Truck Driving

I’ve hauled bark for Timberland to make charcoal briquettes
Getting paid 8 cents a mile, I took all I could get.
Brockway diesels , Screaming Jimmies, Mack B63’s
Concrete batch truck, Andrews Air Base, Washington DC

I drove to put myself through school, to try and change my luck
Off the farm and just discharged, I drove those damned old trucks.
I’ve hauled clinker, ice and milk and charcoal by the ton
Double clutching, jamming gears making midnight runs.

Quarts of Pepsi with no food kept me tightly wired
Sleep deprived hallucinations, always over tired
Triplex, Duplex, 5-speed straights, vacuum shift rear ends
5 speed mains -auxiliary 3’s, combos with out end

I always got them figured out sometimes while on the road
And I always drove those damned old trucks, as fast as they would go
I’ve left smoking strips of rubber and watched those big duals burn
When I locked them up to miss a car as they made a no-left turn

I’ve endured the deadly boredom then the special thrill
When I blew the air brake diaphragms at the top of a steep hill
I’ve passed semis 3 abreast on narrow 2 lane roads
Trying to keep momentum up with twenty five ton loads

I’ve seen my trailer in my mirrors skid and come around
And damn near jack knife tires sliding on the icy ground
I’ve rolled backwards down a hill in a state of abject terror
When I missed a shift and stalled it out and my trailer brakes lost air

I got it started, revved it up and jammed it into low
The tractor reared high in the air when I popped the clutch to go

So now when I'm out on the road and I see a big truck roll
I want to be there in that seat but I guess now I’m too old
I know I’ll probably never get to go back to those times
But sometimes just before I sleep I hear a diesel whine

And I feel the deep vibrations of a big rig in my bones
And I drive a midnight highway, fast and young and wild, alone.
And I feel the deep vibrations of a big rig in my bones 
And I drive a midnight highway, fast and young and wild, alone.

Hayden Clark Hubbard At 5 Months & His Dad

Hayden & Craig

Clifton J. Hubbard & Family circa 1947

Dad, Marilyn Ann, Clifton LaVerne, Gerald Elmer, Mom
With Douglas Maynard

The Hubbard Hill Fire Tower

The Hubbard Hill Fire Tower

We'd sometimes climb that tower every day
And look at mountains 80 miles away

Then our dog Prince fell off a landing and all the kids were soon demanding that Dad not put that loved old dog away.

So we took that loved dog to the vet and dad and mom would always let us keep him in the house while his hip healed

And his stiff leg would catch and so he'd have to swing it out to go chasing cows and varmints in the fields

When Prince got old he got real sick and blind
Then one day Doug in order to be kind

Took the double 20 gauge and put that old dog in his grave and left him where some wild flowers twined.

.....The following is excerpted from “Fire Towers Of The Catskills, Their History And Lore”, Martin Podskoeh, Purple Mountain Press, 2000.

In 1947, the state took down the 80-foot tower that stood on Gilbert Lake State Park and rebuilt it on Hubbard Hill. The mountain is named after the Hubbard family who have owned land and farmed there since the 1800’s.

However, the state misnamed it Leonard Hill Fire Tower, after a lower hill owned by Dr. Duncan Leonard next to Hubbard Hill.

“It wasn't supposed to be Leonard Hill,” says Frances Hubbard. “Somebody got the maps mixed up. It always bothered me.”

Fred VanAken was the first observer at the tower. He started working April 8, 1949. He and the other rangers parked at the Hubbard farm and followed a rugged trail along the telephone lines to the tower.

“About 15 years after the tower was built, the state purchased 75 acres from my parents,” said Doug Hubbard, son of Clifton and Frances Hubbard. “The state built another road to the tower on the north side of the mountain, and we hardly saw the observers after that.”

One day during the 80’s, observer Judy Merwin gazed out the tower window at the beautiful valleys and woods of Schoharie. A young couple standing next to her had hiked to the tower and were learning about the area. Judy pointed out the Majestic Catskill Mountains to the south and the fertile Schoharie Valley to the north.

In the distant they could see a single-engine plane approaching the tower. As the plane got closer, they saw that it was pulling something. The young man said to his girlfriend, “Look! It has a sign.”

The words were now visible: “WILL YOU MARRY ME?” The young woman’s eyes filled with tears. She embraced the young man with a heartfelt, “Yes.”

Me & Marna

Marna & Dennis Ford, Sister Marilyn & Me.

My Own Ballad Of Forty Dollars: Me & Marna

From the language school in Monterey in 1958
I hitched to San Diego to take a needed break
My older sister Marilyn had lived there for a while
With husband Jim and Marna, a seven month old child

They picked me up in a 54 bright green Ford two door coupe,
The back seat full of groceries, to feed the weekend group
With Marilyn in the middle and Marna on her lap,
Jim drove, me in the death seat, in my beat-up Army cap

We were driving to Ramona on a fast 4 lane highway,
I recall the sun was brilliant on that cloudless summer day
At 65 we smoothly cruised through mountain vistas wide
Till some guy ran a stop sign and hit us in the side.

The death seat door snapped open, in a blink of shocked alarm,
I hit the road at 60 per with Marna in my arms
I recall my sister flying by in a storm of milk and flour
As Jim one-handed steered the car so he wouldn’t run us over

On heels and butt I slid along but then I lost my grip
As Marna’s legs began to slide real low beside my hips.
Then suddenly we took a bounce and then we flew like birds
As Marna’s leg outside my thigh hit a concrete curb

Then everything was blurry and my mind and body buzzed
As I wondered what had happened and where the baby was.
In just about a second, four Navy Corpsman came
And loaded us on stretchers & made sure we knew our names.

