[ponyakr]

here in the south, back before "pore folks" had air conditioning, all the houses had back porches, so that we could sit out of the sun but still have a little air circulating. now there were all sorts of activities that took place on these porches. there were things like quilting, churning buttermilk, shelling peas & processing all sorts of produce, eatin watermelon & on real hot days even eating full meals out there & watching the young'uns play. they'd sip ice tea & catch up on the latest gossip. there was no t.v. to entertain folks back then. now i want to focus in on 1 particular activity carried on by many grandmas(both black & white) on the back porch. it was snuff dippin. now i don't know any ladies who still practice this vise in public today, but it was quite common in the south even on up into the '60's. the favorite brand was garrett. they'd load up & as they began to talk, the brown liquid would begin to ooze down the corners of their mouth. in my mind i seem to picture most of these ladies without a tooth in their head. then they'd stop talkin, pick up their spitoon, which was always close by, make a deposit, then wipe their mouth with their apron & go rite on talkin. fast forward now to the 21st century. we don't carry on all these same activities on our back porch as in the days of old. we still talk, but everything else has changed. !st, we're all screened in to protect us from the giant blood suckin skeeters. a family of these La monsters could carry away a young child. when we look out, we see T.J.'s barn & horse(which i call spot for obvious reasons). as we look further south we see our huge yard which, during my hi school days was a cornfield. hey, if we still had corn, we'd be just like cornfield county on "hee haw" & i'd be junior samples. "SA-LUTE!" the yard is completely surrounded by woods & our driveway reminds me of the yellow brick road in the "wizard of oz", where it went thru the deep dark woods. i didn't know this, but T.J. had picked this spot for her dream house long before we got married or even started racing. sometimes we can sit & watch deer grazing just out from the edge of the woods. 1 day we counted 7 yearlings jumpin & frolickin & havin a big time. & at times, just like at our old trailer, we had several goats in the yard. they were a little different tho. these were a neighbors goats that got out & came over to visit spot.(see pics) at nite we can just sit & watch as the stars & planets pass slowly by. i know now why the old folks use to set on the porch & rock & enjoy life.

[ponyakr]

scenes from the back porch

[ponyakr]

i,ve already mentioned how i think driving an 18-wheeler shares some similarities with racing. i remember how much fun i had driving a truck & sorta pretending i was racing. i' d get a load, then take off as soon as i got in & sat down. i'd even buckle my seat belt between shifts. sometimes i'd pass 1 of the other guys while he was makin a pit stop for coffee or a snack. i had plenty of fat stored up for energy, so i figured i could eat after work. then i'd go as fast as i dared, using the cb to track the smokies. then as soon as i dumped the load it was the same procedure again. it was sorta like a pit stop in nascar. do what's absolutely necessary, then tare out of the pits, being careful not to get a speeding penalty, then rush back out onto the track. not only was this a lot of fun for me, it also paid $ dividends. on the shorter hauls i almost always hauled at least 1 more load than the other guys. it was sorta like winning the race instead of comin in 2nd or 3rd. now some of the other guys seemed to resent this sort of competition i made out of it. i remember hearin these guys bellyache, & complain about the most trivial junk. it made me wonder why they were driving a truck for a living. i just kept my mouth shut & kept on racing(er driving) & havin a blast. & they were paying me to do it, more than i ever made haulin milk. talk about havin your cake & eatin it 2. it must be similar to gettin paid millions to drive a race car (with less pay of course). i remember 1 particular day, i was doin my thang. i had got to the sand pit early so i'd be 1st in line when the loader operator got there. we were haulin sand to a concrete plant about 40 miles away. we could haul all the loads we were able to before they quit takin'em at about 3:30. so i "raced" back & forth & was haulin my 4th load & it wasn't even noon yet. i remember thinkin "i can take 5 loads to ruston, then take another load home to our local concrete plant so i want have to deadhead back home from ruston". & i knew that would be 1 more load than any of the other guys. so i'm headed south on the 4-lane & i come up behind a truck that had loaded just ahead of me. he must have been workin by the hour instead of the load, 'cause he was only doin 55 & the speed limit was 65. my truck was a freightliner with a cummins motor & a 9speed trans. it did not have a governor on it. it would do 85+ downhill & 70+ uphill loaded. so i remember thinkin "i'll just pull in front of him, then set the cruise on 65 to avoid a ticket. so i pulled out to pass. little did i know that my life would soon be changed forever. see part 90.

