The Legend-News
What We Got Here in this edition of The Legend-News.
Caution: this newsletter contains subtle humor. You have been warned.
C.W. McCall Tour 2002
Let's pack us a box lunch an' go down to the Nishnabotna
So you packed up the Chevy with enough beef jerky for a week, stuck the mag-mount attenna on the roof, and you've been sitting in your driveway now for 3 days, just waiting until H-Hour and the time that you'll fire up the six-cylinder and head towards Omaha.
What's that? You haven't? Oh, you have a life? Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. (Ed. reports that his weekend was equally interesting, due to the temporary relocation of the left side of his garage. That portion got, uh, removed by an errant six-and-a-half ton truck. Details in a few days.)
Anyway, this is the Big Summary of the information that you'll need for the Tour. Where we'll be, where we're going, and what we might find. You may want to print this issue for reference.
Your Hosts
Leading the pack (unless someone blows our doors off) will be Alan "Skywalker" Chafin and Ed "Silversmith" Floden. We'll be in a red Saturn SC2, 1994 vintage but not looking like it, with Ed driving and Alan riding shotgun. Illinois plates VGJ 129, a mag-mount antenna or two on the top, and a big red antenna on the trunk lid (makes us easier to spot).
We'll be arriving in the Omaha area late on Thursday (June 6) afternoon. You can find us at the Super 8 Motel near Eppley Airport. The official address is
Super 8 Motel - Carter Lake/Eppley Airport
3000 Airport Drive
Carter Lake, IA 51510
712-347-5588
We don't know the room number, so if you come lookin' just knock on every door until you either find us or you get thrown out.
Although the motel is on the west side of the Missouri River, it actually is in Iowa. Todd Frazier (who unfortunately can't make the Tour) tells us that this is an example of an "oxbow". The Missouri River moved to the east, separating the Carter Lake area from the rest of Iowa.
We've got some yellow glass paint that you can use to mark your vehicle, so that we can spot each other (and not get lost). Alan's bringing along the GPS unit that he used for Convoy 2000, and he didn't get lost then. In fact, it helped him catch up to us in Pennsylvania after he got stranded in Gallup, New Mexico for a day and a half while the engine in his Geo Metro was replaced.
Channel Check
We'll be monitoring CB channel 13 on Thursday night and Friday morning. 13 will probably be the Official CB Channel of C.W. McCall Tour 2002™, unless the local traffic forces a move.
Friday
Friday's schedule is loose: we're going to concentrate on the Omaha-area locations. We'll also be stopping at the offices of American Gramaphone, but we're not certain if we'll get a tour of the building. (They don't seem to answer their e-mail.) Chip and the Steamroller crew are out on tour; oddly enough, they'll be playing Washington, D.C., and Alan lives near Baltimore. But Alan's going to be a few miles west of there.
Starting time? Not too early; 9:00 or 10:00 A.M. Some of you live nearby, and will be driving into the area on Friday morning, so we'll wait for everyone to gather. We'll monitor channel 13, to guide you in.
We'll stop anyplace that seems interesting (Ed. likes anything that says "Historical Marker".), and we're taking suggestions. Maybe invade a steak house on Friday night?
Saturday
On Saturday, we'll be doing the heavy driving. Starting from Omaha, we'll head back east on I-80 to US 71, then north to Audubon. From there, we begin a loop back to Omaha. For future reference, here's a map (click on it for a larger version):
By the numbers:
- Audubon
- East Nishnabotna River
- Fiscus
- Red Line
- Jacksonville
- West Nishnabotna River
- Old 30, a.k.a. U.S. Highway 30, or the Lincoln Highway
- Ricketts
- Correctionville
- Sioux City
- Sloan
- Pisgah
- Mondamin
- Magnolia
- Woodbine
- Persia
- Beebeetown.
- The middle of Pottawattamie County
- Exit 12 on Interstate 680
- American Gramaphone
We expect to start early on Friday, at about 8:00 A.M. We will make plenty of stops; this tour isn't like Convoy 2000, where we drove and drove and drove and… (you get the idea). We have a couple of hundred miles to cover, but we've got all day to do it. Midday should find us around Correctionville or Sioux City; if we're going too fast, we'll slow down. If we're going too slow, we'll probably get run over by the yuppies on vacation.
The weather (at least, as of Sunday's forecast on Intellicast) is expected to be partly cloudy with a high temperature in the low 80s (Fahrenheit, of course).
Okay now, take a deep breath, and start packing!
…and Other Events
The mighty convoy.
And, The World's Largest Truck Convoy is in Orlando, Florida on July 20. See the February 18 issue of the Legend-News. From news reports that we've read, the one's going to be big. So big, that Special Olympics International might be sponsoring many such convoys in the years to come.
Song A’ Th’ Week
Words without music. Call 'em poems.
