# "Convoy". What the Hell? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 24, 2014, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508 "2014-06-24T03:12:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/21 "2014-06-24T13:47:59Z")
My 5th birthday I had a Winnie the Pooh cake. My 6th birthday, 1979, I had a “10-4 Good Buddy!” replete with CB and cord that wrapped around the top of the sheet cake. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/22 "2014-06-24T13:49:23Z")
Side note (not a hijack) I remember the fad of CB’s gave way to the fad of TRS-80’s. In fact, I asked the first TRS-80 owner I knew of, when I saw his bodacious 4K machine, “What’s the matter, Lester, were they out of CB radios at The Shack?” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/23 "2014-06-24T13:52:28Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > The impetus for the whole phenomenon was the 55-mph speed limit, which I believe was signed into law by Richard Nixon. The truckers were strongly opposed to it because it cut into their livelihoods, and “Convoy” grew out of that. That’s why it mentions “double nickels” and how undesirable it is. I remember someone broadcasting this a couple of times: _Double nickels day and night Smokey Bear Will not bite_ > [@DChord568](#): > > 1. And far from a simple antidote to loneliness, there were practical applications. Yes, CB was used to circumvent speeding laws, but it also could be useful to alerting truckers to accidents or construction that caused traffic to back up on the interstate, allowing them to seek alternate routes rather than sitting for minutes/hours cooling their heels. When the normally rotten Seattle traffic is especially bad, I wish I had a CB radio so I can ask the truckers what’s going on ahead. (Or just listen and know.) > [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > The song was an improvement over Red Sovine’s works. _ugh_[_Teddy Bear_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zoTLwrm9QE). Always my vote for The Most Maudlin Song In The Universe. > [@twickster](#): > > People using the latest technology to share news, opinions, joke, etc. under pseudonyms? What kind of bullshit is that? This. It was the ur-Internet. ---
**Author:** ![yanceylebeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yanceylebeef/32/12290_2.png) [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/24 "2014-06-24T13:55:23Z")
[Quite possible the funniest, and wrongest (if that’s not a word, I’m coining it now.) CB song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oG2o1jNrJY) Rod Hart’s C.B. Savage. Oh my. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/25 "2014-06-24T13:56:45Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Some of you may remember this ‘70’s song that began the inexplicable trucker craze that spawned some of the worst pop culture dreck that everyone now uses as evidence that the Seventies sucked big time. Okay, the CB/Trucker craze was intensely stupid, but consider the source. This freakin’ song! > [@DChord568](#): > > As someone who worked as a DJ on a country music station in this era, I’ll have to disagree with your penultimate sentence. > > I would argue that the CB/Trucker craze, far from being “intensely stupid,” had certain things to recommend it. > > 1. For truckers, it brought a chance to have human contact during grueling, long hours spent in the cab. Prior to this, it was country music (on 8-tracks and, um, radio!). All well and good, but I would think talking with other human beings was a better antidote to loneliness. > > 2. And far from a simple antidote to loneliness, there were practical applications. Yes, CB was used to circumvent speeding laws, but it also could be useful to alerting truckers to accidents or construction that caused traffic to back up on the interstate, allowing them to seek alternate routes rather than sitting for minutes/hours cooling their heels. > > 3. CB allowed not only contact with fellow drivers, but also with ordinary folks at home. No doubt the quality of that contact varied, but I suspect a lot of lonely people in homes across the nation also benefited from that human contact with folks they otherwise would not have talked to. Doubtless some bad came out of that, but also some good. > > 4. I make no claims as to the worthiness of the song “Convoy.” It’s a novelty song. Like all such songs, some are more clever than others. Most, by definition, posit a situation that’s, well, over the top. All have in common that by the time you’ve heard the song a few times, you’re unlikely to want to hear it much again, as you’ve already got the joke. > > 5. As with #3, “Convoy” gave folks a glimpse into a culture and its accompanying lingo that they otherwise would have known little about. Some embraced that culture, because people will always want to belong in some way. > > 6. Of course to others, that culture seemed quite foreign and mock worthy. Rest assured that said culture’s denizens were/are just as busy mocking the culture that you thought/think was/is so cool and cutting-edge. > > 7. At some future time (or perhaps right now), I will easily be able to cherry pick songs from your very most favorite era of music that will prove beyond a doubt that it “sucked big time.” Weird. You interpreted [Too Many Cats] post way different than I did. I didn’t see it as a dig against truckers at all. I agree with you that the truckers used their CBs for all of the reasons you mentioned. But for truckers CBs weren’t a ‘craze’. I interpreted [Too Many Cats] post as poking fun at the craze that took over the non-trucking nation. It was like they forced their selves into a culture that wasn’t theirs to share. I agree with him when he says: “the CB/Trucker craze was intensely stupid.” It wasn’t a craze and it was stupid to truckers. It was a craze and intensely stupid for a soccer mom to get a CB and a handle. Just like it’s a craze and intensely stupid for about a million other fads that have come and gone like saggy pants, tamagachis (sp?), pet rocks, disco, swing dancing, mood rings, black/strobe lights, leisure suits, blue jean suits, 2 day beard growth, on and on and on (When will the saggy pants around the ass go away?) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/26 "2014-06-24T14:01:49Z")
