My first thirty seconds of fame

Still on my License Checker era, I recall when I was shown in taped and aired scenes of the department for the CBS channel 2 evening news. This was in late 1981 or early 1982 during the height of the first Pit Bull hysteria that was sweeping all across the country at the time. Locally in the city of Colton a mail carrier had been bitten by a pit bull and had died from the subsequent blood poisoning he had developed. It was all over the local news but had also made the national news.

Pat English, then the program manager for the department wanted to jump on the publicity bandwagon of the Colton event. Since we didn't have the city of Colton, it was decided that the closest area with a bad loose dog problem to make a show of was a county community called Bloomington. It was always a bad problem area before, during and after this time. Pat decided to have a maximum enforcement effort and contacted the local and L.A. area news stations to announce the upcoming date.
The city of Fontana supplied their one and only ACO and it was arranged to have almost the entire field staff on hand. So the big day (morning) and we all met at 5 am at the main office in San Bernardino and all convoyed out the 30 minute drive to Bloomington. All the ACO's would be patrolling the streets of the area, all us license checkers including our supervisor were to start checking licenses at every residence beginning at 6 am, the earliest we could legally 'disturb the peace' by knocking on the doors of the residences.
No breaks, no excuses, any dogs out loose were to be picked up and we were told "license or cite" by the big boss himself. He as well as many of the staff were hoping to get their activities taped so Pat was actually there and in a new suit and there were quite a few cleaned and pressed uniforms of the ACO's and new permed hair styles on several of the women License Checkers.
We all got out there and of course at first nothings out loose. CBS had sent out a video crew and they got The supervisor Lynda and the people with her on tape waking up some residents to check for licenses. Since there weren't any loose dogs much of the early video was us license checkers going house to house checking the licenses. I was taped citing a guy that I normally would have given a break to, he answered all the right questions so normally I would have given him the chance to find his paperwork, but that morning, at that time he got a ticket. Later on some dogs were spotted out and chased, that made for some good shots I guess. I was taped again when I was helping ACO Ed Stevens loading a caught dog into his truck cages. I was able to save it on the VCR that evening and years later transferred it to DVD so I could look at it occasionally. Ah the memories!

Behind the scenes of that morning, well yes Pat had been taped giving his big speech about the job being done etc, CBS just didn't use it! He was extremely pissed off about it for quite a while. Pat was very much the 80's yuppie boss with a "my s*** doesn't stink" attitude. He was great for getting contracts and equipment for the department, he was really terrible for working with the employees. The one thing that unified the department was the hatred of him as our boss!
In 1985 he was forced to resign (fired) for misappropriation of funds. He'd been living the high life on the county's expense and it caught up with him.
That morning I'd ridden out to Bloomington in a little Datsun Animal Control Truck with my License Checker team leader Bob, and on the way out while he was driving he sat on the radio microphone while he was talking about how much he'd liked to see several of the female employees naked and more! It was broadcast to all the vehicles, luckily for him Pat must have been too busy talking and didn't hear it or Bob would really have been in hot water!
I no longer recall how many dogs actually were picked up, it wasn't many. For a few years if any early morning patrols were done, Bloomington was almost always the first place done.

There never was a "maximum enforcement" done with the whole department again though.

My first Animal Control County job, License Checker

Taken in 1982, our station wagon in the Apple Valley area as the team leader is talking to two of the local ACO's about areas they wanted us to check.


So far I've been mainly typing about the job I spent most of my years in working for the county, an Animal Control Officer.
My first position when I was hired back in November 1981 was as an Animal License Officer. The official title was Officer, but we were all called License Checkers. When I started all I really knew was I was going to be getting $4.88 per hour! I was going to be rich!!! That's what I thought anyway, then the reality sinks in.
Before this job the most I'd ever been paid was $2.56 per hour.

The job was pretty simple, primarily just door to door canvassing in various areas to make sure that residents had current rabies shots as well as current licenses for any dogs they might own over 4 months old which was when the dog was considered an adult by the county and to be licensed.

Actually, doing the job of License Checker was as follows.
We'd all meet at the main office in San Bernardino a little before 8 am, then we'd either go over to the county 'yards' or the "team leaders" would go over to get the vehicles, then each team would pile into one of the two 9 passenger station wagons used for our job. Usually it was two teams of 4 or 5 people. We'd then drive out to wherever in the county we'd be working for that time period.
It was usually in the Mountains in the late spring and early fall when it was still hot temps in the valley areas, then the deserts, both high deserts and low deserts, were done in the winter with the valley areas taking up the rest of spring, fall, or whenever there was time to work but not enough time to go the long drives to some areas as most of the population lived in the 'greater San Bernardino' valley of the county.