[ponyakr]

i started around the truck in front of me & thats the last thing i remember til about 30 min later when i woke up in the er of a nearby hospital. they began asking me what had happened. but i didn't know any more about it than they did. i told them what i just told you. at 1st they thought i was drunk or on drugs & had just lost control of the truck. so they wrapped the rubber strap around my arm & drew some blood to check for that. i finally convinced them that i hadn't had any brew or drugs since 1976. so they started testing everything they could test. now folks, this is the 1st time i've been in a hospital for anything more than a few stitches, or to remove a metal splinter i got in my eye from grinding on pontiac heads without eye protection. they did every kind of x-ray, mri, brain scan & other stuff i can't remember. well, they finally found the problem on the brain scan. a brain surgeon came in to explain it to me. i had a very small brain hemorage about 1/2 inch in dia. or smaller. it had caused what he called an electrical short, that caused me to black out. he called it a seizure. he said it was to deep to operate on, but said he'd seen lots of these & they usually dry up after awhile & you generally have no more problems with them. so, here's what had happened. when i blacked out the truck had gradually left the road, crossed the ditch, climbed up onto a railroad track & continued down the track for over 200 yards, if i remember correctly. they had to stop train traffic for a day or 2 while they repaired the track. i even made the monroe newspaper & the evening news on a local t.v. station. i was a little bruised & banged up so i had to stay in area hospitals for about 2 weeks.( $50,000+ worth) during this period of time, i had lots of free time with nothing to do but think.

[ponyakr]

on the back of a cdl license it says that if you have a seizure while operating a commercial vehicle, that you may not operate a commercial vehicle for a period of 10 years thereafter. so now i had lots of stuff to think about. i'd driven trucks since i was 6 years old. i'd planned to do it till i retired. i loved it. now what? well, i'd just have to figure that out after i got out of the hospital. so i began thinkin back on the wreck. an eye witness said he was following me when i ran off the road & knew i was out when he never saw the brake lights come on. he may have called it in. but there are so many cell phones now, it was probably called in by several. then i thought, "it could've been a lot worse. instead of veering rite, it could have went left & killed me & others". that brought to my mind that T.J. & my mom always prayed for my saftey. & the scriptures say that the angels of God are sent forth & they encamp "round about us & bare us up in their hands, lest we should dash our foot against a stone. had to stop there & just thank God for being alive. then the thought came to me, "what if i had died?" at 1st that old creepy feeling of fear came on me. it sorta made my skin crawl & even shiver. then this warm peaceful feeling began to slowly flow over me & flood my mind. then, not an audible voice, but just a thought entered my mind. "yah, what if you had died?" so i began to think about the answer to that question. well, i'd heard the bible account of heaven all my life. i knew it had to be a better place than this. i remembered the account of the apostle paul, when he was caught up into heaven in the spirirt. he saw things so awesome, he could'nt even describe them, said they were unspeakable. after this, when he was being punished for preaching the Gospel, he told the people he would be much better off in heaven, but he decided to stay with them, to teach them more about God. there have even been some in modern times who have been allowed to visit heaven in the spirit & allowed to tell it. from all accounts its a much nicer place than earth. so in that hospital room that day, it was settled for me forevermore. since that day i have had absolutely no fear of death. "o death, where is thy sting? o grave, where is thy victory?" nobody wants to suffer pain & sickness, but for the child of God there should be no fear of death. if your not Gods child, you have plenty to fear! so i encourage you today, if your not, receive Jesus as your savior & rid yourself of the fear of death forevermore. PTL! 2 cor. 12:2-4, 2 cor. 5:6-8, phil. 1:21-25, phil. 4:6,7, john 3:16, roamans 10:9,10

[ponyakr]

