HazzardAyre

Friday, January 18, 2013

Really messed up, but then that’s why we’re here.

There is a saying I’ve been touting around the shop here lately, that says don’t groove on everything online or Internet. More over the supposed fan page of those who dig tow trucks.

A person gets in this industry on three levels, one as an owner/operator, like myself. That has pride in my ability to render service at times of despair to motorists of all kinds. From Long haul truckers to just a lady in an SUV going to the store. Of course being independent I can reduce my hourly rate, to suit the customer. Ones you know can pay or has insurance coverage, standard rate, even mine is lower than most motor clubs. Less for those who buy food on food stamps. Hey they will remember you when they need you again.

But I ‘m getting away from the point.

Another way someone gets into the industry as a driver. Collects a pay check, goes home at a given time except for call outs in a real emergency, but to them it’s a job.

Then there are the drivers, who aspire to be career toewing professionals that is the person I like to hang around with. People who take pride in this industry. And treasure older trucks and people who have been in the industry for years. One’s that remember when the industry had what we call Toew Bro’s and were there to help with advice. Or who remember the efforts that many of us have busted our butts to improve the image and all the industry and profession, and get upset when the new comers just want to tare down what we have been working so long to fix.

Of course then , comes a time to clean out the Facebook friends list and pages one follows , just simply that no matter what you do, it ain’t going to help, your getting ignored and simply because you know there is no real common ground.

So I went in, delisted or unfriended a ton of so called friends, unliked , I Love Tow Trucks, and so who cares?

On ours here , called Highway Hookers is a page that is for the real small number of trucks, of one or two man tow services that are more rural, or at least not very urban toewing professionals, that still run older rigs, pay through the nose for most things, but who have pride in what we do.

That’s why there is and has been since 1988 an organization that remains part of the Knytes-of-Anarchy called, The Rode Knytes Association of the Mountain West. And why there is this Facebook group called the Highway Hookers yes co named after my other small company running out of West-Point and Emmett Idaho. Highway Hooker Toewing. While Dixie Toewing still is us here in Twin Falls, Burley and Rigby Idaho.

Justly its good that there is HazzardAyre to keep YOU informed, and why we are the ones taking to the air, both region wide on our own radio network, and going XM/Sirius in 2014 with a toew channel there.

But somebody not willing to do something simple in redoing a prayer for us in towing , by just taking out the W word. Naw that ain’t for me, I got too much pride in my profession and industry to start slyding back.

Ain’t going to do that. Sorry Jay and BR, but it only takes one or two bits of manure in the holding tank to sour the milk.

L8R Ya’ll am back in bed,.

Quote of the Day:
For greed, all nature is too little.
--Seneca, Roman statesman and author

1 Corinthians 10:13“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

Brought to you by BibleGateway.com. Copyright (C) . All Rights Reserved.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Pride in our Industry and profession

You can always tell those that have been in toewing a long time and those that haven’t. You can also tell those who have pride and affection for this thing we do.

Case-n-Point, saw a thing on I Love Tow trucks on Facebook. A Tow truck Drivers Prayer, sounded good and all except when I saw on multiple lines the W {Wrecker} word, in there. One describing the person doing the job, and one describing the truck doing the job.

About the late 1980’s, a beloved friend of mine who published what became the bible of this industry , publication called Tow Times. His name John Hawkins the 3rd. He started a campaign to rid the industry of describing us and our trucks with the W word. Many of us have since disbanded and disregard the W word. Even teaching law enforcement to not call us or our rigs the W word.

So when I see the term , I immediately jump in and will defend the image upgrade and stop or try to get people not to use the W word.

Call us Hookers, toew truck driver, Road service technician, and our trucks anything besides the W word. Wreck is what we fix or remove from the road way. Wreck is also a term for those in the junk car or vehicle recycling business. Not us. Most of us have paid thousands of dollars in training, upgrading our trucks and cleaning up the evil image of towing. We do not need anybody allowing the degradation of our profession and industry by slyding back into the use of the W word.

The Rode Knytes Association and myself have and still run Public Service Announcements on TV on three area stations, paid for by US. We established a radio station KTOW here in Idaho for us who tow, plus we are just months from finalizing an agreement with XM/Sirius to launch the first XM/Sirius Radio channel for the towing industry especially us independent toewers.

We don’t need anything to hurt the effort.

Our industry has came a long, long way, from being seen as the fat greasy guy with a tattoo, on his arm with a cigar sitting on an overpass over the highway waiting for a little old lady in an old Ford Falcon to break down then swooping in like an owl on a mouse. Or scalping people, we helped establish a towing industry code of ethics. We tow drunk drivers home free on weekends and holidays year round so they don’t drink and drive. These efforts are doing good improving our image. We’re getting respect from both the law and public, so yes I’ll bark anytime I see anything or anyone degrading our industry, including writing in anything like a Tow Truck Drivers Prayer using the W word.