> [@DChord568](#): > > 1. … Prior to this, it was country music (on 8-tracks and, um, radio!). _Yeah, I had all my eight-tracks by my side from Dolly Parton to Charley Pride. My stereo a-rattlin’ on the dash with Johnny Cash and all that good trash. Yeah, culture with a side order of grits!_ – _The White Knite_, Cledus Maggard & the Citizen’s Band (Not being a Country music fan when I was a kid, I thought it was _Charlie_ Parton. At least I knew who Johnny Cash was. He had a TV show.) ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/27 "2014-06-24T14:04:59Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > I mean, it’s a story song, but the story it tells makes no sense at all. A bunch of truckers join up to break traffic laws and ram toll gates? How in the hell would that work? Even without all the surveillance cameras that law enforcement has now as opposed to back then, the minute these truckers stopped at their destinations to unload, they would all be surrounded and arrested. _All_ of them? How? Who would be writing down their license plate numbers? And even if somebody did, do you think law enforcement has nothing better to do than the follow dozens of truckers hundreds of miles each, to their respective destinations, to cite them for speeding violations and a few unpaid tolls? Sakes alive, good buddy, that’s the point of a _convoy_. Safety in numbers. > [@Two Many Cats](#): > > Why would traffic laws even be an issue with these truckers? Most companies have reasonable delivery schedules, even cross-country. The most romanticized truckers were independents, owning their own rigs and arranging their own delivery contracts. The energy crisis and the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit hit these guys _hard_. They were facing a huge increase in costs and didn’t have the leverage to pass it on to their customers. Their way of life was in jeopardy, much like when cowboys were fenced in by barbed wire. And people kind of responded to that. Remember Claude Akins in \*[Movin’ On\*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movin'_On_(TV_series))? And the Merle Haggard theme song? Ah, them was good times. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/28 "2014-06-24T14:08:34Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Okay, I know, it’s just a story. But it’s such a damn dumb story, and at the time it was a **huge cultural phenomenon**. Movies, TV shows, music, Burt Reynolds, Jerry Reed, Clint Eastwood and that damn orangutan that later morphed into _BJ and the Bear_. And that was the top of the line dreck. The low class drivel it spawned showed up on MST3K in _Riding with Death_. > > I was there, and I still don’t know what the hell happened. The country’s never suddenly embraced anything like stevadoring or construction work with such gusto as it did the trucking industry in the mid-seventies. I can’t explain it. My understanding is that truckers were folk heroes of sorts at that time because of their well publicized union activity (with Jimmy Hoffa) ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/29 "2014-06-24T14:13:08Z")
It also helped that the C.W. McCall character was originally developed as the spokesperson for Old Home bread ads and had already had another trucking related hit with “Old Home Fill’er up and Keep-on-a-trucking café”, so people were getting exposure to the lifestyle even in their normal lives. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/30 "2014-06-24T14:25:05Z")
… and this was the same culture that elected Jimmy Carter president… :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/31 "2014-06-24T14:25:26Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Remember Claude Akins in \*[Movin’ On\*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movin'_On_(TV_series))? And the Merle Haggard theme song? Ah, them was good times. “Big wheels rollin’… Big wheels rollin’, movin’ on…” Oh, yeah, I remember it. Funny thing is, about a year ago I found it on one of those off-off brand TV stations (like COZI or one of those) and was excited to watch a show that I used to love when I was ten. It was…pretty bad, but no worse than the usual hour-long '70s fare. My mother had a crush on Claude Akins. I could never quite figure that one out. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/32 "2014-06-24T14:31:53Z")
