No, it was February when I went over to a neighbor’s place and found the LP gas truck stuck just off a their road. It was on approach to a little steel country bridge that it couldn’t cross because of weight restrictions. It was a single axle truck, weighing about 35,000 pounds empty plus its load of liquid propane on it.
 |
| It wasn’t the first time I had seen a propane truck stuck on the edge of a ditch that imperiled it. |
The single lane road was packed with snow, and its narrow shoulders were sloped to the wetland on either side bordering the road. It appeared the driver had backed up to the bridge as he was supposed to do, but found himself not quite centered on the road. When he tried to correct it, the rear wheels on the drivers side slid sideways a few inches onto the shoulder and soon he was stuck.
The driver was down to his shirtsleeves, shoveling snow. He said nothing. I had no shovel with me, and even so couldn’t help him because I had earlier developed a hernia I couldn’t further aggravate although I didn’t say. I did try to commiserate with him, and said, “You’re in a tough spot, do you want me to call the neighbor and have him come over with his tractor? He has one big enough to pull this.”
“No, I’ve gotten out of worse situations. This isn’t the first time I’ve been stuck this week,” he replied tersely. He kept shoveling.
The thing was, not knowing the road, he was just making it worse.
It wasn’t until long afterward that I recognized my 1983-self in him; a person of about the same age, (mid 30s) who didn’t need help, never asked for it, and wouldn’t accept it, until my own much worse drivers error situation occurred that year just a half mile west of where we stood on the same neighbor’s land.
He never said his name; I didn’t tell him mine. I just picked up on the fact he’d rather have me gone than hanging around his misery and probable embarrassment. I said, “Worse, this road is built on a beaver dam.”
He repeated that between hurried shoveling. “This road is built on a beaver dam ...” as though he was really saying, “What the hell does that have to do with it?”
I could see the more he snow he dug out from under the wheels they were buried in, the more danger the truck was in to tipping over that direction. The wheels on the road were inches off the ground and spinning helplessly; and the front wheels were of no help as the truck didn’t have four wheel drive. So I called the neighbor and told him of the problem. Luckily he was home, and he agreed to come over there in a few minutes.
I told the guy I had called the neighbor, and went back to what I had come over there to do, using my four-wheeler. He was still shoveling, still spinning airborne tires; still looking as though the whole rig was going to tip over off the road. I had to let go. It wasn’t my responsibility.
When I saw that the neighbor had arrived, I pulled my 30’ high-tensile strength chain from the front compartment on my ATV and walked down to where the truck was, but the neighbor wanted nothing to do with trying to pull the truck out, and instead tried to talk to the driver about his dilemma; and encourage him to call the company for help.
The driver was just as stubborn with him as he was with me; so the neighbor called the company, afraid the driver could do something rash and make things worse.for himself and the truck.
The thing is, there’s nothing new in the rural farm delivery business when it comes to winter driving. This company understands that things go wrong for drivers all the time; so no one would think ill of this employee. There are a million and one stories just like his -- and just as humiliating. Human error is just a part of the equation!
Unless, of course you go out of your way to achieve it. After a while, your Get-in-Free card, as far as company understanding goes, arrives at the idea you're not just unlucky, but incompetent, and fires you; then hires someone else who isn't.
No April Fool: The next day, the same driver came to our house with propane, a changed man. I introduced myself right off; then he told me his name, and he went on to apologize for his behavior the day before. We had quite the conversation after that.
He enjoyed learning that his wasn’t the first propane truck I saw stuck on the edge of a ditch that imperiled it. It was back when a senior co-worker of his drove into the west ditch 'here,' I motioned pointing to the spot. Nothing short of a tow truck with outriggers got that one out. And had he went into the deep east ditch, instead of the west ditch where he was, it would’ve been a catastrophic two tow truck situation. Accidents happen to the best of drivers too.
Comments