as the Weekly Reader. Both are great publications, but timid to run anything that could possibly erk the main religious body here the LDS Church.

The Knytes of Anarchy tried everything we knew, but to no avail. They flat would not run anything from the club, or me.

Funny though, most I have talked to here in the Mini Cassia area were not that upset, over HazzardAyre, nor HellBilly Trucker, in fact most welcomed a fresh voice here free of local or religious bias.

The Voice ran a want ad , in both September and October for poster girls for both of our publications. Of which, we got maybe 4 responses , two were not even serious, 2 just wanted to sniff around, so we bagged it.

Both publications wonder why we don’t place ongoing ads with them, look at the results of our model search ads then ask again. One’s editor/publisher ran for re-election. Did not win, by the highway, and why?

Again if you are turning the screws down too much on people in your newspapers, who will vote for you?

Until Thursday night,

L8R Truckers

 

Quote of the day:
Everything you can imagine is real. - Pablo Picasso

John 14:6“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Brought to you by BibleGateway.com. Copyright (C) . All Rights Reserved.