Slight Detour – November 2023
Now that we’ve turned the calendar to November, fall is in full swing, and long gone are the days of summer. But the dropping temperatures don’t mean the tales for truckers from the road aren’t heating up. Here are the best of the best – or worst – from another wild month.
You mess with the bull, you get the horns
We start in Norfolk, Neb., where police pulled over a man with an interesting passenger.
Norfolk is the “proud home” of Johnny Carson. It has a cool mural chronicling his career in the city’s downtown area. I highly recommend you check it out if you’re ever in the neighborhood.
At any rate, I’m pretty sure even Carnac the Magnificent couldn’t have seen this coming: Early one morning, police received a call claiming a man was driving a Ford Crown Victoria sedan with a bull riding shotgun. You read that right, an actual bull … in the passenger seat.
“We didn’t have a full understanding of it until we saw it,” Norfolk Police Capt. Chad Reiman told The Associated Press.
What they saw when they tracked down the vehicle was a Watusi bull enjoying a leisurely drive. The massive bull, named Howdy Doody, reportedly weighs in at 2,200 pounds.
It turns out the vehicle is used for parades. Its owner, Lee Meyer, has modified the car by removing half of the windshield and installing a cattle gate on the passenger door to safely contain his long-horned friend.
While that explains the existence of the vehicle itself, police still were puzzled as to the reason for the drive that day – since Meyer wasn’t headed to a parade.
Lee’s wife, Rhonda Meyer, told WVTM news that her husband and the bull are “best friends,” adding that typically, the bull rides in a trailer to parades.
“We want the public to know that Howdy Doody loves getting into that car,” she told WVTM News. “Our bull is not sedated and not drugged; we do not force him into the front seat … Think about it – if Howdy Doody didn’t want to get in the front seat, no one is going to make him do so.”
As far as the traffic stop goes, Meyer was given a warning and asked to take the bull home. While police may have taken a no harm, no foul approach this time, I’m sure he’ll want to “steer” clear of making this “mis-steak” again.
Instant karma
A sad truth of life is that often, bad things happen to good people. They’re those “no good deed goes unpunished” moments. Perhaps that’s why it’s so rewarding to see bad things happen to bad people.
In a recent Reddit post, one trucker shared his tale of immediate retribution after another driver stole his prepaid parking spot.
Following a late-night delivery, the driver said that at about 3 a.m., he “groggily” drove to a truck stop where he had paid $17 for an overnight spot. When he arrived, all of the reserved parking spaces were full.
The trucker contacted the manager to report someone had parked in a spot without paying, and an employee went to the lot to check trucks. When the guilty truck was located, the employee knocked on the door to let the offending driver know he needed to move. That’s when things took an interesting turn.
“The driver answers the door with a bottle of Heineken in one hand and some sort of smoking implement in another,” the driver said in his post. “This driver is flat-out irate that someone had the audacity to tell him where he can and cannot park, so he slams the door on the employee, threatening him.”
That’s when police and a tow company were called to the truck stop. According to the Reddit post, when officers searched the parking thief’s truck, they found a gun along with “some other not-so-legal substances.”
Needless to say, the offending driver was taken away in handcuffs, and his truck was hauled off on a wrecker.
Once he parked in his rightful spot, the trucker on Reddit said he placed a call to the offending driver’s company safety director and “informed them that their rig will be in an impound lot and their driver is going to jail over the not-so-legal stuff he had in his truck.”
The company told him that the other driver would be losing his job as a result.
“I guess he played the ‘screw around and find out’ card, and it bit him in his career,” the driver said in his post.
Maybe I’m a terrible person for thinking this, but that is as satisfying as a cool breeze on a hot day. This parking-spot pirate was caught breaking some serious rules – and it was all over $17.
The blessing
OK, so I might revel in the misery of bad people, but I also love to see when good things happen to good people. I wish this next group of truckers all the best – and they have a pretty powerful ally on their side.
Now in its eighth year, the Blessing of the Semi Trucks is an annual tradition at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in southwest Detroit. According to organizers, dozens of truckers attend the event each year.
After morning Mass, the drivers and their families go outside, stand in front of their trucks and patiently wait as a priest makes his way around the parking lot – holy water sprinkler in hand – blessing each truck and the families connected to it.
The Rev. Adalberto Espinoza said that it’s “truly a family event,” complete with a mariachi band playing while the blessing is being performed. Afterward, all the families gather for a meal and celebration.
“They’re always so happy to come and say thank you to God for the work and also to ask for protection wherever they go,” Espinoza told the Detroit Catholic, a digital news service.
As the drivers leave the parking lot of the church, they all honk their horns – a tradition Espinoza said he loves.
While this tradition is a new one for me, apparently semitruck blessings are a common practice in Mexico.
It’s a tough road out there with plenty of pitfalls along the way. I’m here for anything that might help truckers make it from point A to point B – and everywhere in between – safely. LL