The lights come on and that horn goes off, and it gets them every time.
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! IT’S A CABOVER!
Nestled among 10-foot-tall cornstalks, the scariest attraction of this year’s Haunted Nights Corn Maze at Lone Pine Farms near Junction City, Ore., was a junked White-Freightliner.
“It’s a cheap prop but a pretty awesome one,” says Lorie Jensen, Lone Pine Farms president. “People really can’t see it, walking down the trail. The lights come on and that horn goes off, and it gets them every time. It gets me, and I know it’s there.”
TOO MANY BRITNEY WANNABES WEAR THOSE THINGS ANYHOW
Carson Kressley, fashion expert for Us magazine and the Bravo cable channel, pans trucker hats in his new book Off the Cuff: The Essential Style Guide for Men and the Women Who Love Them (Dutton).
“The reason that the rise of a foam trucker is so big is so that they can put a billboard on your head, complete with a logo, phone number, map, e-mail address and store hours,” Kressley writes. “If there’s room to print every store location nationwide, your hat is too damn big.” Kressley prefers low-rise ballcaps, cowboy hats and knit skullcaps (minus pompoms).
“HE LEFT THE ROAD” – BUT TRUCKER’S MEMORY LINGERS
The quietest, saddest and best trucker song you’ve never heard is “He Left the Road” on Nashville singer-songwriter Verlon Thompson’s CD Everywhere … Yet. It’s an elegy for a trucker killed when his load shifts “in the middle of ‘Proud Mary.'” Thompson sings: “He was just like you / He was just like me.” A flower-covered, roadside cross inspired Thompson and co-writer Pat Terry.
Truckers also can identify with the CD’s much happier title tune: “Book us a room / We’ll be in your town soon / ‘Cause we ain’t been everywhere … yet.” Visit www.verlonthompson.com.
JOB STABILITY
“One thing about truck driving: I don’t think they are going to outsource that job.”
– Tom Caldwell, school superintendent in Iosco County, Mich., which now offers a driving school for adults.
A MOVING ADVENTURE
“Instead of writing ‘U-Haul’ on the side of the truck, they should write, ‘Attention Motorists! The Person Behind The Wheel Of This Vehicle Has Little Or No Idea How To Safely Drive A Truck This Large And Is Probably Very Scared. You’d Be Smart To Stay Way The Hell Out Of Their Way.'”
– Aspen Times columnist Barry Smith.
VIEW FROM THE SCOOTER
“You look up and see big trucks passing. I feel like they get pretty close to us.”
– Connie Haller, 78, of Paintsville, Ky., on the risks she and her friends face when they drive their motorized scooters along the highway.
