Life is full of surprises.
Recently I responded to a post that was on a Pashnit website. It was about the mid 50s and related to my trucking years. This post takes me back to 1954 when two of us truckers were loaded with lumber for Big Bear Lake. Normally we would come up from the San Bernadino side to reach our goal but when we stopped to kick our tires in Lancaster we looked at a map and saw this shortcut from Apple Valley. That would bring you up the thru the back door to arrive at Big Bear Lake but what we didn't know was the steepness of the grade on this road.
I noticed not far into the climb bags of cement dropped alongside the road and that should have triggered my thought process, this could only mean the load was too heavy for the grade and the driver was lightning his load to make it to the top. "Duh" I had a very high gear ratio in my trucks dual drive set more for highway than steep mountains and I eventually ran out of gears and the engine stopped.
I set all the air brakes and then with the truck still in gear I placed big rocks as a chocking mechanism behind the tires of the truck and trailer. This stopped any backward motion and made me feel a lot safer but now, how am I going to get that load up to the lake?
Lucky thing for me was my traveling partner had a much lower gear ratio and when he made it to the top, he realized I was having trouble. He dropped his trailer and came back to where I was stopped, turned around and then we hooked chains between his truck and mine and with the power of both trucks pulling got me up to the top. I always checked my maps a little closer after that episode.
This then got me to thinking about the other driver........his name was Tommy Price a Nevada City boy and the two of us made several trips together hauling boards for the same company. Out of all the drivers for Grizzly Creek sawmill (Ostrem Lumber Co.), Tommy was my favorite. We made a trip to Camp Desert Rock in the Nevada desert in the fall of 1954 and on that trip this same long legged truck that couldn't climb steep grades could go like a rocket downhill. We were traveling south on 95 out of Tonopah , Nevada where the road was pretty straight for it seems like a hundred miles downhill. The speedometer in my truck showed 85 as it's highest number and in 5th direct I was turning 1700 on the tachometer and I wound it up to 2100, shifted into 5th over and pegged the engine. I know I was going well over 100 MPH when out of the desert came this Model A pickup loaded with Indians.
I knew it would take several miles for me to slow my truck at this speed, so, I blasted the air horn and all I remember when I shot past that old Model A was arms and legs hanging on to the old truck frightened out of their drunken stupor. We made it to Camp Desert Rock, unloaded our cargo, ate a healthy meal in their mess hall and Tommy and I went back home for another load.
Jump back two years to the winter of 1952 when I was stationed in Maryland at an anti-aircraft site bored to death wiping down a 90 mm anti-aircraft weapon, when I was offered a trip to the Nevada Desert to observe an experiment. Yes it was Camp Desert Rock and we didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. The only thing that saved my butt was my getting to go to school in Lawton, Oklahoma (Ft. Sill) for several months.
This place was as bad as agent orange and using our sailors as guinea pigs to test the radiation levels at the Marshall Islands. One of our Oldfarts died from exposure to radiation while on duty in the Navy at one of those islands, Gene Kelso. We exchanged stories about some of the lies that were told to us. As for me I would much rather have the truth than be treated like a second class citizen and lied to.
Tommy was with me also on a roll off job in the bay area. It was raining lightly and my gloves were wet, so was my cheater bar that I used to loosen the cables on the load and I was up pretty high on the bar when it slipped out of the ratchet, hit me in the head and knocked me colder than a cucumber. Tommy took care of the load and let me gather my senses. We stopped in Richmond at a
good truck stop to eat and I thought it odd that all the people were looking at us. I went in the restroom to wash my hands and when I looked in the mirror I saw what they were looking at.........there was blood dried all over my face and it looked much worse than it was. Tommy thought it gave me character so he didn't tell me.
Tommy was also loading for LA in Marysville the same day I was loading and got the end of a finger squashed off by a side shift forklift. I have written about this before while referring to Jerry Dodge and Del Schiffner two different Saw Mill owners who had strange ideas. Tommy's brother in-law Bob Ward drove logging truck for Grizzly Creek and he got my lumber truck when I lost that
finger and refused to go back on a logging truck.
Now jump ahead to the summer of 1984 when I was an electrician working in the bay area at San Ramon on the telephone headquarters building. It was a huge building about two million square feet and while working there I met several of Ma Bells boy's that had taken a golden handshake from AT&T then came back as private contractors doing the same work they did prior to retiring. They would bid on the work and not figure in medical cause they already had that as part of their golden handshake. Sweet Huh? Any how after getting to know them I found out that many of them who had lived in the bay area for years, had sold their homes for a bundle, relocated up in the Auburn, Colfax, Grass Valley and Nevada City area for a lot less money than the got paid for their homes. Most of them still wanted to work part time and play part time so, when it took10 men to fill a contract 20 of them would jump on it and work two weeks on and two weeks off.
I ask this one guy I knew pretty well how he decided on moving to Grass Valley and he said his next door neighbor in San Jose use to live up in that country and loved it. I then as him what his neighbors name was and he said Tommy Price. You could have knocked me over with a straw and I then asked if his wife's name was Mary. Yes was the answer and my next question was did Bob Ward live there? He replied that Bob lived close by but had recently passed away from a heart attack.
He then ask me if I would like to see Tommy? I said you bet I would so he set it up for us to have lunch together two days later and my foreman told me to take as long as I wanted for lunch and we had a wonderful time reliving the past. I think it was last year I heard Tommy had passed away and was buried in Nevada City.
You see how life seems to circle around and bite you in the butt when you least expect it?......Ken
