Do you have a CB “handle”? How did you come up with it?

I got stuck with Cooter. I have never believed in calling a service truck. I guess the greasy peterbilt cap and wrangler shirt with the sleeves cut out didn't help.

 

Mine is DAHIGI from military days...

Don't
Ask
How
I
Got
It

 

Cottonmouth was given to my by the group of ol hands I run with in the oilfields. I was rarely seen without a Mt. Dew in hand. Reason being: cottonmouth. Ten years later.... I'm the only one of that motley crew still alive to tell the tales.
I'm glad to say I kicked that habit.

 

Been called a lot of things over the years...most of 'em I can't repeat over the radio, though.

The best handles are the ones assigned to you by your coworkers, and have some sort of backstory behind them...something you did, a peculiarity in your personality, etc....

When I first started driving, my trainer said he'd have one for me by the time I got off his truck. He didn't...guess I never screwed up bad enough to earn one. I was never much in dubbing yourself with one, so I never did.

 

I had two handles given by coworker truckers in my life time. Small stories attached so here goes.

The Bird Man. -This one was at Spanglers Spring PA above Gettysburg PA on US 15. It is a sort of a mini truckstop featuring a sort of a Amish Eatery Diner up front which was quite something in it's day until they went out of business. I guess all those 4.00 chilis buried them. (I was eating way more than that there)

One morning we came out the front way it's a ice storm in progress putting down ice on the sidewalk enough to slip on. There was this Cardinal that was bunched feathers in a big ball belly down on the concrete and surrounded by ice that was beginning to cover it it had been there for some time. Not too functional or cared that there were two giant humans at hands reach from it. I gave the other driver a couple of dollars for Peanut MM's for me (And the bird after I got the nuts out of chocolate.

Scooped the cardinal in cupped hands and took it into the nice warm tractor trailer idling at 1200 in the back corner of the lot behind the fuel. Bird could care less, stayed fluffed with feathers. Got the nuts out of the candy and fed it a couple. Someone probably my trainer fished out a small box and we put it in there with the nuts. Planned on giving it 10 minutes.

Right about half that time it had a couple of nuts in a short order and warmed up really fast. Then it wanted out. All we did then is open the door and it's GONE on the wing with power.

Radio lit up from the coworker in the other Semi and called me formally the Birdman. The others on the US 15 overheard it and celebrated a little bit. This would be back in the 90's and I carried the handle for that company only. The company went out of business not too many months later due to a variety of very good reasons which is not favorable to the trucking industry image at large.

The second handle was "Littlebit"

This one is fairly common and not used too long because it's a bit of a teasing handle.

Scenario I was still rusty in trucking and we used to pass the PA Turnpike in Breezewood going west for the Ohio. The problem was the PA Toll gate had these huge arched galvanized pipe protecting the ticket boxes all the way up to the cabover level But we were in a new conventional freightliner, Im thinking one of the first for that FLD120. (Sorta, it was modified by the company buyer a little bit besides the outrageous enormous 500+ HP engine that had no limits or governor. 110 was possible on the flat with fuel still yet to reach top end at 2000 RPM and beyond.

Anyway.

Here I am trying to fit the stupid truck past that cursed ticket box and the new model mirror Bent in. CLANK!

Trainer roars "#### it, you got the big stuff all #### day no trouble but it's the LITTLE BIT that will RUIN YOU.!!!!

Bingo "Littlebit" it was. for a short time anyhow.

 

"33" here. In all honesty, I gave myself the handle when I first started driving and operating the radio, a Galaxy "33"hp 2, because I don't use my given name on the road. I just wanted something quick to go by, until somebody had given one that fit, that way I would know if someone on the road was talking to me or not. Nothing convoluted, pretty simple and straightforward but it's stuck. Pretty well-known around the Atlanta area for my distinct, easy to pick out voice. As a result just hung on to 33.

 

Well I was given cool hand luke by an ole trucker called pocket change cuz the way I normally talk on the air...kind of a mouthful...

I call myself Red 5...luke skywalkers call sign from the original Star wars movie...final battle scene..."Red 5 standing by" not super original but WTF, it works lol

 

The best handles are maybe two syllables. Three, and truck driver brains start to smoke.

So I stick with it as a screen name. Mainly.

The first trucks were unbelievably low-powered for the loads (that guy got fired)

Left Birmingham one day towards Atlanta twenty-some years ago and it took more than a half-hour WOT to hit 60-mph. No lie.

I heard slow mover enough times I was saying it in my sleep.

.

 

They call me.... Tater Salad.