The Dead of Night, Old Growth spiders in my brain.

[RandyMac]

Proper english has it's place, it is universal, well, mostly. I type as I think, depending on who I am at the time. That rowdy ####er got out and is going to get me in trouble again.

The Road, Cafes, Cops and Cleavage.

My Road was 101 from Orygun to Santa Rosa, made weekly round trips to SR from Weott, either droning along in a beater pick-up or cheating death on a Kawasaki. I always stopped in Laytonville to fuel up, there was an older station that had really good gas, the Kaws loved it. Fueling in Laytonville also meant I could indulge the Kawasaki's thirst for fuel, using the meaty part of the Z1Bs powerband would drop it's mileage into the low 30s, normal mpg was about 45. I saw high teens with a 750 triple. I had many chats with Highway Patrolmen. Before I wander off
One such return trip, it was late afternoon Sunday, Santa Rosa had fog to the ground, by Hopland it was a steady mist, it was raining steadily in Willits. When I stopped for gas in Laytonville, I saw that the 101 Cafe was open, decided to fuel up on chili and coffee. They fetched a towel, a plastic lawn chair and let me drip dry in the corner. They? I meant the waitresses, two of them, with not much to do. Both were older, like mid thirties, fully equipped, all the options and well maintained. I couldn't help but notice the button failure rate on their blouses, every time they came by with the coffee, there was yet another button that lost it's grip. I drank a lot of coffee. Later, I hung out with a CHP under an overpass while we discussed the merits of high speed death. He was an old school Patrolman, we were on a first name basis the second time he stopped me. I was let off with a warning and parting words....#### and at night in the rain!!! I got very few tickets, they were some whoppers when I got caught, but you can't give a ticket to someone you couldn't catch. If they hit the lights I pulled over, sometimes I had no idea I was being pursued until I stopped for gas or something.

 

[bitzer]

Good stuff Randy. I look forward to checking this thread and the falling pics thread every day. The best damn things going on this site.

 

[Gologit]

Oh man, the 101 Cafe. You could get a couple of chapters at least about the goings on in that place. Like the time Big Eddie Kanowski ate the "No Calks" sign. They put another one up but this time they made it out of metal.

 

[Brian13]

I was up at 5:30 and not happy about it, it snowed again during the night, another 3-4 inches of wet snow, by dawn, it would start raining, again. This crap had been going on for almost two weeks, very unusual for the area, there should have been elbow deep snow by now. I almost gave in to the thought of going back to bed. Instead I trudged out the fire up the old truck and back in for more coffee. Daylight found me waiting at the mill for the rest of the crew, there wasn't many of us. Four drivers including me, one loaderman and a fat old guy for a landingman. This was a mobile operation, we were doing a last chance before spring log hauling. The weather had done bad things to the roads, the USFS was threatening to cut the roads before they were beyond repair. The push was on. It was a motley bunch, men and trucks, only two of the trucks were log trucks, the others were converted hay haulers. I drew one of those, a cabover Peterbuilt with a flatbed, log chocks lashed on by cable. Off we went, our own little parade, we all went in and left the landings at the same, a tracked loader was our shepard. I said bad things, we were going in the same road as yesterday, we had beat the crap outta the road and it wasn't all that good to start with. We all made it to the landing, big improvement over the day before, where one truckdriver pussed out, he didn't have the whereforall to drive with wheels in the ditch. I was third in line, the loaderman had to lift the back of the trailer, to scoot it over, there was no room to turn around and it couldn't be loaded up like a proper log truck. I got three 36" 40s down, two more in the middle and a 5'X32 Sugar Pine butt on top. I put four binders on and got in line to wait on truck number 4. We left at 5 minute intravels, each driver giving the ones behind him a running patter about how the road was handling the traffic. Well, it wasn't doing so very good, small streams were crossing in places, the cutbanks were slumping into the ditches, the formally hard packed gravel surface had dissappeared under squishy red mud. Truck number 2 had a clown in it, he remarked that he had all his wheels on the road, for a whole minute. What a liar. He had run the ditch and crawled the bank some, the road was going away. When I got to that spot, I tried to follow his tracks, with some success, until I got to the tight left turn, this is where the hay hauler had problems, the dratted flatbed was too long, didn't bend around corners very well and had a high center of gravity. I hugged the bank, kept the revs up, the road gearing kinda sucked. About halfway through I heard that buckling sound, then the twang of snapping binders, the mirrors showed the rears on the outside sinking, fast. The road had given way. I did the only thing I could, I straightened the front wheels and floored it, came close to pulling it off. ####### highway rig, humped, jumped and spun, lost headway, the road was winning. More unpleasent noise from the trailer, it didn't much care for being pulled in two directions, with a twist. It only took one glance in the mirrors to make up my mind, time to get the #### out of that truck. I yanked the handthrottle open, grabbed the door handle and got about half of my skinny ass out the door. About then, the road won, it took the back half of the trailer with a lurch, that shut the door on me, the armrest hit me in the hip. Yeah, it hurt. I was beyond worrying about a little pain, the truck was going backwards. I got the door open again and jumped, landing in a ditch full of ice cold slimey ass mud. The last real impression of of the truck were the logs going over the bank and a big cloud of dust. Yeah, dust, two weeks of rain and there was dust, that sight gave me such wonder I had forgotten there was another truck coming down the hill. well, my ears still worked, I heard him coming, crap, time to get up, out of the ditch and do it fast. I didn't know something was wrong until I tried to run, left leg suddenly became useless, I pitched onto my face, couldn't turn over. Things were fuzzy around the edges. The driver in truck 4 was a big guy, a Morman with 50 kids, he was on it, stopped well short, clued in by flying logs, clouds of red dust. I can't remember his name, but I remember what he said "You pray to your God, I'll pray to mine, we will get you home" The next few days was a narcotic blur, I completely missed the drills, saws, screws, metal plates, pins, a yard of stitches. With all the pill shaped happiness, It was four full days before I found out that I had snapped the ball off my femur.

I typed this out a few weeks ago, I rarely speak of it, it's cold sweat and nausea time. Some things are still to close

I had that dammed plate in for a year, went back to work in 4 months, then had another long break after they dug the plate out.

I carried that chunk of metal when I cut this Pine
__________________

Driving a truck for a living is one of the more underrated dangerous jobs! My father has been driving for almost as long as I can remember, and has seen some horrible accidents. One morning he was heading to Miami (witch is a 3 a.m. start to be at your first stop by about 7) and had with him my buddy Colby. Colby had just got his license and had just started driving a couple of months earlier. Now for those that dont know anything about Florida when going to Miami from the west coast there is a long straight portion of I-75 that goes through the Everglades called Alligator Ally, the road is very dark and often limited or zero visibility due to smoke and heavy fog. On this particular morning Colby decided right before they got on the Ally that he no longer felt comfortable driving due to a headache and switched with my father and continued on. It happened to be a day with very heavy fog, visibility was limited to one maybe two of the broken lines dividing the lanes. My father saw a faint red glow ahead and began to slow down, soon realizing that traffic was stopped. Another truck was moving along and had rear ended another stopped vehichle. After this discovery they inched along in the breakdown lane debating on weather they should get out and see if they could do anything, when suddenly they were able to hear the sound of crunching metal. The fog was so dense that other vehicles were just plowing into the wreck at full speed. After all was said and done 27 total vehicles were involved 17 being trucks. Three died and thirteen were injured. My life could have changed forever as my father and real good friend happened to be driving through as this was happening. As it were, it just ended up being a reminder of how dangerous driving can be.
If anyone is interested and wants more info on the accident,
http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/tr-155.pdf

Sorry to intrude on your thread Randy but that story reminded me of that.

 

[drill.daddy]

Unless randy states diff , thats what this thread is about , mostly his memories , but some of his stuff sparks memories. I check this thread daily . its either first hing in the morning with eggs and a dr peper or last call in the evining . Randy i reall enjoy reading your stuff. carry on brother , and tell humbolt i got another 1010 to send him .

 

[RandyMac]

Carry on Gentlemen.

 

[Rounder]

Thanks for the truck driving story Randy. That's what being a real logger is all about, jumping in where ever you're needed. It ain't all glorious, but whatever it takes is whatever it takes. That's logging. I've spent a lot of time in machines and trucks where i didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I always have done my best and not whined about it.

Whatever it takes, take care man - Sam

 

[slowp]

Oh man, the 101 Cafe. You could get a couple of chapters at least about the goings on in that place. Like the time Big Eddie Kanowski ate the "No Calks" sign. They put another one up but this time they made it out of metal.

Did he put ketchup on it? I believe those signs were cardboard here, and usually had No Knives, No Guns along with No Calks.

 

[drill.daddy]

90 percent of my hellish tales would involve A million pounds of brute force pullins steel piled up in a form that somewhat resembles a oil rig. Machines that where dreamed up to pull 500,000 pounds , iron creaking , teeth rattling , nothing more than 1500 horses of pure pulling power. Not to mention what we decided to get into after hours. bar brawls, all night drinking binges, lord have mercy i dont know how i lived to see the next day most of the time. well offf to work this mornin .

 

[Gologit]

Did he put ketchup on it? I believe those signs were cardboard here, and usually had No Knives, No Guns along with No Calks.

I don't know. I got there just as they were loading him into the Sheriff's car. It was Saturday night after payday. The way I heard it was that they wouldn't let him bring his whiskey bottle into the cafe and he was hungry so he got a little upset. They let him cool his heels in jail for awhile and kicked him loose the next morning. He couldn't go back to the 101 for awhile, though. He also had to pay for the newspaper machine that he threw out into the middle of the highway .

 

[Gologit]

Randy...great stuff man...keep at it. Almost makes me wish the "good old days" were back. Almost. Don't know if I'd survive them all over again.

 

[Greystoke]

I agree with Bob...good readin! Don't worry Bob, plenty of lads like myself that would be happy to take your place goin back in time! Wonder if I would survive???

 

[madhatte]

This thread just keeps delivering. Randy, you're doing some truly great writing. Keep it up, man.

 

[MURT]

Quincy

Quincy the boomtown? Musta been the days. A couple years ago I got seen riding the rear engine on a train coming south from Vancouver WA and got pulled off by sherriff's deputies at Westwood. They came into the cab with guns drawn and when they saw me sitting on the stairwell they said Aaaah, allright.
They were pretty scared and were relieved by finding me just sitting there, my hands on my knees with my palms facing out when they opened the door.
One deputy hauled me the 30 miles to the Quincy jail where he promptly had to go chase some joker that was driving around in his pickup truck shooting people with an airsoft gun. He had to get back from that for me to be booked and they fed me a real tasty dinner made by the women inmates.
There was hooting and hollering galore from the women's section as I was led past to get fingerprinted. From the way they sounded they hadn't seen a man for 500 years.
Just my little Quincy experience, or part of it anyway, I'm really enjoying reading your writing man. I hate freakin glossed over glory everything-was-great-and-noble history like you find in books sometimes.

 

[RandyMac]

Eh, jails, a whole 'nother world, a subsociety with it's own language and customs.

The bulk of my barbarian days were in the '70s, starting in July 1973, when I bought my first chainsaw. It was a 5 cube McCulloch with a rollertip and the first saw I had with chisel bit chain. It was pretty much on from there.

 

[Eccentric]

Eh, jails, a whole 'nother world, a subsociety with it's own language and customs.

The bulk of my barbarian days were in the '70s, starting in July 1973, when I bought my first chainsaw. It was a 5 cube McCulloch with a rollertip and the first saw I had with chisel bit chain. It was pretty much on from there.

What a coincidence Randy. I was born in July 1973...


This is still my favorite thread on AS. The real deal...

 

[RandyMac]

I have often given thought, to how I survived my barbarian phase. I'm still not altogether sure, there were so many ways to die, get maimed, get jailed. Not that I made it through unscathed, I had enough stitches to put together a football, I tore up joints, broke bones, left blood trails.