Until the afternoon on KTOW ,

Quote of the Day:
Resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies.
--St. Augustine

Once again being ignored, but not for long.

I always love how the urban big city and not of the Mountain West tow pages and people love to ignore us here in Idaho and especially us one and three truck family tow services.

We exist out on the open ranges and not always in the lush pavements of those mega, new truck, super fleets.

Oh sure I’d love as much as anyone a new $500k rotator, or that new $80k rollback. But the difference is keeping things small, having everything I run paid for and still trying to make a buck a fair buck doing this profession, is by a far cry much different than in those big cities where making $5,k before breakfast is a common occurrence.

But should our voices not be heard? Should our trucks not be seen, hey our rigs may be old, but they look good, even with a few hundred thousand miles on em, and again ours is all paid for, and maintained by ourselves, usually the owner which is usually the guy answering that midnight sub zero cold call. If one of us gets sick with the flu, there isn’t many who can sub for the owner driver. Unless gifted with a son , daughter and even a wife properly trained to go out a fetch a stranded motorist. Yet should we get ignored?

I read this thing on Facebook called I Love Tow Trucks. Put up many postings and yet I never get acknowledged for it. More over they are doing up this thing of truck of the week, why not feature one of our older workhorses? They asked for another administrator. I said I’d do it, not even one mention of my interest.

It’s just like in the late 80’s, there was this big pow-wow in Medford Oregon. After wanting to for several years I’d mustered up the funds to go. So I piloted my mini service unit, up to Medford. First there was the amount to stay at this posh motel there, $150.00 a night? Really? Couldn’t they have gave show attendees a break on price? Then went to some seminar that cost me $300.00. Only to be insulted by one of Speeds Towing’ operators there saying something along the lines of, ah he’s just some small tow service out of Idaho.

Know what, I let my TRAA membership run out, and did little in ever going to something like that again.

It was about that time I started working on bringing to boil even more so an organization of us small rural one man operation to a group of again us smaller companies. Why should we not have access to all this training that the bigger cities and such gets? How about WreckMasters, which had not yet came about, nor had TRAA’s certification program, but The Rode Knytes Association our group started a thing under law enforcement director at the time, Kelly Pierce , called Road Resque Certification. Program is still in operation.

Part of the growth of KTOW Radio is in large part because of The Rode Knytes.

But try to get fancy smancy Facebook pages like I Love Tow Trucks to even give us a tip of the hat? To put it, If I held my breath for that tip of the hat, I’d turn blue.

When John Hawkins of Tow Times Magazine in fact the creator of such, called for an industry wide declination of the use of the word WRECKER or as he called it the W word, we in the Rode Knytes all were on board. In fact many of us changed names of our companies to get rid of the W word.

The list could go on, but whether it be a pink truck of which 3 of mine wear, simply because I saw a pink and yellow truck on a long ago TV movie that had one that I thought was hot, combined with a black pink 75 Road Runner with that combination of colors, and with a name of Highway Hooker Toewing, couldn’t do nothing less.

Any mile more on the radio overnight, but thought ya’ll ought to know and by the Way Jay, and BR how about giving us and me some credit.

L8R Ya’ll

Quote of the Day:
It is not the size of the dog in the fight, it is the size of the fight in the dog!
--Anonymous

Philippians 2:14-16“Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.”

Brought to you by BibleGateway.com. Copyright (C) . All Rights Reserved.

Like milking cows, both radio and going towing has no days off.

In my end of the world at only 17 degrees out, with everybody else frozen, there are no days off going towing.

Somebody always needs me. While it would be grand to delegate the duties , I’m pretty much a one guy one truck operation. So if snow, cold or otherwise to feed me, its go tow.

Then of course there’s the radio gig. Nobody or very well damn few people no matter gender who is going to jump in the Wolf’s Lair here to do a radio show or two, or go out and beat down the bushes trying to get other business’s to contribute to the cash stash by buying ad time, even if it’s the lowest cost there is.

I do have to interject something here, and it’s a formula, that a friend of mine in Burley uses on his station there. People who want to be on his station to host a program, pays him an hourly rate , and gets ads on their own to support their shows. Zeb Bell, Steve Minton, and others pay old Kim, roughly a $100.00 an hour for 4 to 6 hours of air time each day to fill his day parts. Zeb comes in at 08:00 AM goes until just before noon, then Steve comes in from 1:00PM to about 5:00PM every day. Cept Saturdays. Now figure that’s near $1,200.00 a day, times 5 $6k a week, or $24k a month. And all Kim does is pipe in the shows since both Zeb and Steve do their shows from their homes. Hey the do radio from their houses, maybe its because their older and married, right? Any mile that’s not a bad formula. Makes damn good money, maybe something we ought to do once we move this to Buhl.