You see, a Navy ambulance was just behind our Ford
They quickly gathered us all up and took us to their ward.
Marna’s leg was badly bruised, my sister cut her lip,
I seemed fine but my old jeans were split up to the hip.

We finally got all sorted out and went on home to eat,
Bruised and sore and all of us unsteady on our feet.
When I got up next morning I felt a little sick
I figured every inch of me’d been beaten with a stick.

I caught a bus to Monterey an 8 hour painful ride
I had to get back to the base before my pass expired.
When I signed in next morning I heard the top kick say,
Who dragged you through a knothole? You look like hell today.”

“I heard you went much further than the limits of your pass,
If you did and you admit it, the CO will have your ass.”
I was stiff and awful sore for just about a week
Then Top Kick called me in to meet a slick insurance geek.

He said “I want to settle and my client wants release,
Here’s a check for $40 dollars, cash it quickly if you please.
The top kick growled at me and said “I can’t believe your luck,
You took the world’s best friggin ride and got paid forty bucks”

Marna’s a grown woman now, she grew up warm and sweet
She’s got a loving family and every time we meet
I remind her that I saved her life and that she had all the luck
While all I got was a skinned up butt and a measly forty bucks.

Hayden Clark Hubbard With Uncle Matt Clark & Abigail Sarmac, March 05 

Evelyn Glenn Hubbard Taylor

The Last Of The Original Eight Children Of Agnes & Elmer Hubbard
Born Valentines Day 1915 Deceased March 8, 2005, 90 Years Old.
Mother Of Sons Barry, Glen, David & Daughter Yvonne (Bonnie.) Wife Of Clifford Taylor.
Glen died when he was 21 and David died at about 6 months. Bonnie died a couple of years ago.
Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard, wife of Clifton Hubbard is the only one
of that generation left alive.

Happy Birthday Wayne Morris Hubbard

Born March 11, 1946 The name Wayne comes from an occupational surname meaning "wagon maker", derived from Old English wægn "wagon".

Now That We Are All 50...How Did It Feel?

David John, Carol Sylvia, Gerald Elmer, Susan Frances, Clifton LaVerne, Marilyn Ann, Wayne Morris, Douglas Maynard

How did you feel turning 50 that day
When your mind was still that of a kid
But your body was tired and could never again
Help you do all the things that you did

When your dreams of the life that you planned as a child
Never worked and you still don't know why
Why aren't you rich, why don't you have fame
And why's there a tear in your eye

When all of the hurts that you had still live on
Where nobody sees in your heart
And you'll never again have the glow that you felt
When you knew you were feeling life's start

You remember your childhood traitors and traumas
And all of the lies you were told
And all of the promises you first believed
Getting hollow and dark getting old

You're always young in your mind it is said
No matter the face in the mirror
That you see with surprise and think to yourself
"What is that old man doing here".

Getting old means life's colors are starting to fade
An it means that your losing life's breath
But it's better than the only plausible choice
Cause the only alternative's death.

So you look at your mate and you look at your kids
And you see all the joy that's been had
It's hard to believe that it's been 50 years
And most of it hasn't been bad

So you pick your self up, maybe not quite so fast
Take a deep breath and open life's door
Take giant light steps like a kid in his play
Starting life for 50 years more.

Seventeen

Gerald Elmer Hubbard At Seventeen

Seventeen just out of school with nothing on his mind
No job, no cash and damn few friends to count on in a bind

Milking cows and mowing hay and making tractors run
The nearest girls 5 miles away don’t want a farmers son

They smell like cowshit, work like hell and most will early die
Without a pot to piss in and no one there to cry.

So he joined the Army just to leave the farm
With hero dreams and fantasies of stripes all up his arm

Seventeen and on his own and off to meet the world
Of hard-assed sergeants, soft-eyed whores and tight assed Christian girls

Seventeen and off the farm, an Army PFC
Three squares a day, a uniform, and all the world to see

Let him rock & let him roll, 3 years is all its for
And then its time to face the world and grow up time for sure

Let him rock & let him roll, 3 years is all its for
And then its time to face the world and grow up time for sure.

The Red Wheel Barrow

The Red Wheel Barrow

When I was young and in my prime, I though that I could right
All the world of misery and fear and war and fright
I simply could not understand why folks did not agree
With all the brilliant activists that tried to set them free.

I chanced upon a shrunk old man beside a flowing stream
With continence of peace and joy and gaze like from a dream
I asked him why he did not fight the world to him unfair
He softly uttered these few words with a hundred mile stare

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

Now what the hell is that supposed to mean I loudly cried
I could not understand his words no matter how I tried
You must be deaf or very strange or maybe quite insane
He looked at me with steady eyes and simply said again

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

I left the old man by the stream and went to live my life
Full of work and happiness, turmoil, love & strife
I struggled hard to win the fights and tried to find my bliss
And everything I finally learned all comes down to this

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

I’m getting pretty old now and deaths around the bend
I’m looking hard to find a way before the very end
To understand “The Moment” and live there all the time
While these wise words of comfort, drift across my mind.

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

With Apologies & Thanks To William Carlos Williams

80 Year Old Mom Confronts Varmints With Extreme Prejudice..

Frannie Oakley; Ella, Mom, Steven

The Cousins At Craig's In San Francisco

Jeff, Craig & Hayden, Terry & David

Agnes Haskin Hubbard

Mother of Madeline, Merel, Clifton, Lorraine, Ina Belle, Earle, Evelyn & Winifred

Eight Children Of Agnes & Elmer

Front: Earle, Agnes, Elmer, Merel
Rear: Ina Belle, Madeline, Winifred, Clifton, Lorraine, Evelyn