Forgive me for being repetitive, but: Many have been asking just why I do what I do for the club, when I don’t even get paid for it? More over why this radio thing even is here?
It all started in 1971, as a tech geek youth living then in Layton Utah, I was looking into getting into HAM radio. But could never pass even the novice code tests. So I got to looking into an easier way.
I found this old, and I mean OLD Ramsey 6 channel crystal CB radio. I was suddenly on the air. I could talk even to Australia when cloud cover would roll in and I could chat via skip waves.
Of course it was approaching that oil embargo of the early 1970’s, while truckers had em they were not as wide spread then, but that changed in early 1973.
Of course Hollywood grabbed a hold of the concept and bada bing, we had cb trucker movies. I wanted to roll 18wheels across this nation but found that reality and Hollywood were really miles apart.
But I wanted to drive truck. Fortunately Dad had a few friends that had rigs, and so I got to take rides. In areas where nobody cared, including authorities, I’d get to drive. Sitting in that cab with those 400 horses of diesel power I was KING for a few hours.
But who hires a 14 year old to drive a truck? Even though I had a farm drivers license and could drive during the day options were limited.
I found I was not the only one.
A CB club for kids had been started in Twin Falls, here. So I became just a member. But I was not content. So one afternoon when Dad and I were in Gooding, I wandered over to the courthouse, talked with our extension agent there, and in a unusual course of events, we created a 4-H program of cb truckers. Taking the 4-H tractor Safety program, and melding it with the 4-H Wheels program, in late 1974 what is the TeenAge Truckers Association 4-H club was born. Challenge letting folks know about it.
Of course my love of radio broadcasting was there, and tuned into a thing out of New Mexico on KOB AM , and heard this thing called JOC Radio. But lets not go down that road just yet.
By my mid age of 17 I found a way to drive truck, make a difference and rub shoulders with a few members of our area law enforcement for once in a good way.
Again who was willing to take on a green horn kid and put em in a tow truck? Fortunately, my cousin Judy’s husband in Ogden Utah, had a friend with two draggin wagons.
Steve Crossly ran Steve’s Texaco on Harrison in Ogden, and with it Steve’s Towing.
So on some alternate summers, I’d go down and work with Steve. I learned how to tow, but not perfection.
At the time there wasn’t any youth based towing training academies. Or groups of youth wanting to go towing, but I figured there ought to be. So with the help of my Dad, John Nussbaum, (Johnny’s Towing Twin Falls) Dave Coffelt(Valley Towing & Radiator Twin Falls) a small group of 6 wanna be towing teens was created.
The Rode Knytes where Knytes really started, became that club.
Then mid year April to be exact my Dad suffered a heart attack caused by cancer that closed the artery that drained blood from the brain. In April 1978, Dad died. I was at a loss, I felt alone. Mom tried to comfort me, but it didn’t help. Understand my Dad and I were really close, near shadows of each other, both Marines, both of the VMA 214 BlackSheep, I needed an out.
Dave Coffelt saw this, and one morning when I saw her, there in the early morning mist, outside with parking lights on, I fell more in love with the rig that would truly, be my life and the foundation for everything since,(still is).
Dave knew I loved that truck.
So for my birthday, just two weeks after my Dad’ death, Dave, myself and mom made a deal, she’d buy that truck, but only if I trained with one of Dave’ drivers, Ray Dyer for a year.
I did. That truck is who not a what, but who I call LexiBelle,>>
but while there was many over the road radio shows for truckers, seemed the towing industry had very little if anything to serve them on radio. Enter in>>
the term hooker fit as that’s cb talk for toew truck, and we were on the road. Of course that got old a bit in time, needed a side saddle or partner. So with what had by then became the Road Commanders association that is the adult version of the TeenAge Truckers Association, we decided it might be good to do a mountain west version of some of the overnight truckers shows I heard on radio. Such shows as Bill Mack’s Midnight Cowboy Show, and of course Dave Nemo’s Road Gang. But it didn’t quite have the kick we needed.
In 1980 I was into of course many things Dukes-of-Hazzard, and after that year I found while searching for go-go boots, for the display of our General Jackson, discovered a 70 Dodge Charger, just outside of Paul Idaho, that some kid had been doing a General Lee duplicate construction on. It was good but I knew it could be better.
So again money from Mom , some of my earnings, and that Charger was in Hagerman, that soon became Hazzard. That story ya’ll already know. What you may not know of just skimmed over is after the 81 Utah AutoRama, in 1985 CBS had cancelled the Dukes, in my mind what would Cooter do now? Well heck he’d build custom big rig over the road trucks is what.
Now understand this is 1987, BullyDog, had not yet started, the idea of performance diesels was not even in the vocabulary of many truck enthusiasts and tricking out a full sized rig? What’s the point? To us who know, it is needed. That rig is more than a machine to move product, its your baby, just like LexiBelle is to me, as well as your calling card. The sharper the rig, the better loads one can contract. But who to do that.
So on a lonely street in Blackfoot Idaho, with a lot of prayer, and more prayer, The Dixie Diesel Shop was opened. The name popped in my head after seeing a similar sounding outfit’ sign in Saint George Utah, called Dixie Diesel Service & Towing.
In 1992 my cousin in charge of the Montgomery Foundation thought I’d be better off in Utah than Idaho. So we loaded up the shop, except for General Lee, and headed to Murray Utah.
After a search for a shop in the Salt Lake Valley came up short, I found one in Springville Utah. Here’s where things get tricky, and I’ll get into it more in depth, Friday, but we created the only overnight Over The Road Trucker radio show done Hazzard style called simply>>
which is still the parent company and show of HazzardAyre.
The idea? Put a real tow trucker as well as just truckers in a radio studio, give em the mic, some music, and in Emma Leigh’s words, Let Er Rip. Real truckers, real toewing people delivering programming for real truckers and toewers.
More in the morning, but the bottom line, if I ain’t toewing , I’m not on the radio since that’s just being a poser or running a front.
Now need to finalize, noticed that a bunch of my so called friends on Facebook, have decided they didn’t need me to be their friends after all. That Elizabeth who wanted the stuff done for the Move it Over project? Gone. Who cares? Know anyone better to deliver that than HazzardAyre? More over the Knytes?
Much more to come hold on as its going to get bumpy.
More Friday, as I decided to take Thursday off and catch up on sleep and recuperate.
Until L8R, Go Serve your King(Jesus).
Quote of the Day:
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
--Mark Twain
Romans 12:12“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
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