The rest of the time, between engineering duties which are never ending in radio or broadcasting, administration, dealing with the FCC and other agencies, day off? I’d like one.

The only relief I get is trucking back with a good long distance toew on back, tunes going and the old truck singing through those lake pipes. If we’re lucky I get one day out to do domestic chores . And you think your day gets complicated.

Saw on a page on Facebook, something on I love Tow Trucks. Nobody loves this business and industry nor has anyone in these parts done more for this profession more than I have. Not bragging but who else can say they created a radio station to preach and defend the industry? Who else can say they helped write a lien law that helps toewers all over Idaho today. Who else can say they went to the halls of this states legislative bodies and testified for the rights of us in towing? Who else can say they have been barking about unfair and politically motivated rotation and other laws that hurt the small fleet towing owners/operators?

Okay over time that radio station has added the cause of defending the rights of our southern heritage and our rebel spirit. To tell the story of the Confederates from a factual and proper way. But deep on those, is the right to tow.

Granted I’ll say that at first observations people look at me as a bumb. But lets look at this a bit further.

The Flying J company was started in part by efforts of my Mom and Dad. The yearly profits were divided up between initial investors. Those payments made life where I looked like Little Lord Fauntleroy. When Flying J went nearly bankrupt there went my dividends. While still in the recovery stage, If I ever see the entire amount is anybody’s guess. But here too, I lived like a great ruler for many years. Snap of a finger and all too many got more than they deserved. But it was my fingers doing the snapping. Then came the cunning females. Loving the Old Wolf here, as long as I was putting out the money. Minute I said its my turn, get to know me they were gone.

With the end of my last marriage I decided that , I would look to be and live as lean and all as a church mouse, people would have to get to know me, not just what I had to give the materially. On the surface, I would maintain the look as just and not detracting from that, but look as only a mechanic and tow trucker who did a radio thing as a hobby.

Then came late November 2012. With a near heart attack, vclub said get some help. Right? Here? Doing what I do, who would do that?

So one of the club members said float a thing on CraigsList might pick up someone, that’ll train for a month or two get to know what we’re all about to take some of the weight off my back.

This is a sad thing though when one looks at it for Twin Falls.

Out of 8 people, only one has stuck with the idea, of being willing to train. The rest, just because its in my house, decided that it’s a ruse to lure women in to do the unthinkable. However would it have been any different in say a full blown studio? Just as much unthinkables can happen in a 10X10 studio as it can in a 5X5 studio in a house in the middle of Twin Falls. Only thing missing from one is a bed. And even when we did have the big studio in Gooding I had a couch, so I could catch some sleep on those long nights.

Must have been somebody doing something hinky and kinky long before us, in this way that got all too many nervous.

Guess we can’t see ourselves as others see us, but I don’t look at doing radio any different than somebody going to a farm house looking for work on a farm.

Any mile that’s all going off point, but only to a point. I can remember several good tow services that started and several that still run out of a private home. Johnny’s here in Twin was ran from Johnny’s house, Jim Wilson who started Custom Towing out of Pocatello started and still does run the majority of his business from his home, Marvin who runs Jakes Towing out of McCammon Idaho, runs his out of his house, the list could go on, but who cares? Nobody’s virginity or lack thereof has ever been threatened or challenged by me or any part of the club’s business.

But just as it was in November, I still am doing the majority of everything myself, out of my shack on my own. Until I see a helluva lot more of a reason that’s where it’ll stay outside of what is already aimed at Buhl in a few months. Even then, for the most part, it’ll be me, in LiL Lexi hauling over there doing the shows, as best as I can and hauling back. But know what, the place will do just as it does now, house the Transmitter and STL(Studio-Transmitter-Link) between Twin Falls and there and I do my radio show from the Wolf’s Lair. By myself on my own, just hope Sylver Star will be on board in the interim.

Day off? Right. I haven’t had a real day off in 25 years. And like milking cows, going towing or doing radio is my gig in life and that means no day off.

More over night,

Is it too much to ask just to be noticed?

Yesterday, was monumental in a way, as we winched old LexiBelle up on the back of A1’s rollback.

Coming home I thought of all the things that occurred through those 1,300,000 miles of that old rig of mine. The people I have known because of her, the recoveries and most importantly the milestones in my life that are all tied to those 6 tires and body attached to thereof.

