Ol' Neal
by R.W. Holiday (rwholiday@earthlink.net)
Like me, some people don’t know Neal Pollack but for when he was a trucker. So I couldn’t believe it the other day when I was on the Innernet looking for a load to haul and somehow comed across this Neal Pollack dot-com, and I clicked on it to see but what by chance it might be the same ol’ Neal Pollack I used to drive with and there he was, sure as shit. Couldn’t believe it was him at first. But then, he always said he was gonna be some kind of Hemingway or Franzen or something. Now here he’s got his own web page and all. And that picture of him, the one of him buck naked with the cat. Crazy sumbitch!
I yell to Balinda, “Balinda!” Balinda’s my ol’ lady. I says, “Balinda, come here!” Cause it’s no secret it was Balinda herself said she’d walk a mile on her hands and knees through hot oil to see ol’ Neal naked. So I tell her, I says, “Balinda, come here and look at ol’ Neal naked on the Innernet! He’s got him a web page and a cat and he’s naked on it!” Well, you don’t have to tell Balinda twice to see ol’ Neal naked, so she comes tearing in there whooping it up and clawing at the screen and all. I’ll tell you what(I liked to never get her calmed down.
Just like him too, though, that Neal. Him and me was always doing crazy stuff like that.
Back in the early ‘60s it was we got our CDLs and started driving together. March or April—late winter, early spring, something like that. Anyway, he just shows up one day out of clear blue nowhere and says we got a call from dispatch. They had a special shipment said they wouldn’t trust with just nobody and I said what is it. Neal said he couldn’t tell me details unless I agreed to haul it. I said what is it, and he said nucular waste. Why, hell, back then I didn’t know nucular waste from nucular family so I says nucular what? But Neal, he calls dispatch right then and says, “We’ll take it.” He gets off the phone and I says, What the hell is it? I didn’t know what the hell it was. No one did back then, ‘cept Neal. (Seems he was part of the media corps that covered the first A-bomb tests in the Pacific isles, so he knew all about this nucular stuff.) Turns out this shipment is a bunch of barrels filled with spent fuel rods—first ever from nucular reactors. Neal tried to explain it all to me, but hell. . . . I guess I’m still not supposed to talk about it—top secret stuff and all.
So anyways Neal says they got to put these rods somewhere and they want us to haul them from Chicago to Nevada. But there was a problem, see. They wanted us to get it there in two days—over fifteen hunnert miles, in two days! And there was another thing. These barrels were so hot that they couldn’t get wet. If they got wet they’d start steaming up like a giant smoke bomb going down the highway and all these busybodies in the media and whatnot’d get curious, see. There was some issue with it exploding, too, but I don’t remember all the mechanics of it. Neal knows all that, he can tell you. All I know is it couldn’t get wet. But I was thinking, there ain’t no way you can get a shipment through the mountains without it getting wet somehow, not back then anyway cause they didn’t make tarps that big back then, not like they do now. And we wasn’t going to make it that time of year neither, cause it’s always a doing something in the mountains—raining or snowing if it’s doing anything at all, see.
And so I look at ol’ Neal and I says, “We cain’t make it, Neal. Ain’t no way in hell, not without it getting wet.” And ol’ Neal he’s got that shit-eatin’ grin he gets, you know, and I know what he’s thinking, see. So I says, “Oh, no, Neal,” I says. “Ain’t no fucking way.”
Well, you don’t tell Neal no—not back then anyways, not in his big-rig days. Ol’ Neal he starts laughing, right? He punches me in the arm like he does and he says, “Aw, come on, RW, what are you afraid of? We got two whole days to get there! All we gotta do is figure out what we’re gonna do with all our spare time in Vegas!”
Well, there was a bonus in it for us if we got the shipment there in two days, and another on top of that if we got it there with no one finding out and no water damage or explosions or nothing. But see, ol’ Neal, he weren’t in it for no bonus no how. He said it was our patriotic duty to do this because it was essential for the good of the country to help with this experimental phase of nucular power development, said it was a part of homeland security, and said it was a significant factor in meeting our energy needs for the future of America.
Never was in it for the money, Neal weren’t. He was always just a busting balls to see if he could get something done that no one else ever done before. And you know what—most times he did it too, he got it done. That’s why all the young bucks, the apprentice drivers, wanted Neal to teach them how to drive. Naturally ol’ Neal he wouldn’t turn no one away asking for help. But it didn’t take Neal long to teach nobody neither for his driving philosophy was so pure and simple that even the dunderest-headed jackass could a picked it up.