When we got in the area to work for the day, first stop was...........a coffee break! We were supposed to have 15 minutes, usually it was more like 30 to 45. Then we'd go and get dropped off in a residential area and the team leader would go a few blocks away and park. We'd work our way towards the him or her and they would work in the area of the wagon until we got there. And then move on and repeat. It was just walking door to door and seeing if anyone was home and check for the shots and license for any dogs on the property.







Taken the same day as the photo above, driving West on Bear Valley road in Apple Valley. All farms and horse area then, it's all high end housing tracts now.

What made this job tough was, an Animal Control Officer was usually going out because he/she was called for something or for some kind of a complaint. As a License Checker, the majority of people felt you were invading their privacy by coming to their house asking to see they were in compliance and would resent our job. Then if they got a ticket for not having current shots and license, they'd really get upset!
If there was question or the invariable "I can't find the paperwork" from an owner, we'd make a note of the address to come back by later and when we'd get back to the wagons it would be look up to see if the information was in one of the 4 to 8 giant volumes of computer printouts of all dogs/owners licensed in the county carried in both vehicles. No portable radios or cell phones back then, only the one radio in the vehicle. If while talking to the person you got the idea that they might just be buying time and was actually trying to pull a fast one, you'd just cite them and move on. Let them figure it all out with court or when they'd come to the office to buy any licenses needed.
Back then an animal control citation had little weight behind it. Most of the courts viewed them as 'fix it' tickets and as long as you got what you needed to be legal, that was good enough, no fine. Several judges thought of animal control as a joke and they'd just dismiss any citation, others would just charge a ten dollar fine if you corrected it or not, just ten dollars. Of course we didn't advertise any of that.

Back then the licenses were all good for one year, the rabies shots could be good for two years if an adult dog, so many people would only get one thing or the other if they had to. And wouldn't bother if they 'missed' it a year, unless of course they got caught by us! By the time we left the department in 2006, licenses were available for one to three years, as was the rabies shots. But if you got a ticket it was an across the board minimum fine of $135.00, PER count! So if you had one dog over four months old with no shots or license indicated on the ticket, you were looking at fines of $270.00 plus you needed to show that you'd gotten the shots and license at a usual cost of at least $100.00, again for one dog. Add it up if you had 2, 3, or 4!!!!

Every summer then (and still done now) were the vaccination clinics at various locations all over the county. For many people it was the place they'd get the shots and license for their dogs. You'd usually get a cost break on a rabies shot, but the county never did a cost break on a license, even when they went to multiple years, it was just for convenience with that part.


Taken at a clinic at the county library in Yucaipa, you'd wait in line and start here by paying the fees then continue on and get the shots and or license.




I wound up never having to work any of the clinics, the photo above was taken when I was called out to help with crowd control at this clinic. I heard some pretty crazy stories from the employees that worked them all the time. Like so many things there was work to do, but it mixed in with a lot of goofing off. Some of the clinics would be hours away and back then there was one clinic that was an over nighter to Trona, the farthest point north west in San Bernardino county on the west side of Death Valley. But at over three hours away from San Bernardino, they'd just schedule in little clinics in obscure little towns along the way and end out in Trona. Spend the night and return the next day. The Trona clinic was a 'guys night out' for the two that went. The only summer I could have been a clinic worker I was picked with another License Checker to work as field officers. It was rotten shifts, I worked Thursday to Monday, but I got to drive around all the time and do all the things a field officer did. I also worked primarily the high desert and in the mountains for the summer. It was great! When I first started to work as a license checker the crews were still working in the High Desert, I fell in love with the area. The clean air, back then it was not crowded at all- yet. It had more seasons than the valleys did. So that first summer working in the desert and spending a lot of time there, I was in heaven! But also by working that summer as a field officer, I knew I didn't want to stay a license checker!
Actually, although we were constantly told how important we were to generating revenue to help keep the department self sufficient, license checker was really the lowest on the totem pole of animal control. And every body that was one knew it too! We also were the ones constantly told we'd be fired if we didn't produce revenue. We had the unofficial, official quotas of 'statistical goals' for each month, broken down to how many houses canvassed, how many dogs seen, license sold, citations, etc.

