Posted by David Sherman on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 at 0:43AM :
One of the old-timers saw me putting chains on my M37 today and started telling me about his "Dodge 6-by" with a "chrysler engine" that he used to use pulling trucks up the Montana side of Lookout Pass during the winter before the freeway was built. Whenever the snow got bad, he and his partner would get a few hundred pounds of black smelter slag, take a couple jerry-cans of extra gas and go up to the pass to make easy money pulling the stuck trucks up to the pass.
He got the truck in Salmon, Idaho. A Texan had left it at the hot springs to use once a year for hunting. It was like new, including all the tires and a spare that had never been on the ground. Jerry saw it was just sitting there looking like it wasn't being used so one year he asked the guy that owned the hot springs what was up with it. He said the Texan had died a couple years back and nobody had come to get it. Jerry asked if he'd sell it. He said he hadn't thought of that, but sure, he'd sell it for $200. Jerry bought it and drove it up here and got into the towing business with it. That was in 1951. At that point, I'm thinking it might be a WC-61 or 62 and it's probably still sitting out behind Jerry's place somewhere.
So, he tells me more stories about towing and logging and other old-time stuff, and how good the truck ran and how it would pull anything. I know Jerry and he takes good care of his machines. I'm ready to go see this old "6-by" that's in such good shape. So finally I say, "what did you end up doing with it." "Oh, hell, I sold it back in 1967 to a guy in Kingston for $1500..."
I vaguely remember seeing a busted-up wreck of some Dodge 6x6 up Pine Creek. Time passes, but to an old-timer it's just like yesterday.
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