Brad Nelson

Flack. Harassment. Annoyance. Utter disbelief. Face-making accompanied by head-scratching. Occasional profanity. Threats of bodily harm.

In the summer of 1964, shortly after graduating from high school, I was working at a dairy farm near Nampa, Idaho. The owner decided to get his hay from Fairfield, Idaho, hauled in by a smaller trucking outfit, which was relatively new on the scene and struggling.

Different is OK. For instance, I like to see how many years and miles I can get out of a pickup (my current 12-year-old rig has almost 326,000 miles and 99 percent of everything still works), but I know a fellow who must have a new pickup every year.

One of my best friends shared with me that his wife cannot understand his need to explore junkyards. His idea of a nice afternoon, and mine too, is having a couple of hours to explore a new junkyard. His own, he calls his “boneyard.”

Hard lessons learned are worth more if they are remembered. When my livelihood came from hauling hay to dairies and ranches in remote places in the Northwest, I was never stranded in the truck without food or drink. I recalled that knack when the solar eclipse came close enough to witness with minimal travel.

Ralph Feller of Caldwell, Idaho, once stated he had never seen a truck with too big an engine or too much brakes. He had his own fleet of potato and cattle-hauling trucks. He started out with F-600 and F-800 series Fords, with tag axles and fifth-wheel hitch, pulling 38- and 40-foot-long semi trailers.