Personally I didn't like canvassing in the mountains at all, back in the early 1980's many of the homes were vacation homes, not the full time residences they later became when people were willing to make the drives to "get away from it all" in the mountains.
So I'd go up two to five flights of stairs to see if anybody was home only to find a vacant or not home at the time places. Back down the stairs knowing I'd have to check back another time. Many of the areas in the mountains were literally up and down the hillsides with very few level home tracts like most other locations like the deserts and valley. Exception was the Big Bear area, quite a few level areas there. Being a caldera and all!
I also didn't like all the bugs in the mountains, you couldn't eat lunch outside without fighting off all kinds of flying bugs. There were some great places for lunch in the mountains though, and the long time license checkers as well as the mountain ACO's and the area Sheriff Deputies knew them all and were very willing to tell you about the best places to have a good lunch and even save some money!

When we canvassed the low desert county areas of Yucca Valley, 29 Palms, and the little boon dock places beyond those cities, it was mainly canvass by car as we'd drive from place to place because most were several acres, or even miles, apart. We'd take turns putting down the guessed address as most places didn't have a street address back then.

I usually drove when we went to these way out places and the others would all sleep in the wagon. I'd wake them up when we got to wherever we'd decided to have a break before we'd drive out to the area to work. Same on the way back to San Bernardino, I'd drive and wake everybody up just before we got back to town.

Oh well, more later. Tad

How about some photos of Stacy too!

It isn't supposed to be all about me! After all Stacy and I both worked in the same department for about 17 years. So even though I don't have that many photos of my time there we have less of Stacy's. We do have a few though, top photo is Stacy standing next to her Dodge 4X4 diesel truck. She really liked that truck! I was driving the Ford when I went to help her at this call in Phelan.

The next two photos are of a call I met with Stacy at where this Spaniel mix had somehow gotten itself onto the beam and crawled into the girder at the California Aqueduct. We got the dog out from the space in the lower shot, and in the above photo Stacy realized that the dog was more scared than anything else so she was picking it up by hand instead of using the 'control stick' on the ground next to her.

Last shot, another view of her Dodge Animal Control truck. Stacy had always wanted to be an animal control officer and even volunteered at the Riverside Humane Society on her weekends as a kid. She was one of the best the department had! She could work anyplace and with anyone, she trained many of the people that were hired for several years.

Last set for now, various stuff

Top photo was the inside of a truck cage when we started putting this blue mat material into all the animal cages. It all started when a probationary ACO had picked up several dogs in the summertime. A very hot summer day, she was in a brown truck and the cages only had the manufacturers installed vent fans and nothing but bare metal as the cage floor. We were supposed to 'water down' the animals to keep them cool. When she got to the shelter later that afternoon, one of the dogs was in really bad shape from being basically cooked in the cage. It had burns on its feet and stomach from being on the hot metal cage floor, the heat from the catalytic converter underneath it didn't help, where else could it go?, and from just being inside the hot cage it was overheated and so it had to be taken to a vet for treatment.
When it got out to the local humane society the you know what hit the fan!!! Unfortunately for the girl, since she was still on probation she was fired for not checking up on the animals in her care. Shortly after this incident, and with the help of the humane society, the county started to install water cooled air conditioners on every trucks cage. For the inside this matting was bought, in large rolls, and cut to fit for each cage in every truck. This kept the animals off the metal floor yet could be easily taken out to hose clean the hair, poop and throw up that almost always happened with dogs and cats.

Above is a photo from 2004 or so, with Stacy driving and me going with her on a callback on a weekend. This truck was a 1/2 ton Ford and was called the "ice cream" truck because it looked so much like one! Very short cage box it only had 4 cages in the sides and in those big back doors was just a long box for dead animals. It wasn't well liked since it was a desert only truck and since the Apple Valley shelter was so far away, one couldn't carry that many animals and it was often necessary to make multiple trips to the shelter. From our area it was a 35 to 45 minute drive to the shelter! They would have been small for even the valley but they would have worked so much better there then in the expanse of the deserts. Nobody would ever listen to common sense though!!

A late 1980's morning at the County Yards and two fellow ACO' s are visiting before heading out for the day. Guy on the left is now long gone and moved on. The guy on the right is still there. Has no hair now!

