Muck Boots 'n' Slickers - Life of a Livestock Hauler

Take a deep seat and grab for leather and keep your mind in the middle and say a little prayer for the tires is what…. Never mind— I never was to much good at arithmetic

 

You and @Oxbow are the cause of all the digital dashes now.
No way could you carry the 104 out 3 places with a needle and dots. Speedo have to be big as a pie plate and you would still need good glasses.... Lean, squint...

 

When you are going off left to a ditch you have no concept of 8 seconds. Actually, you don't grab anything, you are stuck to what you were holding and body position, then it is real quiet....

 

She ain’t no Patsy but she ain’t really that hard to look at and she does have a fairly decent voice— I might have just fallen in… never mind

 

Junky on my computer speakers, but it get the point across...

 

Hey @ElmerFudpucker — this

 

Smoke show no doubt

 

That line about the speedo made me laugh.

 

I found out about Rockopols on Pandora so I might be hard to find for a while

 

Well Roger you're right, I have not done a lot of what you mentioned. I have however packed a hind quarter of beef during my swinging meat hauling days. I'm sure @tramm01 has heard this story, but I'm not sure if I ever shared it with the forum. It's long, so I won't blame anyone for not reading it, and I am into my second glass of Famous Grouse, so it may not make sense anyway!

This must have been around the early 90s. It was right around the time that Reginald Denny was pulled from his truck and beaten during the LA riots, which were caused by the verdict on the cops related to the Rodney King arrest. I remember this because I would go through the same intersection that Denny was beaten on my way to Holiday Meat in Inglewood. It is also at the time that the "Where's the beef?" commercial was airing.

The folks at Holiday were good to deal with, but they were slow to get you out of there. I was pulling a meat railer and hauling from IBP in Wallula Washington to the Los Angeles area. At Holiday we could park across the road in the next block and they would come and wake the driver up when they were ready. I would usually get in there in the wee hours of the morning and get in the bunk without having to worry about an alarm. One of their Hispanic employees would come and gently knock on the door and then stand away from the truck and wait for you to acknowledge that you heard them.

This particular morning there was a rather violent banging on the door, which is not the way to start your day in a good mood. I stuck my head out of the bunk looking for the victim that was about to receive a tongue lashing for the incredible lack of manners used when waking up an esteemed member of the meat hauling echelon of trucking. Low and behold, there was an officer of the law, under the employ of the city of Inglewood. Half bent over and, in my boxers, crawling out of the flat top 63" 359 sleeper, I rolled down the driver's door window. The officer said brusquely, "get out here ", to which I replied in a less than polite tone, "what the hell is going on?". He repeated his request several times, and I expressed my sentiment several times as well. Finally, he said get out here you have been broken in to, to which I replied something along the lines of " why didn't you lead with that?" and under my breath something that rhymes with bass hole. So, I told him to give me a minute to throw on some britches and I'll be right out.

I get out and we go to the back of the trailer. The USDA seal is broken, and the door is ajar. I open it up and he asks what am I missing, to which I reply I have no idea, and the only way to determine for sure is to count what is there and compare it to the bills. There are two empty meat hooks hanging on the back of the trailer, but that doesn't mean anything as they usually hang the extras on the back. We go round and round about how much I'm missing, and finally he asks if I think I am missing two pieces. I'm frustrated and finally agree that I could be missing two quarters, to which he says good, we caught the guys. Then he asks if I can do a U-turn in the street. It's a really wide street and I tell him that I think I can. He tells me to follow him. I tell him to have his dispatch get in touch with Holiday Meat and let them know what's going on. He says he will, and I go get in my truck. I haven't even got my air built up yet and this cowboy (not in a complimentary manner) has the street blocked waiting for me to turn around and follow him. I finally get my old 83 359 with manual steering aired up and crank it around and follow him. We go to the first light and then turn right. He's got his bubble gum lights going and I get to run the light hot on his tail! We go two more lights and there at the intersection there is a one-ton U-Haul van with the back door open and two quarters of beef laying in it, and several other cop cars. They have two individuals detained in the back of one of the squad cars. Evidently an off-duty cop happened to be driving by and saw them break into my trailer, and he called it in and got them pulled over right away.

So, Bass Hole tells me to grab my meat and put it back in my trailer. I tell him in no uncertain terms that there is no way in hell that that meat is going back in my trailer, because I may have to buy two quarters of beef, but as far as I know, if I put that back in my trailer, they may condemn the entire load. I asked him to call Holiday and see what they want to do. They send a guy in an old Toyota pickup, and he says to throw it in the bed. So, I grab a quarter and he grabs the other one and we throw it in his pickup - no cloth down, no nothing, just dropped it in there. I guess I didn't have to worry.

To be continued: