After a short two week stint running dry van trailers to Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon, with what I thought was a good company I quit and signed on with a long haul high boy company which I nearly quit on my first day.

Many people call high boys, flat decks, but in my experience a flat deck is a truck, not a tractor, having only two or three axels and no fifth wheel, with a flat deck, not a trailer.

What most people call a semi, truck, or rig is actually a highway tractor pulling a semi trailer. Commonly called a tractor trailer unit.

The tractor that I had been assigned was being greased and I started to clean it out. Just after I had removed everything from the sleeper and the jockey boxes and had it spread all over the shop floor they had me take another tractor to get my trailer loaded, in the rain, for Atlanta, Georgia.

When I got back to the shop, soaking wet, my tractor was outside and I had to throw everything back in quick because it was still sitting on the shop floor and the mechanics wanted to lock up and go home. I had hoped to be able to vacuum out the truck and put everything back inside neatly while it was inside. However I had no time to clean anything and had to do everything outside in the rain.

While I was loading my personal stuff, out of my van into the sleeper, they all went home and locked the gate. When I was ready to leave I couldn't get out. I was contemplating throwing my stuff back in my van and pulling down the gate but a passing motorist stopped and I gave him a phone number. The boss came and let me out and then showed me where the night key for the gate was hidden.

I left Abbotsford in late June and I am trying to recall this and write it in mid October. My log book is such a book of lies and I am trying to use it to jog my memory. It shows that I went through Bend, Wash. and Moses lake into Idaho and spent the night at a rest area on I-Ninety.

On the twenty- eighth of June I travelled through Billings, Montana and Sheridan, Wyoming spending the night in Buffalo, Wyoming. I followed I-Ninety through South Dakota to Sioux City where I tuned South on I-Twenty-nine through Iowa and spent the night on the Missouri border.

When I say night I mean the end of my ten hours of driving. If one drives for ten hours taking a fifteen minute break every two and a half hours with the second of the three breaks being a half hour you actually put in an eleven hour day which usually stretches to twelve. Add your eight hour break to that and a twenty-four hour day becomes twenty which means that each work day starts four hours earlier than the day before so that your nights or sleep time often occur in the afternoon or morning.

It takes a while to get used to the idea, never mind the actuality, but it means that in a five day week you actually put in six ten hour driving sessions which means you can pull a load a week across the continent and still have a day off on each coast.

At Kansas City I turned East on I-Seventy. Entering St. Louis, Missouri I saw a sign that said the quickest way to highway I-Sixty-four was to take route Forty. Halfway through the city I saw a sign saying that because of construction Forty didn't go to the bridge and I should choose an alternate route. Like I'm supposed to stop in the middle of a freeway and consult a city map that I don't have? What master mind developed this idea?

As it turned out I had to stop on the freeway anyway. I was cruising through the city wondering which turnoff I should take, If I couldn't cross the river, and I heard a hissing noise. I hadn't heard a pop so I didn't think I had blown a tire. My air gauges weren't dropping so I didn't think I had an air leak. I figured I better stop anyway.

Since there weren't any shoulders I pulled over in the `Y' of an on ramp. Walking around the truck I couldn't find a flat tire or an air leak. Since I was already stopped I took the opportunity to look at a map and decided to go South on I-Fifty-five, then try to get over to I-Twenty-four some how.

As I was driving along I could still hear the hissing sound. It was intermittent and the volume wasn't consistent.

Shortly after I turned South onto I-Fifty- five I came across a weigh scale. I pulled in and gave the rig a more thorough inspection but could still not find a flat or a leak. I shut the truck off and could still hear the noise. I walked away from the truck and could still hear it.

Totally perplexed I rechecked my road map and continued South again until I came to a rest area. When I went to use the rest room I saw a newspaper article on the bulletin board telling about an infestation of locusts that were making a loud buzzing noise. So loud that residents couldn't sleep.

Outside of the rest room I walked under a pine tree and sure enough there were a few of these large cricket type bugs on the branches emanating their mating call. I then walked under an oak tree and the branches were crawling with the critters. In a very rare occurrence of nature two types of locusts had entered their mating season at the same time on the same year.

Proceeding South I noticed that the frequency and the volume of the hissing noise was directly related to my proximity to, and the size of the copse of, oak trees along the roadside. I would hear this noise in these parts of the U. S. A. for the rest of the summer.

I took I-Fifty-five South to I-Fifty-seven then went North East to highway Sixty. This is a very narrow winding road that is a lot of fun after dark and I wish I could have seen the scenery in the daytime.

The Ohio river meets the Mississippi river at this point and produces a long narrow isthmus. You leave Missouri on a long narrow bridge, curve through the outskirts of the town of Cairo, at the tip of the isthmus, then enter another long narrow bridge, after having been in Tennessee for all of three miles.

Leaving this second bridge, both of which had taken me over tugs lighting up the water with their bright searchlights while they propelled large barges along the river, I was welcomed by Kentucky troopers, their three cars hidden at the mouth of a laneway.

Luckily my speed was well under the limit and I slowed even more as I entered a construction zone. A while later car headlights appeared in my mirror and with that sixth sense that every trucker has I knew the troopers were behind me.

Along many miles of narrow road I was followed and when ever there was a passing stretch there would be another car coming. Eventually as I made a turn at the intersection in Barlow I was able to pull over to the side and one patrol car got past. When he was in front of me I flipped my headlights to high and quickly to low to let him know he was far enough in front of me to safely return to the right lane. He gave me a couple of twirls of his blues to say thanks.

I always find it strange that police cars in the United States use blue lights on the top of their cars. In B. C. blue lights were used on trucks and graders in the winter to indicate snow removal equipment. Emergency vehicles use red lights.

It was a couple of small towns and many miles of winding road before there was sufficient space for the second trooper to get past and again I got a twirl of the blues.

When finally, after many more miles and a couple more small towns had gone by there was finally a break in the oncoming traffic and the third car got by. No blueberries this time as he was a plain brown wrapper.

The rest of the short journey to I-Twenty-four was so much more relaxing knowing there weren't any bears on my donkey.

I reached Cartersville on the last day of June, just before dark. Cartersville is about two hours North of Atlanta, Georgia. I had half a load of crusher plates for a recycling plant.

Over-judging my instructions, I thought that the fourth light was too far downtown and after turning around went back to the third light. This narrow street led me through a heavy residential district to an intersection that didn't match up with my instructions. With barely room to make the turn I was reluctant to go anywhere.

Getting out of the truck I asked some cars behind me where I should go and got different opinions until I asked an old lady who said she would lead me.

Standing in the intersection I directed traffic until all the vehicles were gone and she was in front of me. Following the kindly lady I almost lost my mirrors on the side of a railway underpass that had to have given me about one inch clearance on either side. Luckily I didn't have a van trailer or high load as my exhaust pipes only cleared by a few inches but we were on the right road and she stopped in the middle of the street to block traffic while I got turned and backed into the plant where I would sleep for the night and unload the next morning.

It wasn't quite dark yet and after thanking the dear lady profusely, and silently promising myself never to curse at old lady drivers again, I did a house cleaning and then caught a taxi to a theatre I had noticed whilecoming into town.

I don't remember what movie I went to see but I recall totalling the bill for the movie, cost of popcorn and pop, fare for the cab, and converting it into Canadian dollars. The cost was so staggering I decided that it was such a nice night out that I would walk back to my truck.

With my inalienable sense of direction and my philosophy of never travelling the same road a second time I walked towards the center of town where I could see the lights of the business district. Everything was closed but I walked the main street and then cut back through the residential district which turned out to be a predominately black district in more ways than one.

Most of the inhabitants, at least any that I met on the sidewalk, or saw getting in or out of cars, or could barely see on the front porches of their houses enjoying the evening air, were coloured. As well there were no streetlights or moon which made for poor visibility. It seem strange to walk along the sidewalk and hear conversations from unseen persons.

After unloading first thing the next morning I scooted into Atlanta and took the ring road to the East. I missed my turnoff to I-Eighty-five but did find a truck stop and truck wash where I was able to get fuel, directions, and a bath for my filthy rig.

Back on the ring road again I found the turnoff and later the turnoff from I-Eighty-five but got lost in Lawrenceville. I phoned my customer for directions while illegally parked and then, following her directions, found myself on a street that said no trucks allowed but managed to find my customer. I unloaded crusher plates for a mine which was the other half of the load I had picked up in Port Coquitlam, B. C.

From Atlanta I went South on I-Seventy-five to highway one-oh-seven and spent the night beside the railway track North of Fitzgerald.

In the high heat and high humidity of a cloudless Georgia sky I spent a June morning spreading tarps over a load of chipboard that had been made in Virginia and after having been stored in a Georgia warehouse was now bound for Ontario.

I followed small country roads through some lovely country takeing notice of many old service stations that had been closed over the years, most of which have been converted to homes.

Eventually I reached the I- Twenty which I followed through Augusta to the I-Seventy-seven which took me through the Carolina States, the Virginia states, Pennsylvania, and eventually to the I-Ninety.

