Written 9/29/09
After delivering a snow blower truck to the Air National Guard airfield in Martinsburg, WV I ran up to a salvage yard just outside of Pittsburgh to pick up a wreck of a dump truck. The cab of the thing has been totally burned out and barely resembles a truck cab at all. It stank of burnt rubber and plastics.
The guys there tried picking it up with two large fork lifts to set it on my trailer but one of the forklifts couldn’t handle the weight and it’s rear wheels lifted off the ground while trying to lift the truck. As that was obviously not going to work I had them drag it out of the way so I could back up in line with it, detached, and had the one good forklift push it onto my trailer and then straighten it up.
It was a lot of work securing the wreck so it could be hauled to WI. Much more trouble than it was worth, but as I was getting paid to do I did what was needed to secure it on my trailer.
Tonight I stopped in Gary, IN for the night. Gary is far too close to Chicago to even remotely resemble a nice place. It’s a sewer.
There’s a little bar about a half of a mile down the street from the truck stop called Chip’s Friendly Tap. That sounded nice to me so I walked down there. I walked into the place wearing brown leather shoes, jeans, a royal blue shirt, a black diamond pattern tie, a gray sweater vest, a gray silk sport jacket, a brown homburg hat, and carrying my Bubba Stik walking stick (bad neighborhood ya know).
The place was pretty quiet. A couple of guys sitting at the bar and a guy behind the bar was it except for myself. I claimed a spot at the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender seemed very suspicious of me so I commented that “it’s a pretty nice little walk down here from the truck stop”.
He asked if I was a trucker, to which I admitted, and he seemed to relax a bit. We chatted for a minute or so and he seemed satisfied that I wasn’t a cop or some other such person he wasn’t comfortable having in the place.
It’s a neighborhood sort of bar, not fancy or upscale or anything. Just a little neighborhood joint.
The bartenders changed shortly after I got there, before I’d even finished my first beer, and a rather unpleasant looking woman took over. I can’t really say anything bad about her, she wasn’t rude or anything, but she was certainly less than friendly. The place just didn’t live up to it’s name at all.
One customer, a slim guy just a tad younger than myself, asked me if I was “in the mob”. I almost burst out laughing at his stupid question but as I was bored I decided to mess with him a bit and said “Yes, I run the the prostitution and heroin rackets on the south side of Chicago”.
While he was obviously not the brightest crayon in the box he caught on that I was messing with him and apologized for the moronic question. I told him it was ok and let it drop. He was obviously not someone with which I wanted to hold a conversation.
The place got a tad busier before I left, but it was certainly not a place that lived up to it’s name. I sat at the bar alone and really didn’t speak to anyone other than the standard polite comments one makes when making the acquaintance of new people. I just smoked my pipe, drank my beer, and minded my own business. It was not my kind of place at all, and I won’t be stopping back. It lacked any feeling or sense of life that I look for in a place.
I’ve been in filthy little biker bars that had more life than that joint.
I did have one interesting exchange on my way back to the truck stop. I met up with a couple of young Mexican fellows as I was walking. The way they flanked me when we met up got my attention and I immediately tossed up my stick so that I was grasping it just below the middle of the shaft with the brass head up top and rested it across my right shoulder, in the perfect position to use it as a cudgel if needed.
I saw both of them eye that heavy brass head on the stick and we exchanged quick pleasantries and they quickly moved on. Paranoia perhaps, but I got the distinct feeling that those two were up to no good and that good old Bubba Stik may well have altered their thinking a bit. It truly is a formidable weapon.
I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday, and know a dangerous situation when I see it. Like I said, maybe just paranoid, but that paranoia has saved my hide more than once over the years. I am far from a fearful or timid person by any sense of those words, but I do pay attention to my surroundings and can size people up pretty quickly.
The one thing I have always refused to do is allow the low-lifes of the world to keep me from walking where I choose. I go where I want, when I want, and it’s they who had best take care if they’re up to some mischief. A few have been stupid enough to try and rob me but so far none have succeeded in doing so. It could happen, sure, I know I’m not Super Man, and I also know I’m getting older, but there is no way that sort will ever cause me to alter my route or be afraid to go where I please.
I realize that sounds like so much bravado, but it’s honestly how I conduct myself. I look people in the eye and stand my ground if the need arises. Of course the majority of people are civil enough and I am always civil towards them. Hell, I’m usually even civil towards those who are aren’t civil until they force me to hit them or something equally unpleasant.
Such is life on the road. Sometimes dull, sometimes fun, sometimes dangerous, but every day presents something just a little different and staves off the death of routine and boredom.