If there is any sort of wind at all, my check station south of town always gives me hair that is as stiff as concrete.

Really.

I first sat on a check station at this spot on 1 October 1977. My first week on the job. Back then we simply set up our signs and pulled the trucks onto the shoulder of the road where a county road ties in with the south highway.

Actually don't do it much different now.

The soil there is the normal clay for this country. Dusty when dry, slippery and soft when wet. There was no pullout, just the steep shoulder of the road.

The road isn't that safe, either. Not up to the modern specs for a two-lane, with only about one foot of asphalt beyond the white stripe. After that, a steep, soft shoulder into the borrow ditch.

I park on that shoulder, and that is where the hunters have to pull in.

The first year there I found an old, weathered deer antler in the ditch. And pressed it into the mud just outside my door, so that at least my first step outside the truck would have a firm grip. And each year thereafter I meticulously shifted my truck around until I was parked exactly beside that antler.

One wet October day, more than ten years ago, some guys from the highway department happened to be at the check station (after hunting, not working) when another hunter came barreling in to the "station." His rig had a lift kit and major huge tires, as is common for so many trucks in this community. The wide tires hydroplaned across the shoulder of the road, in a sidewards slide towards me and my rig.

No way to get out of the way in time, so I just stood my ground to see if I was going to die.

I didn't.

By at least four feet.

But within a week, a couple truckloads of "surplus asphalt" happened to get dumped, spread and packed down on the shoulder of the road at "my" check station. I was paved!

I still miss my antler. I know it's down there somewhere.

Besides solving the safety problem with mud, their quick paving job also took care of most of the clay dust I had to contend with. And they beveled it in, so the shoulder isn't any where near as steep now. I no longer look up in fear as trucks pulling camp trailers drop off the edge to pull in.

Then about six years ago it came time for this highway to be chipped and sealed. Now in actuality, that should be "sealed and chipped," but no one says it that way. They cover the asphalt with tar to waterproof the cracks, and then spread the chips across the surface.

The chips are just crushed limestone. The chips are left on the roadway for the cars and trucks to mash down into the tar, and then after a week or so, the remainder are swept off. Usually the chips do not get mashed in in the middle of each lane, nor along the center line. That is why so many of our highways look like they have gravel tracks on them.

They do.

But the crushed limestone had to be stored for two years prior to the construction job, so they used my nice asphalt pad. About a dozen connected piles over 10 feet high. I was just about parking on the roadway for two falls. But they were great for getting out of sight when you had to pee (now I usually use the juice bottle trick I learned from truckers).

When they took the chips out for the roadway, they left a layer about a foot deep. On purpose, I think. Spent most of my free time on one opening day of antelope season shoveling that crushed limestone around, covering a large parking area.

Nice, but the dust is back. When the heelers hop back into the truck, there are little white five-padded tracks of dust left on the seat. And when the wind blows, my hair gets crusted with limestone dust and gets stiff like concrete.

Like today.