I crossed the border into Canada atBuffalo, New York which put me just a few miles short of my destination of Niagra Falls, Ontario.

While unloading on June fourth I passed my hand over the deck board, the only piece of wood on which is other wise an aluminum deck, on the edge of my trailer, and got a large sliver in the side of my hand. It curled up around to where I couldn't reach it so after I finished unloading I got directions to the hospital where I spent the rest of the afternoon only a few miles from where I could have reloaded.

When I returned from the hospital, where I thought I would only be a few minutes, the security at the parking lot was ticked off because I was tying up space that was to be used for gamblers. To mollify him I told him I was a gambler and asked him where the casino was.

While I waited for the shuttle to arrive I climbed in the sleeper, had a quick shave, put on my fancy go to Sunday-meeting duds and reappeared as a human being.

As opposed to gambling as I am I had an enjoyable afternoon. I walked through the illegal casino, gambling is against the law in Canada but somehow the Provincial Governments have managed to twist the federal laws to allow them to issue permits for casinos.

When I say through that is what I mean as after having descended two flights of escalators and gaming floors I emerged out the other side of the building, walked down a flight of stairs, crossed the street and stood where I got a most spectacular view of Niagra Falls. Something young brides dream of and many newly wedded couples visit. I was presented with an uninterrupted vista of foaming water.

The setting sun was turning the waters a deep pink and the `Maid of the Mist' was a small dot in the deepening shadows far below.

After getting my fill of something I had only seen in movies I walked back through the casino to the surrounding stores. They have all been refronted in a cheap parody of Vegas. I found a small restaurant that served an excellent Italian cuisine and wine then returned to the casino so that I could at least say I had actually tried.

I bought a roll of nickels and tried several one armed bandits, winning a few, losing a few, until I became bored and tired, the way I usually get after a good meal at the end of a long day. I said to hell with it and just started plugging the nickels into one machine to get rid of them.

One more nickel and I would go back to my truck. Wrong, I had to go and get one of those plastic buckets to hold my winnings.

Like the good gambler I was I returned to various machines trying different winning combinations, again wining a few, losing a few, until I got bored again and decided to cash in.

Of course there was one more nickel machine between me and the cashier so giving one last try I had to go and get another plastic bucket. This time I did cash out and went back to the truck with more folding green in my pocket than I had had two hours earlier.

I drove North towards Toronto and spent the night in the middle of a field of steel pipe in the city of Etobicoke.

The next morning I loaded seven pieces of pipe, two feet in diameter and fifty-three feet in length. On a forty- eight foot trailer that meant I was going to have a five foot over hang. The most I was allowed at the rear is four feet. To be sure I was legal on my donkey I measured eighteen inches at the nose thus leaving three and a half feet for rear projection which would be well within my limit.

However, I measured the first lift of two pipes to be put on the deck and I measured from the pipe closest to me. Unfortunately I was standing on the drivers side of the rig and the pipes were laid on the opposite side which means that I measured the inside of the two pipes. I didn't notice that the outside pipe was actually forward of the inside pipe by about one inch.

Now one inch doesn't sound like much but later after I was loaded and I turned right, from the pipe yard onto the street, the outside pipe took the chain bucket off the back of my bullboard.

The chain bucket is an open box near the bottom of the cab protector, head ache rack, or bullboard, to hold the ends of the chains that are hung in the chain rack at the top of the bullboard.

Other than hanging there all askew and looking terrible it didn't present a great problem but would result in a scare many days later.

For the present I tucked the chains into the remainder of the bucket and let them hang down onto the rear deck. I slid the fifth wheel back a couple of notches so the pipe wouldn't catch again and do more damage.

When I say I was legal with a three and a half foot over hang I am talking about every state in the US except Michigan. Michigan's contention is that as my trailer at forty- eight feet is already over length a projection there from is also illegal and requires a permit.

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This didn't pose a great problem as I just phoned ahead to the permit people and they arranged for such paper work except that they routed me through Detroit during rush hour. This I never understood for there is a perfectly good highway that not only bypasses Detroit but bypasses every city between Port Huron and I-Eighty.

Detroit was an experience. I guess there was some kind of football game on or something as I was constantly being passed by vehicles honking their horns and sporting triangular banners from sticks mounted to the their roofs. Although the streets are narrow and winding the traffic was flowing fairly quickly.

I was doing fine until I came to a long narrow section with a gradual curve and a tall block retainer wall where there should have been a shoulder. In the middle of this wall was an entrance ramp with a very short acceleration lane.