Last photo is from about the same time frame, several people meeting before we went out to pick up some large animals. At the parking lot in Fontana near Valley and Sierra, I'm pretty sure a restaurant sits where these trucks were way back then.

Truck photos, again!

Vehicle 5493, the twin to my favorite Animal Control truck 5490. A 1991 Ford F-250 cloth seat, AM/FM stereo 4 speaker sound, tilt steering wheel and cruise control!!! A gigantic plus for those long desert drives. This photo was taken when I was on a late afternoon call out to the Trona area, about a 2 hour drive, one way, from the Victorville area.

The photo above, is of me arriving in the morning at the County Yards in San Bernardino in the early 1990's. In this style of cages the small rear side cages were the places to store stuff.

The worst truck I had to drive, a mid 1980's 1/2 ton Dodge with a 6 cylinder and 4 speed manual transmission. A gutless pain to drive except on flat areas. Taken out near Rancho Cucamonga in Etiwanda. That entire area is all houses and shopping centers now.

Same area as the above photo and in the area of the long gone thing that made Rancho Cucamonga famous, other than Jack Benny, the grape vineyards. This was shortly after I'd been assigned 5490. The single opening in the back was for dead animals. Open it up and pull out an aluminum box to put the dead animals inside. Although tall it was only two wheel drive. It was the first truck that actually had good range with dual gas tanks. The later trucks came with around 30 gallon single tanks.

Some Shelter and other things; photos

Top photo is one of the then brand new, not even yet open to the public, Devore animal shelter. This was actually the second one built, first one finished. It had been in the wooden framed stage when unusually strong but not uncommon Santa Ana winds blew through from the Cajon Pass. It was totally and literally blown away!
It had taken over three years get the money and to find a place and get a shelter built. Before this was done we had to impound animals from the San Bernardino city pound to the Riverside Humane Society to shelters in Ontario. It was ultimately built on a section of land at an old dump site in the Devore area on County owned land to save money. Now I really do not get why so many people forgot over the years, but when we were all told about the shelter finally getting built and at the dump location in about 1984, then department head Pat English said it was only to be a "temporary" location. Due to it being built on a dump site made it to where no permanent structures were to be there for more than ten years! Of course it's still there today. Its been expanded and renovated several times over the years. For a long time there were plans to move in a bunch of trailer offices and make the place the operational home of the department. That hasn't happened, but I was told in talking to a friend of mine that still works for the department that the shelter has been getting another 'face lift' for the last year. 23 years, I guess it will be there forever!

Above is a photo of the only Alligator that was actually impounded by the department. It had been a person in Chino's exotic pet, until he'd gotten arrested for something that is. Then it was picked up and taken to Devore for a few days. I actually no longer remember what exactly happened to it, the owner couldn't get it back, it wasn't legal to keep it. But unlike so many exotic pets that usually wound up being destroyed, I think this one went to a reptile park in L.A.

This photo is when I went to the Phelan area with a stock trailer to help pick up two very large Pot Bellied pigs. Supervisors had pick up trucks in those days to be able to carry equipment like the dog trap I had in this one at the time. I carried can food and other stuff in the tool box behind the cab.

Bottom photo is from the late 1980's of one of my early Radio Boxes. A plastic tool box loaded with an AM/FM Cassette auto deck with 4 inch speakers. Underneath that is a Cobra 40 channel CB radio, great for truck to truck and about 2 to 5 miles range. On top is a Radio Shack 200 channel scanner. All powered by by a 12 volt plug into the cigarette lighter plug. On the front is a cup holder and on the seat next to it is a hand held scanner and some home made music or story tapes. A few years down the road it was XM satellite radio all the time and Ham radios for their better clarity and range for me and Stacy to stay in touch. With mountain repeaters, I could talk to Stacy up in the desert while I was down in the San Bernardino valley.
At the very end it was still XM radios but no more radio boxes. Didn't need them anymore because the trucks were all finally equipped with decent sounding in dash radios with 4 speaker sound and we had cell phones to stay in touch by then.

Still More Photos

Photo of all the trucks at the command post at about 6:00 AM. Sept. 2003













Second photo is later in the day. A Chevy 2 wheel drive truck with C-Tec style cages in front of the Animal Control Command Post trailer. Residents would call the office in San Bernardino, we'd get the call at the command post and send out staff to "rescue" their pets from houses that were being or had been evacuated.
