I was a mobile hazard, when I was done with one thing, I moved on to the next patch, whether it was timber, forestry or truck thrashing. The 1970s were actively fluid, the effects of the gas embargo lingered on, the economy was rocky, there was Nixon, Ford and Carter. My home counties, Del Norte and Humboldt, got robbed of a great deal of timber jobs, the promised Federal help just didn't happen. There was work, if you could travel, camp out near the site and take whatever jobs you found. I took a ricocheting path throughout Northern California, with a few raids into Orygun and Nevada, to saw anything that paid. Some paid well, some paid enough to keep cutting, some I almost broke even, just to cut timber. Many of the jobs were fairly short term, sometimes a few days or weeks worth of work. I learned to stay away from the big Companies, too many rules cramped my style. I tried them, PL was obligitory, family connections were strong, I popped in and out of there a few times, they would only let me chase landings or play with the rigging. I put in two weeks with LP at Big Lagoon, I decided that I didn't want to die by their hand, drew my pay and split. Then there was US Fiber (?) in the Sierras, run by clueless idiots, by remote control, only worrying about the spreadsheets. I found happiness with small, family based shows, usually five or six men, mostly private lands. Outfits like these were a blast, you got to do pretty much everything the way you wanted to. The range of expirience was fantastic, old codgers, beardless boys and ass bustin' men in their prime. When the job was done, they would ask where I was headed, sure as ####, I'd have something lined up before I had the truck packed. It didn't matter if it was Pines in Modoc, DF and Cedar in the Klamaths or Sierra Red Fir or Lodgepole, if there was a chance to fall trees and maybe make a buck, I went that way.
Sometimes my lunacy would catch up with me, I knew when it was time to withdraw, it just wouldn't do to crash and burn away from my home territory.

 

[Greystoke]

Ahhh, the life of a timber tramp...and the stories that accompany it! Keep up the good work pard

 

[Tzed250]

.

I have done myself a terrible disservice by not finding this thread earlier, but I have found it and I am hooked.

Randy, you have created some of the finest prose I have ever read about a subject that has fascinated me since childhood. No pictures, moving or still, could ever provide the feeling of involvement in the way your writing does.

I, and I believe many others here, will not soon tire of your Odyssey.

Please continue...

.

 

[drill.daddy]

hellish tales none the less.

My tales in almost 15 years of plunging shards of metal into the earth for someone elses hopes of making them a higher financial status fast. Short of winning the lottery in the south you just about have to make a fortune in the oil and gas industry. ive worked straight thru 14.5 years with one company . While most of my tales wont have the intelectual flare that Mr macs has, in its own ways have a grip of there own . My job on a day to day basis is some what of a make a wish foundation oragnization . Danger is inherent , fear in a god like manor , respect , like what your father demanded. MY chosen feild of expertise ask of me this , Drill a orifice into the ground 15,000 feet straight down in most cases , pulling weights that rank in the phenomenal areas of 200,000 pounds and up , and do all of this with a piece of equipment that was barely new when my grandfather stood on some of the same iron ( never new the man, but guess roughnecking is in my blood) .

the first time i ever had the priviledge of grabbing a brake handle on a set of gardner denver 1300's was awe inspiring to say the least . The driller stood beside me dicatating , as if to some kind of mental patient, exactly what to do . This man was a rather portly fella , Standing 5'9 and tipping the scales at a lofty 350 pounds, chewed levi garret by the pouch, He bellered out grab that clutch boy pull it till it stops.
At this point is where you have the tiger by the tail so to speak , 1300 horses sprung to life in a iron buckling , steel screching manor , hearing the pins that hold the derrick together groaning as to say " oh hell boys here comes the load." As the pipe slowly pulled off bottom and my foot slowly sank into the accelerator the deafening pulse of 3 caterpillar 399's became to come near cardiac arrest status. All eyes were planted squarely on the worm ( greenhorn) . I was wathching the dial infront of me bounce from 275k to 300k pounds. Nervous is a description used to describe albert einstine playing tic tac toe compared to this , One slip and 300 thou comes crashing to the rig floor with enough force to register on the rictor scale . The driller nursed me thru the rest of the operation , with my infantile rig running skills this was more than necissary . We made it thru my first encursion running the iron giant. over the years i learned most of the time the hard way that even thow you can run a piece of equipment with a devout perfection , never forget iron can and will develop its flaws for you , and when they do the rodeo ensues. 8 seconds on red rock would be smooth sailing on these days..

I guess sitting with my family today reminded me of what and why i am so thankfull , dredged up old memories of scrapes with the grimm collector. i cant honestly tell you that some of these memories dont come with a tear in remberance of a roughneck family that had dinner today with a seat empty due to the unforgiving nature of iron. Today i gave thanks for simply being able to wake after a nights slumber , thanks that i can return home after dancing with the tiger for a week .

over the next few weeks i plan on sprinkiling a lil roughneck into the undergrowth of this thread.

Randy , will this suffice , all i ask is look over the grammar and spelling, my memories out run my fingers