He Drove With His Boots On

Manuel Cuenca wasn’t going to let a minor distraction such as driving a truck get in the way of a good classic movie.

Manuel Cuenca wasn’t going to let a minor distraction such as driving a truck get in the way of a good classic movie. That is, until he ran Brian Jackson’s rig off the highway in Britain while watching, on a dashboard-mounted TV, the Errol Flynn movie They Died With Their Boots On, according to news reports.

Prosecutor Jonathan Eley later said: “When police caught up with Cuenca at Junction 21a, officers could see film images reflecting in his glasses.”

Cuenca, from Barcelona, claimed he was only listening to the film’s soundtrack, but the court banned him from Britain’s roads for 12 months, reported Mirror.co.uk.

‘Wobegone’ Trucker Tells All
“Early in September 1977 I escaped an office career by selling my entire portfolio, four thousand dollars’ worth of John Deere stock, and laying it all down on a new powder-blue R-model Mack costing thirty-eight grand.”

So begins Russ Ringsak’s tales of life on the road, culminating with the dream job of hauling the road show for “Prairie Home Companion,” the long-running radio variety program that features Garrison Keillor’s Tales from Lake Wobegone. Published this month by Globe Pequot, Semi True recounts characters such as a former professional stunt baby and a farmer with a one-footed, bean-planting duck.

Former owner-operator Ringsak was featured in the May 2002 Overdrive.

His “Prairie Home” columns can be read at this site.

Stuck In Traffic
It’s one thing for the rubber to meet the road. It’s quite another when the meeting turns into a permanent handshake.

That’s what happened to the rig of a driver who fell asleep and flipped his load of carpet glue on I-15 near Mesquite, Nev., coating the highway with 3 inches of adhesive and spreading noxious fumes, reports Fox News.

Twenty members of an emergency team, toiling in hazmat suits under the June sun, spent hours freeing the tractor-trailer and shoveling glue into buckets.

Yanks Wouldn’t Understand
“It’s diner-trucker-Canadiana with baseball caps and underwear that says ‘I love beer’ with maple leafs, lumberjack plaid and good Canadianisms. It’s kind of our trucker moment.”
– Barbara Atkin, fashion director of retailer Holt Renfrew, commenting in Canada’s National Post on Mack Trucks’ plans to expand sales of its apparel.

The Fine Art Of ‘Dekotora’ Trucks
“Art truckers are out to overemphasize and deform the idea of a truck; you really see the irrationality of the Japanese spirit.”
– Masayuki Takakuwa, Editor of Trucking Magazine, about Japan’s fancifully gilded “dekotora” trucks, on asahi.com.

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