Set up at the Glen Helen Rodeo grounds near the end of the Old and Gran Prix fires in November 2003. A good photo of the department's Command Post. Back end was a full opening door for loading and unloading stuff.










Last photo is from the mid 1980's of the designated Dead animal pickup unit. A Dodge one ton, storage compartments on this side, a few regular cage compartments on the other. The center area was open with a lift gate at the back and a winch inside to pull in and lift large dead animals. I helped load several horses over the years it was used. I remember once it was going down the road with four feet from a horse sticking straight up out the top. That got a lot of looks!

More trucks and such

Another photo of the rear view of 5010. Taken at one of my favorite lunch break places at the time, Chino Airport.
The truck had the old Datsun cages welded to the frame and 'fenders' fabricated to take up the wheel width difference. The left rear cage was my 'storage' cage where I put all my equipment I didn't want in the cab. The depart never got extended cabs until just before I left. Too bad, they would have been so useful all those years! The top lights I installed myself. I didn't like the only lights being the ones on the bumper. They often failed for one reason or another so I put these on top all wired in so they were running, turn and stop. My idea worked so well that upper lights were installed on most trucks and all new cages.

Taken in 2003 when I was a supervisor, I was hooking up the departments "Command Post" 24 foot long toy hauler trailer to take it out for the County Employees Pick Nick.
A hot muggy San Bernardino day!









At the second running springs fire near where it started on Highway 330 above Highland California in Sept. 2003. The department had two horse/stock trailers at the time.










Last photo is of me at 5:30 in the morning at the Sheriff's Command Post in Running Springs during the same fire in Sept. '03. My assigned truck is still hooked up to the trailer. A 2000 Chevy one ton 2 wheel drive, it had really struggled to get the command post trailer up to this area. The truck just didn't have a powerful enough motor for pulling this trailer!

Some Animal Control trucks I drove

To kind of go along with yesterday's post, this one and a few more will be just photos and comments of the different trucks I'd driven over the years.
First photo is my 1980's Chevy. I drove it for several years. When I got it it already had almost 200,000 miles on it and had a new rebuilt engine. By this time, about 1986 or so, all the trucks had "Rec-Air" water cooled air conditioners for the cages. Water was pumped to a pan inside the cooler and the water was sucked up by the venturi effect of the spinning fan and splashed onto a foam liner that the air was forced through, cooling the air. A 5 gallon tank was mounted up under the rear cages and the setup had an 'on demand' 12 volt RV type of water pump. Switched inside the cab, when all worked it actually kept the cages very cool due to the small area to be cooled. It was really nice in the cages when it was in the 90's. Problem was the floats in the cooler unit itself could never be set to a good level that metered out just enough water to keep it cool for a long period of time. Driving around sloshed water all over the place and since the cooler and pump were then wired to run at the same time, the 5 gallons of water in the tank would only last about 20 minutes tops if you were driving around.
So knowing that, I'd watch the switch because it was pulse as the water pump was working and glow steady when it was out of water. The foam that the water splashed onto could stay damp and cool for another 30 minutes or so unless it was a really hot day before it was just blowing hot air on the animals.
All that water all the time caused the areas in the cages to stay wet and to rust away. Within a couple of years of use the "County Yards" were fabricating floor plates, inner door hinges, and other parts that were rusted through.


Second photo was taken in 1982, it shows one of the 'back breaking' Datsun trucks and two 1/2 ton Chevy's. I drove the dark brown one 5012 that summer. No cage coolers yet and most of the trucks were all kinds of colors and shades of brown. By the early 1990's they were all white. Much better for a service truck! Back in those days all vehicles were retired by mileage, usually between 60,000 to 80,000 miles. Later in another attempt to 'save money' replacement was assessed by still viable serviceability and several trucks would get over 300,000 and several engine and transmission rebuilds before getting replaced.









The last photo for this post was of the new cages the department tried on this truck, a 4 wheel drive Chevy for the mountains. These all fiberglass cage sets were supposed to be lighter and better. No roof a/c unit on this installation, they had a pass through box that drew air from the truck cab from under the seat. Great in theory, poor in practice! Since it was from under the seat it just wasn't cool air! Road and exhaust pipe heat in the summer warmed the area which warmed the air under the seat. And the trickle of air that actually got into the cages was not much in the way of relief. The fiberglass just wasn't up to the task either since may areas, both the mountains and the deserts, had poor and very rough dirt roads. The cage door hinges began to crack and give way from the constant bouncing. They lasted a few years, they had to get their money out of them! But ultimately metal cages were returned to.