sometimes mistakes can be great teachers(if you live over 'em). lookin back over my racin mistakes, i can see several things i did wrong that resulted in fewer wins. i'll share this with you & it may help you avoid my failures. i'll lnclude the changes i'd make if i could go back & do it over. i'll include these ideas from 2 different approaches. (1) using the exsisting technology of that day & (2) using the technology of today. the #1 biggest mistake i made was switching to the 455 motor. had i stayed with the 400, we would've won many more races & thousands more in $. many a nite we loaded up early because of lost traction or broken parts. now, if i could go back, using the technology of that day, i could've avoided those 455 problems. 1st i'dve spent the extra $ to have a ladder bar system installed. it would've paid for itself many times over. next, of course, if i used a th400, i'd put a hd sprag in it. or i'd use a th350 with manual shift, forward pattern valve body, blocking out 1st gear at the shifter, & using only 2nd & 3rd. this would require more rear gear to compensate for the lower 2nd gear ratio of 1.50. next i would start with the biggest tires i could possibly fit on it. all these changes would have resulted in a quicker, but manageble, under control package, producing more wins & fewer broken parts. now, using todays technology, there may be other traction device options, cheaper & easier to install than ladder bars, which will work just as well. i'm not familiar with these, so i want discuss them further. now, there are other tranny options available today. the most popular, of course, is th pg. a look at a product list from most major racing tranny co will reveal pg models which are reliable to over 2000hp. that should cover the needs of most street/strip or footbrake class bracket racers. i still like the idea of the th350, using 2nd & 3rd only. & here's another wrinkle. buy a bulletproof th350 & use all 3 gears for the street, then for the occasional trip to the track, run 2nd & 3rd only. on a sticky track you may not even need slicks. but to cut a decent lite, you may need to take along a set of the shortest front tires you can find(22-23"). the early goats used a 2-speed tranny some called a super turbine 300. they worked great with the 389 motor. my pontiac tranny man thinks he can build 1 that will hold up to a 455. 2 other advantages--they have the bop bolt pattern & use the same converter as the th350 & th400. i'll say again, the advantages of a 2-speed are, less chance of traction problems & greater chance of consistent et. if given another chance i'd use a 2-speed of some sort in 2 of our cars. but not mine. if your like me & love to shift, then don't give it another thought. a th400 with a hd sprag is the safest way to fly. some say the th350 with modern technology is plenty strong. i've never used 1 of these new age creations, so i can't recommend them for hd bracket racing. if you'd rather use a th350, talk to someone who is using 1 sucsessfully in a setup similiar to yours & find out exactly what parts they are using to keep it together, or at least the builder of 1 that works. Good Luck!

[ponyakr]

1 nite in 1970, me & a couple of buddies had just come out of a tavern in monroe, where we'd had a few "cold ones". we jumped in the goat & drove across the river & down the main 4-lane drag. after stopping for a red lite, i popped the clutch & barked the tires a little, just for kicks, then shifted on up & eased on down the street. there was almost no traffic that late at night, but it just so happens that there was a city cop who had his cruiser hid behind a gas station & had seen the whole thing. when i noticed his lites flashing in my mirror, i immediatly down shifted, burning rubber, & said "hang on boys". why do guys do that? well i soon left the cruiser far in the distance, turned rite & headed south towards I-20. then about that time another cruiser came out from a side road & joined in the pursuit. so downshift again, here we go, to well over 100mph. now i was only a mile from I-20. the cops told me later that they didn't have any more cruisers that far south that nite & since they were city police, if i'd just got on the interstate the chase would've ended. but i didn't know that at the time. so i made a quick rite into a residentual section that i was not familiar with. by now there were 5 cruisers & 2 motorcycles in hot pursuit, with lites flashing. i took another quick rite & saw in my mirror that the cruiser who had been closest behind me had flew rite on buy the turn, so i thought maybe we'd lost 'em for good. how dumb can you get? being unfamiliar with the neighborhood, i'd driven down a street that went less than 1/4 mile, then made a u-turn back out to the road i'd just turned off of. so there ahead of me came about 3 cruisers & a cycle. i knew the chase was over, so i stopped, got out, then got my wallet out of my pocket. i assumed they would ask for my drivers license rite away. WRONG! they spread out & approached me slowly, with hands on firearms & 1 of them slapped the wallet from my hand, sending cash & cards flying in every direction. then they slammed me up against the car, frisked me down, cuffed me & stuffed me in the back of a cruiser. then i could hear 'em laughin & talkin. it had been a slow nite for them & they had enjoyed the hot pursuit thang. but i'm thinkin, "hey wait a minute, i'm not a criminal, why are ya'll doing this to me?" now when we got to the jail, if we'da had $125 between the 3 of us, we could've just jumped back in the goat & drove off into the moonlite. but we couldn't even come up with $100. so they locked me up in what i assumed was the drunk tank, while the boys went around town waking up people they knew to help raise the bail money. so here i am in the drunk tank. its late, so all these guys are asleep, most snoring loudly. i sat on my bunk & was real still & quiet, hoping the boys would be able to raise the $ & get me out before these guys woke up & tried to kill me. well, they finally got me out & we drove off down the street in the ole goat. we've had a lot of laffs about it since, but at the time it wasn't very funny. not proud of it, but thats part of where i came from.