The foundation of the Knytes or at least why I’m even involved, the reason the radio station was created. The Radio network that was formed all have their points of origin on LexiBelle.

Yesterday after I had thought that all was solid between myself, Sylver and another guy, that I still would like to know why he wanted to be involved with something southern and very confederate, he wrote in a near essay about the lack of comments on the blog, as well as criticizing my home or contents therein.

Why should he judge me and my home? I did not judge his. I walked in noticed dishes piled high in the sink, a big dog barking behind a door, and ultimately his recording studio is also in his bedroom as well. Really you criticize me? That I do have my own towing and automotive company, two shops, that I pay for, I have no partners there, that comes out of MY pocket. Yet pardner you criticize?

But the Lord tells me not to judge, nor should I not forgive, but I’m not going to be holding out the welcome mat neither.

I live life my way, and oh yes friend, I also noticed too, that you also have a SNAP/Food card too. In words of a great writer in trucking journalism, don’t lie about me, and I wont tell the truth about you.

In great intelligence though, SAMCRO MC Idaho did elect to shed what was going to be Knytes Hall on West Main in Burley, but retain Hazzard County Choppers and meet there when we have a meeting in Cassia County.

Missed my coffee session with Ellie May, yesterday. I just love her. Of all the people on Earth she is one who fully understands and I am nearly sure if things were of order that well , I’ll let ya’ll figure it out. Course that’s also why she holds the place in the club she does.

Any mile show, went well last night, no big tech goofs. Not looking at going on the Mountain to do some repair on the microwave link, but hey life of a radio engineer.

See ya’ll in the PM , today is my day off and I’m enjoying it.

L8R

Quote of the Day:
Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude.
--Dr. Martin Luther King

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Glad to be home

Finally home, LexiBelle all secure and life beginning to turn to normal. It’s times like this you find out who will be your back and those that just make noise.

All the crew today at A1 Making me again like family. Got the one shop in Burley liquidated but keeping the one for Hazzard County Choppers.

Okay then going like impulse speed, to doing all that, that makes up HazzardAyre/Highway Hooker Radio, but I’m only going to be taking on just one intern and work her into management and full time/part time, anybody else will be obtained through or within the club. Members, family siblings of members etc.

Over the last month and a half, nearly loosing LexiBelle, the mental strain and drain on my brain, no thank you. Sylver Star is all we need here right now.

The hip hop rapper, pee’d in his own nest. You don’t get on line in somebody’s Facebook, page and tell em off, not if you want to water the seeds of the seeds that’s being planted. Quite for sure, he just screwed the pooch. I think he wanted to get tight with Sylver which is okay, just don’t like our gig to be the catalyst.

Any mile, just wanted to pop in, all is well. All moved, eating, warming up, going to bed. See ya’ll on the radio.

L8R

Quote of the Day:
If we find a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The people I waste my time on

Just another day in paradise. Well not really, see this Ceaser guy posts a thing on my Facebook about something he found disturbing.

In reality I don’t think he really wanted much to do with HazzardAyre or that anyway. So be it, we keep, on keeping on.

Have done for 40 plus years, and damn well plan on being in your ears another 40 plus years. Thing is, hey, he came to me. I did not call him in the first place, I drove to his house for a first meet, and even though not the usual flavor of music and style was willing to allow him and crew to be on our airwaves for at least 12 hours. Gain some knowledge and be kool. But hey to each their own, I’m tired of it. That $200K is getting much tastier.

Thing is, for all these people that I befriended on this last round of talent searches for the network, I have let my own business go. Yet they spit at me? Come on. Talk about ungrateful. But at least I can move on and we can continue to build on that, what makes us, us.

I’m just now getting over this flu, and all hope later today, I can get over to fetch LexiBelle. Thing is, again and I need to say, Ceaser was not clear on just what got him pee-owed? Was it that we as a club wanted to work with his crew to throw a fundraiser for the radio gig to defray some interim bills? Was it, that I really did forget to divvy up for my coffee today, however I will say this. In no way in hell will I invite anybody into my home studio outside of club members.

When things are together in Buhl in a month or two, then many will be there. I know all too many there and they all know me all to well . They know while I may be old, with some real world broadcast experience, while I may be sort of scrungy looking hey am what I am, and okay I haven’t went clothes shopping in a ton of months, shyt when have I had time? Fact is with me everything is real, above board and solid, so is the club not just 40 years ago, but right to today.

Granted many members are in service to their country, and that is also where myself and many who are stateside are as well, even though honorably discharged, we still serve. Not only the public, but we serve those who still are serving. But hey , like a associate of mine in Pocatello said once, you can’t please everybody. Plus you can’t save everybody.

Any flyte, 06:00 comes early.

L8R Aviators