They grow 'um big in Iowa. Cattle, corn, but most importantly, highway patrolmen. I used to travel in my trucking business from one coast to the other and back every week. That was 5000 miles a week. I got to watch this country grow and change. When I started driving truck the only road that went up Weber canyon to Evanston Wyoming from Ogden Utah was Highway 30. Such a narrow road, it had horseshoe curves, some were so tight that semi trucks wild tip over and roll down the little embankment to come to rest on the railroad tracks that paralleled this two lane highway. In later years Interstate 80N which stood for I-80 North was created. The highway, just plain Interstate highway 80 traveled the same place it does now. South from Echo past Coalville then Wanship up the hill and over Parleys Summit through Salt Lake and on to San Francisco. This was the highway I learned to drive semi on.

My father was an engineer on the Union Pacific Railroad. I spent my younger years being raised in the round house at Ogden. An enormous building with a turntable that could accommodate the largest locomotives that were ever made. The Big Boy the largest steam locomotive ever made. It weighed in at a meager one million four hundred thousand pounds without fuel or water. I used to ride in the cabs of all of the steam engines with my father from Ogden to Evanston or on occasion to Green River. On one trip my father was traveling eastbound and as he came around the corner out of the tunnel he was shocked to see a semi truck laying across the railroad tracks directly in front of him. There is no slowing down a train, that is almost a mile long, quickly. On level ground from the fifty to seventy miles per hour they traveled, stopping distance could exceed three to five miles. Keeping this in mind applying the breaks, blurting out a great deal of profanity, my father hit this semitruck that was laying on its side. The drivers of the semi truck were carried about four miles down the rails until the train came to a stop. They were out in the open, holding on with all of their might to whatever they could on the flat sheet of steel that was part of their truck, which had fused itself in the impact for the front of the locomotive. The truck tipped over because of its load. I used to carry loads of the same thing, we called it swinging meat. Whole halves of cows, clean skinned refrigerated and hanging by hooks from the ceiling. Placing the center of gravity better than halfway up the truck. Making this type of load unstable and prone to tip over easily in the wind or too fast around a curve as the beef would swing back and forth. Luckily the truck drivers survived the ordeal with only various broken bones. This is another example of the strange ways that God works. In the initial accident of rolling down the embankment the drivers were thrown around and became entangled with themselves and the wreckage. One drivers head was pressed into his chest while his legs became wrapped around the throat of the other driver. With both of them held fast in this suffocating position. The ambulance drivers and firemen, keep in mind this was in the 1950s and if the letters EMT were found together it usually was an abbreviation for empty, no gas, no water. This later was shortened to just MT. Today however, its the abbreviation for Emergency Medical Technician. They didn't have any at this time. So as best as they could the firemen and the ambulance drivers determined that if my fathers locomotive had not split the truck in half and carried the drivers a few miles down the road they would have died from suffocation, I can imagine the terror that was gong through their minds - first when they heard dad blowing his horn when he came out of the tunnel and saw their truck on his tracks, I mean, just think of it, you just wrecked your truck, rolled down an embankment, didn't know exactly where you had landed, couldn't move, but knew that you were probably on the railroad tracks because you could see them plainly from the road and then to hear the extremely loud and ominous whistle that the old steam engines had, and feeling the ground tremble underneath you. Having ridden in the cabs of these engines many times I can tell you that if you could lasso. saddle and ride an earthquake you'd be pretty close to how rough a ride you get in a million pound plus locomotive as you can imagine, their suspension was just meant to keep the wheels hooked to the frame and were not designed for bumps. But as they hit the little half inch crack between sections of rail it was like a jack hammer, thump, thump, thump only amplified tremendously. The terror that must have been going through their mind at that point is incomprehensible but riding out in the open on a sheet of steel that used to be the roof of your truck, hanging on to whatever pieces of it you could, for dear life, watching the scenery move by rapidly and this scenery also included a train on the tracks going in the opposite direction, doing its best to stop before it struck the mess you left behind. I'll bet that neither one of these men could be scared by anything after that ride. Now everything has a silver lining, my fathers enormous train striking their flimsy truck and trailer, splitting it open like a can opener and scattering a couple of hundred fully dressed out half corpses of beef. First off, he saved their lives. Secondly by opening the trailer up the way he did, he fed a lot of people. as the trains that were coming by on the other track were slowed and stopped, people from these trains and people from the highway were gathering halves of beef and cramming them everywhere they could. Some would even leave their family behind so they could fill the car and then return and pick them up. It is absolutely amazing how fast a couple of hundred cows can disappear. I asked my father, "Did you get any, dad?" And he said, "Son, that would have been stealing, but they made me back my train all the way in, back to Ogden, there's no turn arounds you know for a train this size. They needed to inspect it and make repairs. I was too busy answering questions, filling out accident reports and covering my own ass to jump down and grab a hunk, besides that the wreck was four miles behind me, but the very next day a couple of the engineers that I worked with drove by to make sure I was okay and to thank me for filling their freezers. And left me a couple of halves, feeling it was only fair since I supplied the groceries I should at least have some. Railroaders, you know, stick together."

Now I was going to write this blog about another group of people that stick together. Iowa state policemen. But I got off on a wild tangent. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the biggest cop that has ever existed in this whole world. If you doubt me just ask my wife. A woman that you all know would not lie or exaggerate or embellish. This man and my mouth had my wife really worried that I was going to prison in Iowa and she was going to have to drive the truck all the way home by herself. I may have neglected to mention and a lot of you are probably not aware with this petite gorgeous blonder angel who for some unknown reason other than feeling she deserved a life of punishment and poverty married me. But most importantly she drove truck with me from coast to coast. You heard it right - my wife was a mother trucker and could handle those big rigs as good as any man I had ever known. She ran coast to coast with me, but she pretty well drew the line to driving with me when I was pulling triple trailers from Salt Lake to Oakland and back three times a week. But I have got to tell you, it was her loss. It was the greatest roller coaster ride that I had ever been on and I got to do it almost every day. That's another story. Don't let me forget, remind me to tell you about how big Iowa state policemen are. I guess this is enough, we've had tragedy, suspense, charity, nostalgia, and revelation about my wife. I don't know where I could add any comedy, besides everything doesn't have to be funny. And I don't know too many jokes that are fit for public consumption. Should I ever remember one I will be sure to include it in the future. But don't hold your hand on your butt waiting, it might grow there. But I'll give it some thought. But believe me no promises.

Thank you for reading my words and listening to my boredom, but even more important, thank you for your responses, I know they are meant to cheer me up, and they do, but you must remember you can go to hell for lying too..

God Bless everyone and my wonderful wife, and today Dr. Isani, anesthesiologist at the VA who once a month gives me an epidural in my lower back, don't need to tell any of you ladies about an epidural do I? When you need one, nothing else will do!
Ken the afterlife messenger