It was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June...

I come from a long line of truckers.  My daddy, Ken Roark, was a trucker.  So was my grandpa, Chester Padgett.  My Uncle Big Jim Smith was one, too.  As a child, I thought climbing up into an eighteen-wheeler cab was more fun than climbing on a swing set.  And I cannot recall a time when I didn’t know how to use a CB radio, didn’t know how to check the oil in a vehicle, or didn’t know the lyrics to C.W. McCall’s 1975 hit Convoy.   

If I had to come up with a desert island list of favorite honky-tonk, truck-driving music makers, I’d put Jerry Reed, Johnny Paycheck, Boxcar Willie and Ray Stevens in second, third, fourth and fifth place, leaving the number one spot to C.W. McCall for his lengthy trucking narrative Convoy.   Now, if William Faulkner had been alive in 1975 when Convoy was released, I think he would have been ten shades of jealous of McCall for such a fine telling of the heroic deeds of Rubber Duck, Pig Pen and Sodbuster (and about 85 other truckers).  The song starts dramatically with a CB conversation between truckers Rubber Duck and Pig Pen, a conversation in which we discover that they, mercy sakes alive, have got themselves a convoy…

CB conversation: Ah, breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck. You gotta copy on me, Pig Pen, cmon? Ah, yeah, 10-4, Pig Pen, fer shure, fer shure. By golly, it’s clean clear to Flag Town, cmon. Yeah, that 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...

It was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June

And a Kenworth pullin' logs

Cab-over Pete with a reefer on

And a Jimmy haulin' hogs

We's headin' for bear on Eye-one-O

'bout a mile outta Shakeytown

I says "Pig Pen, this here's Rubber Duck"

"And I'm about to put the hammer down"

('Cause we got a little ole convoy rockin' thru the night.

Yeah, we got a little ole 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 USA…Convoy)

CB conversation: 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 85 trucks in all

But there's a roadblock up on the cloverleaf

And them bears 's wall-to-wall

Yeah, them smokeys 's 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"

('Cause we got a great big convoy rockin' thru 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 USA…Convoy)

CB conversation: 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 Forty-Four

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 brought up some reinforcements

From the "Illinois" National Guard
There's armored cars and tanks and jeeps

'n' rigs of ev'ry size

Yeah, them chicken coops was full of bears

And choppers filled the skies

Well, we shot the line, we went for broke

With a thousand screamin' trucks

And eleven long-haired friends of Jesus

In a chartreuse microbus

CB conversation: 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

Prepared to cross the line

I could see the bridge was lined with bears

But I didn't have a doggone dime

I says "Pigpen, this here's the Rubber Duck"

"We just ain't a-gonna pay no toll"

So we crashed the gate doin' ninety-eight

I says "let them truckers roll, ten-four"

('Cause we got a mighty convoy rockin' thru 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 USA…Convoy )

CB conversation: Ah, 10-4, Pig Pen, what’s your twenty? Omaha? Well, they oughta know what to do with them hogs out there fer shure. Well, mercy sakes, good buddy, we gonna back on outta here, so keep the bugs off your glass and the bears off your tail. Well catch you on the flip-flop. This here’s the Rubber Duck on the side. We gone. Bye,bye.

Now, is that not pure trucking poetry?  And am I the only one out there who gets chills when Rubber Duck says to Pig Pen, “Pigpen, this here's the Rubber Duck, we just ain't a-gonna pay no toll” and they “crashed the gate doin’ ninety-eight” and he says, “Let them truckers roll, ten-four?”

I'm a man of means by no means...

After seeing that I was listening to Boxcar Willie, a dear friend of mine (and not surprisingly in this town, a relative of sorts) completely knocked the wind out of me the other day by revealing that there was an individual out there named David Icke who claimed that Boxcar Willie was a satanist and a pedophile. Said friend and relative-of-sorts sent me the link to Mr. Icke's website entitled LIST OF FAMOUS SATANISTS, PEDOPHILES, AND MIND CONTROLLERS so that I could see for myself the libel being spoken about my beloved Boxcar.

Seriously.  Mr. Icke's LIST OF FAMOUS SATANISTS, PEDOPHILES, AND MIND CONTROLLERS

Well I'll be...what an enlightening site. I'm not sure what tipped me off to the fact that Mr. Icke is a bed-wetting nut-case...perhaps it was his liberal labeling of individuals with the term "reptilian shape-shifter." I don't know about you, but I think long and hard before using that kind of character-defaming language (and I’m not taking back “bed-wetting nut-case”). To accuse someone like Boxcar Willie (paragon bard of truckers world-wide and beloved eco-father for his recycling of old stogies that he has found, short, but not too big around), of being a satanist and a pedophile is just flat-out wrong to me. Nowhere can I find evidence pointing to this statement being true (and yes, I’ve done some research). I suggest to Mr. Icke that he adjust his medications and get some bed-rest (he may want to change his urine-soaked sheets first). Otherwise, I may have to hunt him down and make an introduction of my foot to his ass (as Red Foreman would say).
I’m quite put off now…

Follow-up from the same day, entitled:  And another thing about Boxcar...

I suppose that if Mr. Icke wanted to find some sort of pedophilic meaning in Boxcar’s work, the following stanza from King of the Road could provide just the fodder he might need in order to alert child services:

I know every engineer on every train
All of their children, and all of their names
And every handout in every town
And every lock that ain't locked
When no one's around.

Did Mr. Icke believe that Boxcar was suggesting that he knew “every engineer on every train, all of their children and all of their names” in an inappropriate way (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)? And after discovering that Boxcar knew (possibly inappropriately) “every engineer on every train, all of their children and all of their names,” was the line “and every lock that ain’t locked when no one’s around”...could those lines be the the straw that broke the camel’s back and drove him to sling such terms as “Satanist” and “Pedophile” at Boxcar (I’ve yet to find a stanza from any of Boxcar’s songs that would indicate Satanic worship)? For heaven's sake, the man was just looking for a free room!  I suppose that in Mr. Icke’s eyes, being on friendly terms with the offspring of the engineers who worked in the train stations where he swept up to make the four-bit necessary to rent the eight by twelve room he needed in order to have a place to rest his head after a long day of smokin’ and broom pushin’ was not acceptable behavior for a man of the janitorial arts. Maybe so. But judge not Mr. Icke, lest ye be judged.

Personally, I think Mr. Icke works for the union and he was more upset over the line, “I don't pay no union dues” than anything else. Well, I’ve got your union dues right here, Mr. Icke!

Listening to: You guessed it...Boxcar Willie
Reading: YA Literature (still)