Dell, I wanted to tell you a funny thing that happened to me and my family several years back. I was hauling my JD 302 Backhoe back to Amarillo with my Ford "diesel powered" Dully and 25' goosneck trailer. The wind was blowing about 40 miles an hour against us and the temperature was about 100 degrees in the shade. This Big Hot-Rod Semi Truck passed us going about 80. I decided to show this "dude" truck driver what a powerful rig I had, so against my wife's better judgement, I set out to pass him. It didn't take long to catch up with him, however, before I was able to pass, I smoked the transmission. So, there I set, stranded along the side of the road, with one "overheated" wife and two embarrassed teenagers. The only thing left to do was to unload the backhoe and pull the pickup on in to the next small town....which was thirty miles away. During the 8 MPH trip, my son waved me to stop. He got of the pickup and said, "Dad, do you know what they are saying about us on the CB?" I replyed, "Son I don't even want to know!What would you think of just turning the CB off and listening to the radio?" He shook his head, and went back to the pickup mumbling something about being embarrassed. So, to make a long story short, this happened on a Saturday afternoon. We ended up haveing to stay in the local motel for four days with our only "family" transportation being the backhoe. We must have been the talk of the town....there Springfield, Colorado...with all four of us riding on the backhoe to dine at the local cafe. I found out the hard way, but Main Street is NOT the place to honk the horn and be friendly while driving your backhoe. Your family will turn on you in an instant! I always intended to write a funny article to the paper and let the nice folks in Springfield, Colorado know that we were not in any way related to the Clampets! Next week, my son will be graduating from Texas Tech with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Who knows, I may show up at his graduation driving a big ole backhoe! He would get a big kick out of that!
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