Sitting in traffic with the CB Radio

I had a chat about everything with a fellow W900 driver for about 3 hours one day on the road home. Really helps the time pass.

 

3pm, one afternoon, I was heading westbound towards ElPaso. There was no eastbound traffic at all. In ElPaso? Impossible! Something had to be terribly wrong. It’s like going to the beach and not seeing any water. Tsunami must be coming, right?

I go by the Petro...there are a few trucks in the lot, but still no eastbound traffic. At 3 in the afternoon, one of the busiest stretches of road in North America.

I get to an overpass, there was this FLD condo, dark green, sitting sideways with the windshield shattered inward. The truck is on its wheels, just sitting sideways. Traffic is smashed up behind him. I get on the radio to ask what happen and this driver tells me this wild tale about a flying midget that jumped off the bridge and went through the windshield of the FLD. The Flying Midget of Death!

There were comparisons to Jimmy Snuka!

 

A couple years ago I spent an entire day driving across AZ and CA with a group of 3 FedEx trucks and we were all chatting it up for hours. They were all hispanic guys who lived in the LA area and were hilarious. We all stopped and had lunch together.

 

I always make crap up for laughs. Especially to the selfish ones who only turn their radios on because of the road obstruction. Sometimes people actually take me seriously. Speaking of midgets, I once told a guy coming across the PA Turnpike that I was a hauling a load of dead midgets. He was very distraught after learning of my freight. Said he had to pull over and vomit. maybe that was his term for deification though.

 

(Written Thanksgiving Day morning).

Memory in my family includes how they responded to Mr Lincolns address to Americans during the war. So I’m reminded of scenes described to me from long ago. And people long gone, yet not far away in spirit. The family & friends of today, though far away in miles. And then those with whom I will today dine.

At age 60 some of the funniest things I’ve heard in this lifetime came across that CB. Reminded me I had a heart.

Deadpan delivery and perfect timing. The brother who spoke up from behind me. Didn’t know he was there. It became a new day. All because I had that radio on.

Humor, BY ITSELF, is enough reason to spend the time & money to have a good radio rig. A tested genuine performer.

We could go on about the practical advantages of a good radio rig. I won’t mention a single one of a half dozen that are important. As there are more past that.

The “reason” you can’t classify CB as a powerful tool maybe counts the most: the door to why we’re here on Earth. Doing a job done alone.

Tell me, WHAT is “practical “? (For Man doesn’t live by bread alone).

Tell me, please, why is it there are days the truck just won’t get the miles? As a BC powder and a sack of cheeseburgers ain’t doing it.

There’s the situation on the road where everyone is stopped, looking out of their trucks over the same problem and then from the radio comes the perfect summation of the irritation we all feel. And it breaks the tension. Coffee spills, and tagging of the next guys ICC bumper occurs. It’s that funny (that man should be a preacher).

Or having a member of one ethnicity absolutely nail his tribal cousin. The cousin who has brought traffic to a dead stop. Repeated, unforgiving funny-as-hell hammer strikes at stupidity. The “thought process”. (That man should be a diplomat. Doesn’t forget the strangers in the room).

Then there’s the otherwise anonymous exchange over the airwaves where you realize you’ve been alone just a little too long . . .

. . as the politeness at the other end means you’re no longer treading water, a riptide carrying you out to sea.

That’s HIM, in my book. The debt we owe. The Call.

“. . when two or more are gathered together”.

I

.

 

No longer am I, “in a room full of strangers”. Minor theological differences are just that. Minor.

So when that logjam breaks up, my truck has found another 76HP and I’ve finally figured out where that double overdrive is located with a 5x4 setup

(“. . we sang the songs of childhood, hymns of faith that made us strong”)

Now if you truckers will sort yourselves and KINDLY get out of my way. (Ha!)

Get a good radio setup. Don’t get forgotten, or lose your voice. Soon, it’ll be your turn. Be ready.

Blessings be upon you drivers running the long holiday. The American Holy Day.

.

 

If someone had thrown a bag with a big snake in it, we would have known who it was too.