Don’t forget-it wasn’t just Convoy the song. It was Convoy the movie. And White Line Fever. And the aforementioned Movin On. And Steel Cowboy. There was an episode of McCloud featuring truckers. Everyone wanted in on that trucker action. Plus the CB craze hit other movies as an incidental feature. Kids in your average 70s teen romp used CBs. And I have to add that _Wolf Creek Pass_ is the superior CW McCall trucker song. The imagery is better, and the song makes more sense. _The sign said clearance to the 12 foot line But them chickens was stacked to thirteen-nine We shot that tunnel at a hundred and ten Like gas through a funnel and eggs through a hen We took that top row of chickens off slicker than scum off a Louisiana swamp_ ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/33 "2014-06-24T14:32:47Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > My understanding is that truckers were folk heroes of sorts at that time because of their well publicized union activity (with Jimmy Hoffa) Nah. The Teamsters were widely regarded as corrupt, and Hoffa was gone by the time of the CB craze. The most romanticized truckers, the independent owner-operators, were to some degree rivals of the Teamsters. > [@Death of Rats](#): > > It also helped that the C.W. McCall character was originally developed as the spokesperson for Old Home bread ads and had already had another trucking related hit with “Old Home Fill’er up and Keep-on-a-trucking café”, so people were getting exposure to the lifestyle even in their normal lives. Good old Mavis. I love that song. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/34 "2014-06-24T14:37:19Z")
Here’s the original [Old Home commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxYetCEFomU), for those who haven’t seen it. Proto-C.W.! “Convoy” grew out of this (as, obviously, did “Old Home Fill ‘er Up and Keep on a Truckin’ Cafe”) ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/35 "2014-06-24T14:58:56Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > It was the CB lingo, and the availability of CBs to normal people, allowing them to peek into a subculture. Also, ‘Convoy’ was honky proto-rap. I never thought of it that way, but you’re right. C.W. McCall was the white Gil Scott-Heron! ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/36 "2014-06-24T15:05:08Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > Weird. You interpreted [Too Many Cats] post way different than I did. I didn’t see it as a dig against truckers at all. I agree with you that the truckers used their CBs for all of the reasons you mentioned. But for truckers CBs weren’t a ‘craze’. I interpreted [Too Many Cats] post as poking fun at the craze that took over the non-trucking nation. It was like they forced their selves into a culture that wasn’t theirs to share. I agree with him when he says: “the CB/Trucker craze was intensely stupid.” It wasn’t a craze and it was stupid to truckers. It was a craze and intensely stupid for a soccer mom to get a CB and a handle. Just like it’s a craze and intensely stupid for about a million other fads that have come and gone like saggy pants, tamagachis (sp?), pet rocks, disco, swing dancing, mood rings, black/strobe lights, leisure suits, blue jean suits, 2 day beard growth, on and on and on (When will the saggy pants around the ass go away?) I don’t quite understand “forced their selves [sic] into a culture that wasn’t theirs to share.” All artifacts of culture take on a life of their own. Sometimes for good, sometimes for ill, usually a combination of the two. I’m not seeing an qualitative equivalence between the nature of CB radio and all the other fads you derisively list. Were non-truckers who got home CBs and talked to truckers on the road “stupid to truckers”? No doubt in some cases, they were. But I personally know of families who invested whole-hog into this phenomenon, were completely sincere in what they did, and were more than just bandwagon-jumpers. They seemed to get a lot out of it. I would guess at least some percentage of truckers did too. Those who didn’t had a simple remedy…tune out/refuse to respond to people they didn’t care to, and switch to another of the 20+ channels available. In the end, the way it all came down was dependent on the quality of the people on either end of the microphone…just like in real life. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/37 "2014-06-24T15:47:16Z")
Note that MAD magazine made a point of ignoring CB radios every month. My problem was the “progression” from “little” convoy to “great big” to “mighty”. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/38 "2014-06-24T17:21:36Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > _Yeah, I had all my eight-tracks by my side from Dolly Parton to Charley Pride. > My stereo a-rattlin’ on the dash with Johnny Cash and all that good trash. > Yeah, culture with a side order of grits!_ > > – _The White Knite_, Cledus Maggard & the Citizen’s Band > > (Not being a Country music fan when I was a kid, I thought it was _Charlie_ Parton. At least I knew who Johnny Cash was. He had a TV show.) May as well [link](http://youtu.be/oh66kDox4R0) to that one, which for some reason my parents loved and I basically memorized b/c the 45 was played so much. Man, that takes me back. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/39 "2014-06-24T17:31:11Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > Here’s the original [Old Home commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxYetCEFomU), for those who haven’t seen it. > > Proto-C.W.! “Convoy” grew out of this (as, obviously, did “Old Home Fill ‘er Up and Keep on a Truckin’ Cafe”) Thanks so much for finding that - it was played endlessly in my state (South Dakota) as a point of pride almost. There are even some sequel commercials I believe. Recall too that Steven Speilberg’s TV movie _Duel_ came out just before that time (1971). ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508/40 "2014-06-24T17:45:25Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > Recall too that Steven Speilberg’s TV movie _Duel_ came out just before that time (1971). I almost mentioned this, too. We had a car Like Weaver’s at that time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convoy-what-the-hell/691508.md?page=3)