Once upon a time, there were big, bad bears in the woods. The friendly truckers were often harassed by the bears, until one day when the truckers decided to band together to defeat the dread forces of the Smokeys…
Convoy
(C.W. McCall, B. Fries, C. Davis)
From the album
Black Bear Road
[On the CB]
Ah, breaker one-nine, this here's the Rubber Duck. You gotta copy on me, Pig Pen, c'mon? Ah, yeah, 10-4, Pig Pen, fer shure, fer shure. By golly, it's clean clear to Flag Town, c'mon. Yeah, that's a big 10-4 there, Pig Pen, yeah, we definitely got the front door, good buddy. Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy...
Was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June
In a
Kenworth
pullin' logs
Cab-over
Pete
with a reefer on
And a
Jimmy
haulin' hogs
We is headin' for bear on I-one-oh
'Bout a mile outta Shaky Town
I says, "Pig Pen, this here's the Rubber Duck.
"And I'm about to put the hammer down."
[Chorus]
'Cause we got a little convoy
Rockin' through the night.
Yeah, we got a little convoy,
Ain't she a beautiful sight?
Come on and join our convoy
Ain't nothin' gonna get in our way.
We gonna roll this truckin' convoy
'Cross the U-S-A.
Convoy!
[On the CB]
Ah, breaker, Pig Pen, this here's the Duck. And, you wanna back off them hogs? Yeah, 10-4, 'bout five mile or so. Ten, roger. Them hogs is gettin'
in-tense up here.
By the time we got into Tulsa Town,
We had eighty-five trucks in all.
But they's a roadblock up on the cloverleaf,
And them bears was wall-to-wall.
Yeah, them smokies is thick as bugs on a bumper;
They even had a bear in the air!
I says, "Callin' all trucks, this here's the Duck.
"We about to go a-huntin'
bear."
[Chorus]
'Cause we got a great big convoy
Rockin' through the night.
Yeah, we got a great big convoy,
Ain't she a beautiful sight?
Come on and join our convoy
Ain't nothin' gonna get in our way.
We gonna roll this truckin' convoy
'Cross the U-S-A.
Convoy!
[On the CB]
Ah, you wanna give me a 10-9 on that, Pig Pen? Negatory, Pig Pen; you're still too close. Yeah, them hogs is startin' to close up my sinuses. Mercy sakes, you better back off another ten.
Well, we rolled up Interstate 44
Like a rocket sled on rails.
We tore up all of our swindle sheets,
And left 'em settin' on the scales.
By the time we hit that Chi-town,
Them bears was a-gettin' smart:
They'd brought up some reinforcements
From the Illinoise National Guard.
There's armored cars, and tanks, and jeeps,
And rigs of ev'ry size.
Yeah, them chicken coops was full'a bears
And choppers filled the skies.
Well, we shot the line and we went for broke
With a thousand screamin' trucks
An' eleven long-haired Friends a' Jesus
In a chartreuse micra-bus.
[On the CB]
Ah, Rubber Duck to Sodbuster, come over. Yeah, 10-4, Sodbuster? Lissen, you wanna put that micra-bus right behind that suicide jockey? Yeah, he's haulin' dynamite, and he needs all the help he can get.
Well, we laid a strip for the Jersey shore
And prepared to cross the line
I could see the bridge was lined with bears
But I didn't have a dog-goned dime.
I says, "Pig Pen, this here's the Rubber Duck.
"We just ain't a-gonna pay no toll."
So we crashed the gate doing ninety-eight
I says "Let them truckers roll, 10-4."
[Chorus]
'Cause we got a mighty convoy
Rockin' through the night.
Yeah, we got a mighty convoy,
Ain't she a beautiful sight?
Come on and join our convoy
Ain't nothin' gonna get in our way.
We gonna roll this truckin' convoy
'Cross the U-S-A.
| Convoy! | Ah, 10-4, Pig Pen, what's your twenty? |
| Convoy! | OMAHA? Well, they oughta know what to do with them hogs out there fer shure. Well, mercy |
| Convoy! | sakes, good buddy, we gonna back on outta here, so keep the bugs off your glass and the bears off your... |
| Convoy! | tail. We'll catch you on the flip-flop. This here's the Rubber Duck on the side. |
| Convoy! | We gone. 'Bye,'bye. |
An alternate version of the song was written for the motion picture Convoy.
"Convoy" can be found on the albums C.W. McCall’s Greatest Hits and The Best of C.W. McCall.
Next Issue
A report on C.W. McCall Tour 2002, of course.
The Legend-News is published fortnightly — unless the fortnight is the fifth Monday, in which case it's published fortnightly-and-a-half — by TechRen Enterprises, the last, best hope for peace. Contents Copyright 2002 TechRen Enterprises, except for anything that we borrowed from someone else. Thanks to Bill Fries and Chip Davis for the words and music, and thanks to a Large Multinational Record Company That We Can't Name Because They Might Notice Us for not suing our pants off. "The elves are the harbingers of our doom!"