Weren’t but a couple a rules ol’ Neal drove by—not of his “going-forward” rules, leastways. Not back then anyways. Might need more these days, what with all the SUVs and nutcakes out there, but weren’t but two back then. Granite, back then he had considerable more backing skills, like “Steer toward the problem,” meaning if your trailer’s going katty-wampus on you, turn the wheel in the same direction your trailer’s headed—sort of a head-it-off-at-the-pass philosophy. Another backing rule of Neal’s I remember was “Don’t hit nothing.” But they weren’t but two going-forward skills you needed. They was one, aim high in steering, and B, look as fur into the curve as you can see.
So anyways, getting back to the story, back then Chicago to Nevada with a full trailerload was four days through all them mountains—in good weather—roads being what they was back then and all. I tried to explain this to ol’ Neal but he was getting revved up—you know how he gets. When Neal’s revved up ain’t no use stalling cause he’s going to keep on you till you give in. And he weren’t gonna let up on me till I give in—at’s just the way he is. So finally I give in and we take that load and Neal he takes first shift, see. For as long as I can remember, Neal has always took first shift. Just the way he liked it, I suppose. Most drivers don’t care one way or the other, but ol’ Neal was always different that away. So Neal takes first shift and we start off and I climb in the sleeper bunk. Course, rigs back then didn’t have sleepers like some of them got now. Shit, some of the ones they got now’s better than some ol’ motel bed. And amenities? Hell. Everthing you got at home you can get in a semi: microwave, refrigerator, satellite TV—everthing. Mine now’s even got a funnel and hose behind the passenger seat leads down through the floor and back out behind the differential for taking a leak or rinsing your mouth out or whatever. But, so anyways, I climb in the sleeper and ol’ Neal’s like, “What’s a matter, RW? Not feeling so well?"
And I says “No, I’m all right—just gonna get some sleep is all.”
And he says, “What, tired already? We just started!”
And I says, “Aw, shit, Hammer—” That’s what we called him back then, Hammer, short for Hammerfoot, cause he was always driving balls out like some goddam jackhammer. Course, today that would be his CB handle, Hammer would, but back then no one had a handle because they weren’t no CB radios back then. Hell, back then we didn’t even have the AM radio, not in our truck anyway. So I guess you could say ol’ Neal had the first ever trucker handle. Just like him, too, always being the first to do this or that. He was always breaking the old rules and making new ones that suited him better. Why, ol’ Neal was a variable trucking pioneer, he was. Yessir, ol’ Neal was even the first to patent the driver wave. As you know, when a driver passes another driver they give a little wave of acknowledgment. Used to be everbody’s wave was the same—a little 10-4 good-buddy, you’re-OK-I’m-OK, see-ya-on-down-the-road kind of wave. But back around ‘64–‘65 ol’ Neal started experimenting with different kinds, see. There for awhile he was into the peace sign. Then he got into the five-finger stationary wave (five fingers extended-like but separated and holding the entire hand still). Then sometime or other he was into a military-style salute. Just trying out what he liked and whatnot I guess, seeing who he was and all, don’t know what, really. Nothing wrong with it I don’t reckon. Whatever the case, weren’t till awhile later he got into the point-and-shoot, the wave that really became his trademark, the one that defined ol’ Neal as a driver among mere drivers. Course, everbody’s doing that one these days, the point-and-shoot. Standard practice today. Today, if a fella don’t use the point-and-shoot then he’s either Mexican or Canadian. Or he pulls for J.B. Hunt. (Them guys, geez. . . . Know why J.B. Hunt don’t pull no double trailers? They wouldn’t fit under the overpasses. . . . Hee-hee! Always liked that one.)
So anyways, as I was saying, I was in the sleeper bunk and I says to Neal, “Shit, Hammer, if we’re gonna hot-foot it all the way to Nevada nonstop, I gotta catch some shuteye so I ain’t dozing off during my shift.” Figured we’d take twelve-hour shifts, each of us, see.
So ol’ Neal looks back at me and he says, “Oh, you mean you’re gonna help with the driving?”
