Part 20 (2/2)

One day a felloas riding with Dode bet hiet under 25 miles an hour The bet was on-perhaps a dime or maybe a cold drink He ravel was heavier on the second curve and the truck lost its footing, skidded, and turned over It just lay over on its side and didn't hurt anything except maybe Dode's pride, and of course he lost his bet

When Papa was just getting into the trucking business, he had two trucks, and one of theht out a truck line froave it to hi he gave for it was too h power to pull the hat off your head without getting a run on it Anyway, one ti it to somewhere Now, on this road to soo up But the old Maxwell just couldn't make it up; it went as far as it could and stopped That hen Papa learned that the brakes would hold better going forward than backward Going backward the brakes were as weak as the ears together wouldn't hold the Maxwell and the load The truck, the load, and the driver all went slowly backward down the hill

Now to keep fro off a bluff on one side of the road, Papa steered the truck toward the mountain on the other side When it backed up on the side of the mountain a way, it leaned so ht in the middle of the road

As I said, the old Maxas not powerful When you got it loaded, it would take a et up to 25 ot up a little speed we sure hated to have to slon for anything

So it was one day with Joel or Albert driving and I was co-pilot I really believe it was Joel driving because there was a ti, otten up speed when, way down the road ahead of us, one faron stopped in the road to talk with each other They were stopped with their front ends-their vehicles that is-headed toward us and outward, one toward one ditch and the other one toward the other ditch Their back wheels were about far enough apart for a truck to go between, or was there room? As we came nearer, it looked doubtful But then, they could see us co and they were still in their vehicles and ready to drive on We thought surely one of them would drive forward a step or two and that would o between theo around thes ai into the big end, and their two hind wheels for the little end of the funnel By this time it was plain to see that neitherAlso, by this tis became obvious First, it was too late to stop; our brakes were not that good Second, there was not rooh rooht a on” Then he aias feed down to the floorboard

The fenders on the old truck, just in nor to fly upstreaine hood had the sides reh, and the top part of the hood was tied on with haywire Nohen our front fenders caon wheel, they ay up and ca broke the wire that held the hood on I thought sure the hood would blow up against the windshi+eld, but it didn't

The old truck had no doors, just curtains, and they were not in use I grabbed a left hand full of windshi+eld post, steppedboard, leaned out over the hood and wrestled it back down into place I was the ainst the windshi+eld

We didn't lose any speed, so by the tiot the parts of the hood back into place ere too far away to see whether the farusted, or just plain surprised-more than likely all three

This little incident took place a couple of miles out of Stamford on our way to Hamlin This was Earl's daily run, but on this particular day Earl had ht than he could haul and had phoned for us to come to Staot it

When we got to Hamlin with our load we told Earl what had happened And the next day, Earl was stopped and confronted by two not-so-happy farmers They seemed to think that he was the one who had done unto them what Joel and I had done But Earl convinced them that it couldn't have been him, he was in Hamlin at that time of the day, and he could prove it Moreover, he drove a Dodge truck, not a Maxwell Thanks to Earl, they never did learn who ran their little roadblock

On another occasion, Earl and I were going back ho But then when he discovered a bumblebee in the cab with us, it only took Earl about two seconds to quit driving In that two seconds he pulled the eency brake lever back as far as he could and the ratchet held it there Then he opened his door with his left hand, stepped his left foot out on the runningboard, his right foot shoved the brake pedal down and his right hand steered the truck while it hurried to a sliding stop Neither of us got stung and the bee got away But the big surprise was the sudden appearance of a whole flock of red apples rolling along the road fro on their way down the road ahead of us

Then suddenly there was this stranger getting out of his pickup truck-the pickup that had bumped into the back of our truck, the pickup that had been loaded with big red apples The stranger caht in theEarl seeood answers at the time So he sort of hesitated and sheepishly looked around as if searching for so as day-a railroad across the road in front of us with the usual sign reading, STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN Earl pointed to the sign and told the er cal up apples

We would haul just about anything in those days if it wasn't against the law One time Earl and I loaded a truck with East Texas ribbon cane molasses from a railroad car in Hamlin and helped the owner peddle it from town to town He didn't sell it all the first day so we stayed over in Throckht Earl and I slept in the back of the truck on the cases of molasses We spread a couple of quilts under us and a couple over us, then we spread a tarp over the quilts andwe also had a couple of inches of snow on top of the tarp Rough, you say? Sure, a little, but it sure beat haulingall this hauling, Frank had opened a garage in Ha to be away and he asked me to take over for him that day There was only one mechanical job to do, unless others showed up It was an Overland Whippet with a loose tiet out of time with the crankshaft Frank asked me to fix it for the man

He explained to me that the way to do the job was to take the radiator off, take the front end of the motor loose froear cover, put the sprockets back in proper ti, and then replace all that stuff I had taken off

Now Frank knew there was no need to tell me how to do the job I already kne And he should have known that I would do itdrawn-out bunch of foolishness, involving a lot of work And that ould cost a poor er to me but I kneas poor, because he owned a Whippet Noand not be poor So I did the job the easy way

I unscrewed a sear cover, stuck a screwdriver through the hole and ju Then I screwed the plug back in and charged the man a dollar When Frank returned, he was not at all happy hat I had done He said, ”That's not the way to time a car”

I said, ”Maybe not, but itFrank needed a lot more of

CHAPTER 15