Completely crazy, Keith Ingram called the “masters of the air” from my story two days ago. And then he moved on to another group of completely crazy guys, a group he clearly belonged to, truckers on the Alaska Highway.
A link to another story “Albert Herda’s Idea”
“In the ‘60’s on the highway,” he reported, “you needed about 5 gallons of kerosene to 90 gallons of diesel just so it didn’t gel off and kill the engine and sometimes it did anyway.”
Keith carried a 30 pound propane tank with a torch on about 45’ of hose. “I would stovepipe the transmissions and rear ends if I was stopped for more than about 4 hours.” When it got “really cold the engine wouldn’t even keep the oil from thickening so that your 10 weight oil became about 50.
And tires. “You started rolling gently until your tires warmed up cause a hard bump on frozen tires could break the bead.”
Keith closed with, “Fun times not…” I translated, “completely crazy.”
“Highway truckers are a special breed”, I responded, and Keith came back with this. “It’s a much different job now. Easier in a lot of ways, but not nearly as much fun.” He explained. “In those days we were kind of like a big bunch of brothers who drank with, fought with and helped each other and everybody else that needed it.”
I responded this time by sharing that I had wanted very much to post a story about Alaska Highway truckers today and speculated that I might need to take it back a few years.
“There were,” Keith responded, “some great characters and stories. And he proceeded to share one.
“Rusty Manuel trucked and drove up there starting in the ‘50’s. He drove a bus for Coachways for a while. The southern turn around was in Dawson Creek and the bus terminal was just a short walk to the Alaskan Hotel.”
On one trip, “Rusty had some buddies in Dawson so they had a few drinks: about a hundred. Closing time in the bars was supposed to be 11:00 or 12:00 pm but nobody much cared so these valiant dudes kept drinking until about 4:00 am.”
Rusty’s bus was scheduled out of Dawson Creek at 8:30 AM. “Rusty’s friends helped him to his vehicle.” Then they “laid him out at the back… where the seat ran all the way across.” Not easily done “because Rusty was 6’ tall and weighed over 300 pounds.
Rusty slept through the morning and into the afternoon. “When he woke up… the bus was rolling down the highway, passengers and all.” Back in Dawson Creek one of the guys had “just organized the baggage and started driving. He had dropped passengers at Wonowon and was right on schedule.”
Keith concluded, “Just another day on the highway.”