Driving my life away and memorable trucks over the years

This was one area that working for the largest county in the nation had advantages. Especially if like me, you liked to drive, a LOT!!!
Even in the "urban areas" of the county it was most often from 80 to 150 miles a day. And when I was working the "outlying areas" it could easily and often be around 300 or more miles a day.
When I became a field officer in 1983 the trucks then were mostly late '70's to 1982 Chevy 1/2 ton to 3/4 ton cab and chassis with metal cage boxes welded on to the bodies.
There were also three late '70's Datsun standard cab trucks. NOBODY liked to drive the Datsun's, they had been an attempt by the county to have some 'economical' trucks that might get better then the 6 to 8 MPG the larger trucks got. Problem was that the standard cab Datsun's didn't have enough room behind the bench seat for the gigantic radio units that were the norm in the early 1980's. So with the radio box behind it the seat, it became just slightly over vertical in feeling and a metal frame bar from the seat back pounded across your back and shoulder blades. VERY uncomfortable to say the least! Add to that that the weight of the all metal cages was so much that the standard Datsun rear shocks couldn't hold up the cages. So the county maintenance crews put what felt like no suspension at the back end, think "hard tail" on a chopper that has no shocks at all! It was like having a pogo stick in the back if you were driving on the freeways with their expansion joints or were driving on bad roads. Just plain hurt after a full day of driving.

Almost all the trucks had cab air conditioning, but these stripped down trucks seldom had even am radios except for the Datsun's.

My first assigned truck was a then new, Chevy S-10 standard cab truck. They'd grafted a set of Datsun cages to the back and the truck was a V-6 with a 4 speed manual transmission. I was one of the very few people in the department that could drive a stick shift so I was offered and took the truck. Compared to the full size trucks it was a little hot rod that handled like a sports car with all the weight of the cages on the back. Still had a too stiff rear suspension but it at least did actually absorb some bounce instead of just bounce higher like the Datsun's did. Back in 'the day' before it became so populated with people moving to the area, it was nothing to be literally flying down the highway at 70 or 80 MPH. My very first day as an ACO with my very first truck just for me and I'm at the car wash we all used on Waterman and as the blower is going up over the truck the operator had forgotten to set it to a tall truck and the blower rolled up the windshield over the top of the cab and it tears off the revolving amber warning light all the trucks had as it passes over. I got my first experience at filling out accident forms to that day!

I'd say the very worst truck of them all was a mid '80's Dodge 6 cylinder with standard transmission. By now I was assigned to the valley all the time and the department was expanding in areas and staff. We had two shifts, Sunday to Wednesday and Wednesday to Saturday, four- ten hour shifts. The S-10 had been regulated to a spare for mileage and I was assigned one of the two new Dodge 1/2 tons to share with another ACO. Since at this time there weren't enough trucks for everyone to have their own units, everybody had to share trucks for a while. It was full sized 1/2 ton and they'd again put a set of Datsun cages on this one also. It was another attempt at 'economy', that also didn't work! Even with the supposedly lighter weight of the smaller cages, the Dodge was a totally gutless, powerless, piece of you know what! It was sooooo slow it could be a hazard getting on the freeway. And going up to the mountains as I had to do on several occasions was down to second gear with the motor screaming to go 25 miles per hour! I drove it on my shift and Diane drove it on her shift. We rode together on Wednesdays if we were both at work until the Program Manager found out everybody was having too much fun riding together on Wednesdays.

As the years passed the county finally realized that they'd get more money back on their investments at auction and resale if they'd spring for a few more options when they ordered them from fleet sales. So with the 1989 models we started to get cloth seats (so much nicer then the hot vinyl seat covers), AM and FM radios, and even a few like the 1991 Ford I got, had cruise control. That 1991 Ford 3/4 ton was I'd say my favorite truck out of 25 years. Dual gas tanks and 13 MPG it had a great range over the single tanked 6 to 8 MPG 1980's Chevy's.

