Everybody sleeps better with their favorite “teddy bear.” A couple of years after I became a professional hay hauler, I got some hauls that involved staying overnight in the truck. My truck had a very adequate sleeper berth, so this was doable.
The best nights for sleep were after unloading, being safely parked and with a gentle rain making a nice sleepy-time patter on the roof of the truck.
The worst places usually had to do with a related incident. I had parked at a rest area that was crowded so I ended up parked alongside the roadway exiting the rest area, close behind another truck. My beauty sleep was interrupted by the thump of the other truck rolling back and hitting my truck.
One headlight was smashed. Apparently, the driver started his truck, and as his air pressure built up, the parking brakes on his trailer released. The movement started so gradually that the driver wasn’t aware his truck had rolled backwards. I carried spare headlight bulbs, and he helped me install one.
The next time I had to park behind another truck, I found a rock and placed it behind the rear tires to block the truck from rolling into me. I had been about an hour into a projected four- or six-hour nap, and now my bed was cold and I wasn’t sleepy.
Another was when I parked loaded under a clear moonlit sky and waking up unable to see out the windshield because of 6 inches of snow covering everything, including my tarps that were still rolled up neatly on top of the load of hay.
Truck stops were usually safe but noisy. Parking lots of different sizes and configurations with lots of activity 24/7. One fellow was woke up by a very apologetic driver, asking him to pull forward just a couple of feet. He said he was in a pickle behind him and needed 2 feet so he could pull out. Understanding how someone else’s lame excuse for parking skills could block in another truck, he obliged.
When he got up after daylight, he realized that the 2 feet needed was used to pull the inside duals on his tractor up on short pieces of two-by-four lumber, raising the outside tires off the ground. His four polished aluminum wheels with tires were missing.
I realized that I was eventually going to have to stop and sleep wherever I was and not have the luxury of finding a safe place to park beside a café and restroom. There were just enough stories floating around about sleeping truckers being attacked and robbed that I was concerned for my safety too.
Fifty dollars made me the proud owner of a Rossi coach gun. Twelve-gauge, double-barrel shotgun with 18-inch barrels and exposed hammers. Elli shortened a soft gun case to fit, and it became my “teddy bear.” It fit nicely between the mattress in the sleeper and the back wall of the cab.
I never needed it, but I slept better. No one official ever asked me if I was armed. The two times my truck was broke into, it was not discovered. I would occasionally take it to shoot clay pigeons – and despite the short barrels, I was able to shoot above average for a novice.
One trip showed that I wasn’t paranoid. We were parked for the night near the Jubitz Truck Stop at Portland, Oregon. My brother Neal was with me in the sleeper, stretching out across the doghouse and both front seats. This was usually a quiet spot on the perimeter of the grounds of a cut-rate fuel station that also brokered loads of going home freight.
My beauty sleep was disturbed by someone revving a dirt bike next to the truck. My displeasure at having my sleep disturbed led me to reach for the “teddy bear” and blast a couple of rounds of birdshot into the ground beside the truck. He noticed the movement inside the truck before I could either grab the Rossi or get Neal out of my way to reach the driver’s door. He shut off the bike and tried to apologize for waking us, claiming his bike had an issue. I’m sure his “issue” was making sure no one was sleeping inside the truck before he tried to break in.
The “mouse gun” moniker incident was when Leo and I were loading from the same stackyard late one spring and we found the bottom layer of hay bales to be infested with mice. Leo had grabbed his .22 revolver and was chasing and shooting at the mice. I jumped down, then into the cab and grabbed the “teddy bear” and joined Leo. I made some depressions in the dirt where seconds ago there had been mice running.
We both had new helpers that day. With the thunder sticks out of ammo, we noticed our helpers staring at us pie-eyed with mouths agape. For years after, any mention of the day the mouse gun got its name and the expression on the faces of our helpers disrupted what we were doing because we would both break out in fits of laughter.
