10-4 Magazine / July 2026 63 could meet to go skating and sleepovers after Friday night football games in the fall and basketball games during the winter. The first football games of the season weren’t bad, but by the end of the season, an Iowa night could get pretty chilly sitting in those bleachers, cheering for the Benton Bobcats. The musical groups and artists of the 1970s were legendary, and some of them are still out touring (the Rolling Stones come to mind). This music takes me back to the days of listening to Kasey Kasem playing the “Top 40” on Sunday mornings. Record players spun the tunes and eight-track tapes got tangled up, spitting out yards of tape, with only one place to go – the trash. The song for our senior prom was Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin – talk about a classic! I was in a work/study program for the English teacher, Mr. Bell, and I got paid $1.10 an hour for 10 hours a week, helping him. Part of my job was to type stencils, put them on a mimeograph machine, print all the pages, put them in stacks, and staple together the school paper. I wrote some of the news that was included in the paper, as well, which was a monthly publication. I loved reading and writing, and who knew that I was preparing to be a writer and contributor for a trucking magazine 27 years later. This October it will be 23 years since I took over this “Trucker Talk” column from Bob and Suzanne Stempinski – I think Mr. Bell would be proud. Back then, no one told us that 50 years would go by like a screaming truck, headed down a steep mountain grade, with no brakes. I can remember when we had to vote on our class motto, class colors and class flower. Our motto was: “Each dawn is a new beginning, each day is a day to remember, and each sunset is a look into the future,” and it’s as true today as it was 50 years ago. Our class flower was a white rose tipped with blue, and, as mentioned before, our colors were blue and gold. Senior pictures were taken in the fall, and in the last few weeks of school, we were signing each other’s autograph books. I still have those books with messages of keeping in touch and good luck, along with a collection of billfold-sized senior pictures. I remember going to my 25th class reunion. I drove our big W900L Kenworth truck “Illusion” that night, impressing more than one of the guys I graduated with. It was amazing how much everyone had changed (some more than others). It wasn’t that long before we were all just kids starting out on our own. Now, another 25 years have gone by, and our country can’t quite make up its mind if we are celebrating the Semiquincentennial, America 250, or the Quartermillennial. All of it is pretty awesome, but still not quite as cool as the Bicentennial was. Being part of the “Class of 1976” will always be special to me – a time gone, but not forgotten. I’m thankful to have memories of a simpler time that moved at a slower pace than the craziness we live in today. Happy birthday, America. Here’s hoping for another 250 great years! n
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