Aw, shit, I says, cause I knew that crazy sumbitch was gonna try to drive it all hisself. Why, it weren’t nothing for him to go 40-45 hours in a stretch. I seen him do it a hunnert times. Hot damn if I didn’t see him drive 60 straight hours consecutive one time delivering medical supplies to school children in dire need. Once he drove a load of canned soup from Philadelphia P-A clear to Ogden—well over 2,150 miles if it’s a hundred(without a stop. Course back then we didn’t have the DOT hours-of-service rules and regulations—not like they got them now leastways—least we didn’t follow them—not like they do now. And I tell you what, ol’ Neal, you might as well’ve told him the sky was green-and-yeller stripes as tell him he couldn’t drive all day and all night and him get up and do it all over again next day. Just the way he was.
And you know what? When we had them barrels of nucular waste, I slept clear through the Rockies, and when I woke up next morning I’ll be got-damn if we weren’t acrossing that Nevada line—Hammer still on his first shift. At’s right, he’d not stopped driving once neither, ‘cept for fuel—not even to see his best truckstop gal, Trixie (hot little number, she is—sweet ‘n’ spicy, kinda like whip cream and mustard, I reckon . . . man, the stories I could tell . . .). And here was ol’ Neal looking fresh as pie, like he’d already got his morning shit, shower and shave. Never seen nothing like it, that’s for sure. At’s cause there weren’t nothing like it, till ol’ Neal put her down.
So anyways I climb into the shotgun seat and I says, “How’s the load, Hammer?”
And he gives me that quiet look that says, oh, shit. But he’s hiding something you can tell, and he finally says, “Well I’ll tell you what, RW.” He’s talking all slow, trying to act all concerned and shit, but not doing too well at it cause Hammer was always better at telling the truth than putting it on. So he goes, “Had a little snow coming over Rabbit Ears Pass back in Colorado . . .” and he glances over at you right quick to see if you’re buying it, see, and he says, “That snow turned to rain by the time I fueled up in Elk Springs . . .” and he shifts around in his seat cause he almost can’t not start laughing hisself, see. But he goes on, he says, “But I was getting a little tired myself but I says to myself I says, ‘If I pull over now, all that rain and snow’s gonna make those barrels steam up good anyway, and we don’t need my friends at the newspaper and whatnot a coming around trying to figure out what’s up.’ And so, RW, I says to myself, I says, ‘Beings how this here’s a matter of national interest I don’t see how we can let that happen.’” (Don’t never let no one never tell you no Neal Pollack weren’t never no American. Just ain’t true.)
So I says to ol’ Neal, I says, “What did you do?”
Well, he’s still got that look on him like the whole truck’s going to blow up or something and he says, “RW,” he says, “if we stop driving, the ambient temperature surrounding the load will reside where it is. But if we keep driving, the wind and rain’s gonna help cool those barrels and maybe that ambient temperature will actually convert to transient temperature. Well looking at it that way, RW, I couldn’t rightly pull over now, could I? So I kept a driving. When I checked the load in Provo it was cool as a fucking cucumber. By this time this evening, son, we’s gonna have us a paycheck and a double bonus to boot!"
Well, damn, I couldn’t do nothing but shake my head. What could I do? Leave it to ol’ Neal to take something as complicated as nucular physics and come up with a simple solution like that. Brilliant. Genius, that’s ol’ Neal. (Later it’s said Neal advised the National Atomic Energy Commision or some such group to cool reactors with engine coolant, which I hear made great advancements toward nucular power being safe as it is today. It’s just ashamed those Nobel people haven’t recognized Neal’s achievements in this area of physics.
Well, we was high-fivin’ and singing Johnny Cash tunes and carrying on like that for hours. Finally in Ely he said if we was to have a big celebration that night, he should get some rest, so I took over and got us into the Nevada Test Site and unloaded the barrels all right. (They was hot, too, boy! He weren’t shittin’ about that ambient temperature!) Then we went to Vegas!
That was the beginning of my HazMat trucking career. More important, it marked the beginning of my freedom from the slave-driving routine of your everday common freight driver. And I owe it all to that king-driving boss-hauler Neal Pollack, for there weren’t no load Hammer wouldn’t haul, no road he wouldn’t take. A honor and privilege to work with such a great man. A gentleman, too, Neal Pollack. A real gentle man. A true American trucking hero. God Bless Neal Pollack and whatever rig he’s pulling now these days.
P.S. Balinda says she’d still crawl a mile on her hands and knees through burning rubber just to get a whiff of the depot where ol’ Neal dumped his last load. Hee-hee!
