Why I stopped making road trips

[Laleldil]

I used to work at a company where we made molten metal furnaces and heated troughs to allow the metal to flow from the large remelt furnace(s) to the smaller holding furnaces situated at the shot machines.

I started out there as a welder, or was suppose to be one. One of the owners that ran the floor asked me if I could read a print. I said I could, thinking of course, of welding prints. He gave me the print and told me to pipe that furnace over there. Now I had never looked at a piping schematic so I had my hands full. But I did it and got it correct. Next step was to wire the furnace! Again, other than a short summer of being an electrician's helper, I had no experience at the trade. Well I got that done too. AND the furnace worked! So over the course of a few years I had piped and wired many molten metal systems. I trained new people to take my place when I had to work in shipping and recieving. Don't ask me why! I still do not know.

Anyway, as the years continued, I began to drive a truck to haul furnaces to factories. It did not seem too bad, until I had this old truck with a furnace that weighed near 80k lbs. Well above the truck's capacity. And to a location in Canton, OH. Case you do not know, here is not a place in Canton that is level enough to set a pea and expect it to remain. I got about 3/4's of the way up this one hill and the truck stalled. Now picture this old truck, with a furnace made of structural steel, steel sides and lined with furnace brick dimensionally barely legal and overweight by any scale. I started rolling backwards until I had gone about a block before I could back the truck onto a side street to get it restarted. Scary as hell. No one was hurt, but I told the boss I would not drive truck again. I do not mind setting the furnaces up and getting them started, but I would never drive a truck with a furnace like that again.

So between in shop furnaces, I got to go to other places like Kent, Mich and the Brigs and Stanton Engines place in Murray, Kentucky. Really was not all that bad. Until ...

I was doing a job out in the boonies. To get there, of course, I had to drive through the country. Well I have live in a rural environment all my life. I lived in such a rural town, the squirrels call the Chief of Police 'dad'. The rest of us just call him Squirrely or Nuts, if we aint cussing him out.

Any way, one night, black as tar, I was going down this lane and a half country lane lined with cornfields and woods driving a rental car. Aint anything to be seen for miles, no farm lights or even stars and moon, when I hear a thump on the side of the car. Unusual to say the least, but I thought maybe an owl got confused and thought the little car was dinner. I stopped and got out and did not see any damage to the car, course it was very dark out and no flashlight. But I heard a noise back from where I came, and figured there would be a near dead owl, since normally birds do not fly at night. But, instead, I saw a pig about knee high. He was just standing there, so naturally I went to check him out, with absolutely no idea where it belonged. Before I got to it though, it ran off into the cornfield.

The next morning, in the daylight, I examined the car and found no damage. But I did find a ticket for $125 for 'hit and run - livestock'.