Humptulips
ArboristSite Guru
You should look for the collected works of Robert E Swanson. Here is one of my favorites;
B.C. Hibal
I've toted logs in the woods of Maine,
Work'd on the boom in the West Coast rain,
Topped a tree on a Redwood-show,
And I've piled pine logs in Idaho;
But a hibal show I'd yet to see
'Til I hit the woods around B. C.;
And, brother ape, I drink a toast
To the way they log on the B. C. Coast,
In town, at Hicks, my eyes explored
The jobs displayed on the hiring-board.
One caught my eye, a lone survivor;
In letters of chalk, it said, "Truckdriver."
"Ye can crosss that off," I said "and quick.
I'm the best gear-stripper this side of hell . . .
McGinty's the name." And I waved farewell.
I hit camp as a logger would,
Sampled the grub and the same was good.
Sat on my bunk with satisfaction
And doffed my city clothes for action
It was still pitch dark when I heard the shout:
"Roll up, you bums, or else roll out;
In the cedar-swamp it's breaking day,
And around this joint we make her pay."
Then the foreman said, with a scowling frown:
"The dudes they ship up here from town
Are graduates of a dumbo class,
Right off the farm and green as grass!"
His voice fair reeked with authority
As he wheeled on his heel and said to me:
"Go, herd that truck of the Diesel breed
And let's see some of ye'r Yankee speed."
Ye can talk of yer mammoth trucks of fame:
But this one put them all to shame.
She was air equipped with a torque retarder
With gauges enough for a slack-line-yarder.
She'd twelve foot bunks and a streamlined snout.
So I warmed her up and headed her out;
That diesel purred like a cougar-cat
As I clipped a mile in a minute, flat.
Then I hit the grade and the rip-rap plank,
So I gave the gear-shift knob a yank:
She rubbed the guard as the rear-end slewed
(But kept on gaining altitude).
Up up she roared, as on we went,
"Til, dead ahead, I could plainly see
The lashing lines of a full rigged tree.
There, a diesel-yarder did her stuff
From a cold-deck pile on a big rock bluff.
And the echoes with never a pause
From the diesel-electric falling-saws;
While beneath the tree, on a pre-load rig,
Was a load of logs God awful big.
I backed my trailer beneath that load
And I steered the works for the rip-rap road.
I was doing fine when I hit the grade,
But here's the only mistake I made:
I'd plumb forgot in the bustle and roar
That it froze black frost the night before.
The more I braked, the more she slid,
Then, eighten tires began to skid!
I hit the guard-rail hugged it well . . .
She was gathering speed in spite of hell!
I was dazed but I sat on a cedar chunk
And gazed at a mangled pile of junk.
A pile of junk that was once a truck
From which I'd escaped with Devil's own luck.
I dangled afar from the tangled wreck
To make a long cross-country trek;
And they never found out at the hibal joint
That I caught the boat at a distant point.
And late that night, as I hit the trail,
I could hear an air-horns mornful wail.
They were yarding logs in the dead of night,
And falling trees by the pale moonlight.
I could hear the roar of a diesel truck
A-wheelin' logs to the briny chuck:
But the boys maintain on the B.C. Coast
What I really heard was McGinty's ghost.
B.C. Hibal
I've toted logs in the woods of Maine,
Work'd on the boom in the West Coast rain,
Topped a tree on a Redwood-show,
And I've piled pine logs in Idaho;
But a hibal show I'd yet to see
'Til I hit the woods around B. C.;
And, brother ape, I drink a toast
To the way they log on the B. C. Coast,
In town, at Hicks, my eyes explored
The jobs displayed on the hiring-board.
One caught my eye, a lone survivor;
In letters of chalk, it said, "Truckdriver."
"Ye can crosss that off," I said "and quick.
I'm the best gear-stripper this side of hell . . .
McGinty's the name." And I waved farewell.
I hit camp as a logger would,
Sampled the grub and the same was good.
Sat on my bunk with satisfaction
And doffed my city clothes for action
It was still pitch dark when I heard the shout:
"Roll up, you bums, or else roll out;
In the cedar-swamp it's breaking day,
And around this joint we make her pay."
Then the foreman said, with a scowling frown:
"The dudes they ship up here from town
Are graduates of a dumbo class,
Right off the farm and green as grass!"
His voice fair reeked with authority
As he wheeled on his heel and said to me:
"Go, herd that truck of the Diesel breed
And let's see some of ye'r Yankee speed."
Ye can talk of yer mammoth trucks of fame:
But this one put them all to shame.
She was air equipped with a torque retarder
With gauges enough for a slack-line-yarder.
She'd twelve foot bunks and a streamlined snout.
So I warmed her up and headed her out;
That diesel purred like a cougar-cat
As I clipped a mile in a minute, flat.
Then I hit the grade and the rip-rap plank,
So I gave the gear-shift knob a yank:
She rubbed the guard as the rear-end slewed
(But kept on gaining altitude).
Up up she roared, as on we went,
"Til, dead ahead, I could plainly see
The lashing lines of a full rigged tree.
There, a diesel-yarder did her stuff
From a cold-deck pile on a big rock bluff.
And the echoes with never a pause
From the diesel-electric falling-saws;
While beneath the tree, on a pre-load rig,
Was a load of logs God awful big.
I backed my trailer beneath that load
And I steered the works for the rip-rap road.
I was doing fine when I hit the grade,
But here's the only mistake I made:
I'd plumb forgot in the bustle and roar
That it froze black frost the night before.
The more I braked, the more she slid,
Then, eighten tires began to skid!
I hit the guard-rail hugged it well . . .
She was gathering speed in spite of hell!
I was dazed but I sat on a cedar chunk
And gazed at a mangled pile of junk.
A pile of junk that was once a truck
From which I'd escaped with Devil's own luck.
I dangled afar from the tangled wreck
To make a long cross-country trek;
And they never found out at the hibal joint
That I caught the boat at a distant point.
And late that night, as I hit the trail,
I could hear an air-horns mornful wail.
They were yarding logs in the dead of night,
And falling trees by the pale moonlight.
I could hear the roar of a diesel truck
A-wheelin' logs to the briny chuck:
But the boys maintain on the B.C. Coast
What I really heard was McGinty's ghost.
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:hmm3grin2orange:
