About that truck driver

What was the most popular column I've ever done? Tough question; BUT, out of thousands written in 46 years, one probably generated the most interest. After many years, there are still comments and people who want a copy. Don't remember when it was originally published but involved a trucker who somehow drove his rig illegally over Logan Pass:

BALLAD OF AN EIGHTEEN WHEELER

One night the gang was whooping it up,

In the West Glacier Park Saloon.

And the kid who fed the jukebox

Was playing a Beatles tune.

Out of the dusk which was clammy and cold,

And into the gloom and the glare,

Stumbled a trucker, a wild eyed sucker,

With parts of his scalp pulled bare.

He had stopped his rig in a fifty-foot skid,

By dynamiting eighteen wheels.

Those gathered round had heard the sound,

That echoes when black rubber peels.

Then the man from the rig demanded a swig,

Double whiskey to calm his nerves.

And they could tell, he'd been through hell,

And "round some terrible curves."

With trembling hands he clutched the glass,

And poured the liquor down.

Pushed the empty back with a mighty smack,

And called for another round.

The bartender there was lean as a bear

And wanted to see long green.

So the teamster planked for what he drank,

And growled, "Let's not get mean."

The room grew hushed, a toilet flushed.

The man's eyes had an eerie light.

He turned to the crowd and said out loud,

"Oh Gawd! What a terrible night."

Have a drink on me for you can surely see,

There's something I've got to tell,

About screaming tires and great rock spires,

And a road that runs through Hell."

Now I'm a man from a big flat land,

They call the Canadian Plains,

But I've seen steep hills that cause their thrills

With ice and winter rains.

On a grade of fright, lost the brakes one night,

Where the Fraser River flows.

Hit the exit lane like a runaway train.

Smashed a hand and most of my nose.

But I was born to drive and try staying alive,

Steering those forty-ton rigs.

So I came cross your border on a hurry up order,

Smoking a pack of stale cigs.

Some said the best was Highway Two west,

But I changed the plan at St. Mary.

Saw a road toward the pass that looked first class.

No hint of anything scary.

Was twelve gears down when the pass I found,

And crossed that great divide.

The first steep turn made the tires burn,

And I cursed that western side.

A huge rock wall, a thousand feet tall

Was rushing by on the right.

While off to the left was a frightening cleft,

With nothing but space in my sight.

That ride is a chilling nightmare now.

It will haunt the rest of my days.

Death seemed to seize me, vanish then tease me.

A mad dog that circles and bays.

Going-to-the-Sun became a deadly pun,

As the semi scraped rocks and rail.

A seventy-foot rig is much too big,

To steer down a black-topped trail.

The crowd grew hushed but no toilet flushed,

As the stranger finished his tale.

Somewhere a sigh and burp let fly,

While the trucker swigged a chaser of ale.

Glacier Park Rangers, say they've met some weird strangers,

But the weirdest of them all,

Was that "diesel truck guy" who made sane men cry —

By schussing the Garden Wall.

G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and a national-award winning Hungry Horse News columnist.