In the early days you'd get a truck while yours was in for service with no 'outside' radio at all so I'd bring a small AM/FM radio and hang it on the gun rack in those trucks. Now with the Ford, AM/FM stereo was sooooo nice. But I'd discovered audio books by then so I wanted to take those with me and listen on those long drives.
After several trial and error experiments with different portable battery powered radio/cassette players, I created what I called a "Radio Box". I took a relatively inexpensive plastic tool box and on the back side of it I installed an mid priced auto AM/FM cassette deck, decent sounding car speakers, and on the front side that became the backside when finished, I quickly learned I needed to cool it so I put a switched 12 volt cooling fan to draw cool air through and keep the radio from getting too hot. It was all wired in to a 12 volt power cord and cigarette lighter plug. Although I seldom used it for the radio part, I always installed a powered radio antenna on it too. Relatively compact it would be held in place on the passenger side of the seat by the seat belt going through the tool boxes handle.
That was the way it was for several years. I made about a dozen Radio Boxes over the time, some for friends too. I also tried to find the 'perfect' one in what I wanted to sound good. The biggest or "ultimate" radio box was fairly large box with a CB radio at the bottom, a 6 band equalizer in the middle, and a AM/FM, Cassette player on top. Two large 6 by 9 three way speakers in a kind of cat's eye arrangement on the box. I wound up putting a piece of of wood on the bottom to help stabilize the whole thing because it was a bit heavy and top heavy also. But it sounded so good!
If I had to trade trucks for a few days, as long as the next truck had a lighter plug adapter, I was fine.

Over the years the trucks got nicer, the gas mileage got better. You practically lived in the things with on-call and over time it was often more like 60 hours a week in the summertime, they were your office, your transportation to calls and then to the animal shelters, thousand of miles a month. Reliability and comfort were really important as far as I was concerned! And others felt that way too. I just wished they'd had gotten extended cab trucks. Many area agencies got them when they started to become popular. The people that had them loved the extra space in the cab. The county did start to get a few of that style but only right before we left the county so I never got to do more than drive one a couple of times.

Started out almost everything was Chevy, then for years it was Dodge, then Fords for about two years, then back to Chevy and Dodge both with just before we left the county some Fords again. For years it was always "low Bid" won as far as the brand, later since the department started to be billed directly for the trucks it became whatever was available in the county that mixed the brands up a bit.
My last ACO field truck was a 2000 Ford 3/4 ton truck. My Last truck at all was a 2000 Chevy 1 ton pick up when I was a supervisor. And that fancy AM/FM, Cassette, CD player from the last radio box was put into the dash of this truck. But since 2003 Stacy and I had been listening to XM Satellite Radio at home and work. So I had my XM radio plugged into the truck radio with the cassette adapter. Best sounding set up by far! The sound, the choices, music, news, old radio shows, audio books and the biggest thing was (is) the fact that wherever you where it sounded just as good, never went back to regular radio!

The supervisors wanted people to be able to tow trailers also. That was why in the late 1990's all the trucks were at least 3/4 ton sized. To be able to tow the horse and stock trailers the department had. In the early 2000's the department sprung for a tow able lift bed trailer for large dead livestock or loads that, especially with dead livestock, be dumped at the rendering plant on arrival. It also had a 6,000 which installed on the front to help pull up any large deads. Through most of the years there had a been a designated truck for dead pick ups. With a built in which and a lift gate, I remember seeing it going down the road with horse hooves sticking out the top.
The towable tilt bed dead trailer was a much better idea, after the bugs were worked out! The early winches didn't have the power to pull up a dead anything larger than a sheep, I know I was the one trying to load a dead horse! A heavier winch was installed then it was great for large things like a horse, except the only one car sized battery didn't have the juice to work more than a few minutes before going dead. Nobody had thought about hooking it up to the towing truck to keep it charged up. Ultimately they did though, and then it was kind of overkill. The maintenance yards were concerned of a possible fire if the wiring overheated while the winch was being used. So a giant plug with large diameter wiring was installed on all supervisor trucks only, to keep it charged and ready when used. Then it all worked great.

In early 2003 the department got a small 24 foot tow hauler trailer as it's emergency "Command Post". The toy hauler was picked for its flexibility of hauling 'things' as well as providing a place for staff to eat and sleep if needed. A small shower/toilet combo bathroom, fold down benches/beds, stove, fridge, air conditioning and with a generator for out in the boondocks situations. Since I had RV's I towed it on several occasions it was used. Even though the truck I was assigned was a one ton Chevy, it didn't have the engine to adequately tow this somewhat lightweight trailer. In the fires of September 2003 I could barely make it up the mountain towing it. Just too heavy and the engine too small!

Oh well. I guess enough for now! Tad