A small car came out of this egress and as he arrived beside my tractor so suddenly I didn't have time to change lanes, or even see if it was safe to do so. The car neither sped up to get in front of me nor slowed down to get behind me but continued to drive beside me until he ran out of acceleration lane.

As the acceleration lane ended a sidewalk began and shortly thereafter there was a car parked on the sidewalk. The car beside me had slowed a bit until he was now beside my trailer but was not stopping and I thought for sure he was going to run into the parked car and I hung tightly to the wheel and gritted my teeth as any moment I expected him to go under my trailer. Somehow he squeezed between me and the parked car and continued to drive along the sidewalk attempting to pass me.

Eventually the car faded back and fell in behind me until such time as he could get up beside me where he drove for some time. After awhile he pulled in front of me and started to drive at a slower rate.

When I got a break in the traffic I pulled into the center lane to go around him but as soon as I did so he sped up and pulled back in front of me and again began to slow down. When I again got a break in the traffic I pulled back into the curb lane and again the car sped up, changed lanes, and again slowed down.

I gave up trying to get around him and continued to maintain my speed and as he slowed down the safety distance between us became non existent. I drove with my right hand on the trailer leaver and my left foot posed over the brake pedal.

I've been in such a position before where some smart alec deliberately slammed on his brakes in front of me to get me in trouble. As a result I completely destroyed a brand newpickup. At the time I was driving a heavy Kenworth with a bush bumper and I suffered no damage. I was also exonerated by the State Troopers when they learned it had been done deliberately.

This time the doorknob in front of me didn't slam on his brakes and eventually pulled away far enough that I could see him through his back window. He was driving with one hand on the wheel and both eyes out his rear window. He had his head turned while he talked on his cellular phone. I assume he was trying to read my license plate while he talked to the police. He sure wouldn't have been able to read my license plate as it was covered by a large, yellow,`Long Load" sign.

It really amazes me how people in little two thousand pound cars will try to compete with professional drivers in eighty thousand pound rigs.

Instead of sitting back and observing the proper way to drive the amateurs will try to tell professionals how to drive. Its sort of like going to a doctor and telling him how to cure you except that in the doctors office if you make a wrong decision the world doesn't come to an end. If an amateur makes a mistake in front of or beside a rig it is like a big dog stepping on a mouse. Squish, and the mouse loses.

I asked a bus driver one day, just after he was cut off by and idiot in a little death trap, how he managed to keep his cool while surrounded by suicidal maniacs. He told me that what those poor souls didn't realize was that it wasn't his bus. He didn't care if they ran into it. It wouldn't be him that paid for the repairs and with the difference in size it wouldn't be him that would be going to the hospital.

Later I was passed by police cars and went through a couple of radar traps but no one stopped me. I am sure the police could tell by the phone conversation that the wannabe driver was some kind of nut.

That evening I stopped for supper and fuel, I also took the time to do laundry, at the truck stop outside of Battle Creek, Michigan and slept late the next morning.

Saturday I awoke well after sunrise to a gorgeous day and looking East I could discern no clouds. I got to thinking about the heat I had experience in Georgia and figured that the cold of spring that I had experience going East was over. So I thought maybe, as the shop would be open in an hour, I would get them to look at my air conditioning.

After breakfast I pulled the truck into the shop and helped the mechanic set up the test lines and pump out the old refrigerant and reload it with new. The consensus being that the reason it didn't work was there was too little of the old refrigerant left in it and the only way we would find the leak was for it to be full.

After disconnecting all the lines the mechanic asked me to start up the engine so we could check the air conditioning. The stupid motor wouldn't start.

The mechanic, I, another truck driver, and two other mechanics worked on that pile of junk for nearly three hours. Finally at noon, as I still had lots of air to release the brakes, they pulled it outside. It was Saturday and the shop closed at twelve.

As it was still too cold at nights to sleep in the truck I spent the next two nights sleeping at the Quality Inn across the freeway.

Monday morning the tow truck pulled me away from the doors and we dollied off the trailer so he could tow me to Kalamazoo where there was an International dealer.

While their mechanics climbed under that rust bucket I walked from the freeway through a street being rebuilt to the center of town and mailed some post cards. Taking a different route back to the shop I strolled through a park and watched children feeding ducks on the river.

When I got back the truck was sitting outside ready to go. It had only taken them half an hour to find that there were two wires going to the computer from the starter. One of them was rusty where it connected to the starter which is why only one side of the computer had power. On modern motors there is no way to bypass the computer to get the motor to run. Aren't computers wonderful?