The Superior Express -

In last week's Notebook, I wrote about spelling. I thought the correct spelling was syphon but my word processing program's spell checker changed it to siphon and the dictionary agreed.

After reading last week's Notebook entry, a faithful reader and former resident of Superior, Arlen Sealock, shared a story regarding the correct spelling of the word. His father, Elmer Sealock, operated the Superior Truck Line.

Arlen's story follows:

The agency which regulated truck lines published a tariff book with all commodities listed with a rate class assigned to each. Dad was typing up freight bills and said, syphon didn't look right on the bill of lading. He asked me to look it up in the "Bible" (the rate book published by the state agency). Dad was typing a bill for the shipment of the tubes used for transferring water from an irrigation ditch to a corn field. Low and behold, I found the book spelled the irrigation tube as "syphon" tube. The rate book was as thick as the New York City telephone book. The highest rate listed was for ping-pong balls at 14 times the first class rate.

Now retired, Arlen previously worked as a computer systems engineer at Raytheon.

In late September, he shared the following story about his dad's business;

In the late 1940s and 1950s there were many shortline carriers in Nebraska. Dad was one of those carriers. State regulators issued permits that defined where the carriers could operate. The Superior Truck Line's regular permits were from Superior to Hastings via Highways 14 and 6. Superior to Naponee via Nebraska Highways 14 and 3 (Now U.S.136). He also had irregular permits that allowed operations from within six miles of the regular permit routes. The line also operated from Superior to Lincoln and Omaha but could not advertise or guarantee service.

Elmer offered good service and when needing an LCL carrier my dad specified Superior Truck Line provided the shipment originated in a town the line served.

Arlen has a picture of his dad's first tractor-trailer rig. It was a 1941 Chevrolet truck which came with the purchase of the truck line from Bill Houtz. To go with the truck, he purchased a used trailer from Brown Fruit. Some folks laughed at Elmer for pulling the trailer with a Chevrolet. It had previously been pulled by a chain driven Mack truck.

Arlen observed if a driver could back the Chevrolet and former Brown trailer, he could back anything,

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Our page arrangement last week proved to a challenge for some readers. Favorite features were not where they expected to find them. It looked like we needed to train one of our helpers how to count to 12 for they certainly did not go 1 to 12. Instead they went 1, 2, 11, 5, 10, 7, 8. 9. 6, 3 and 12.

The problem was in the press room. The plates were hung on the press in the wrong order. I saw the mistake as we were starting up and elected not to stop and make the changes.

Early Tuesday morning the National Weather Service warned we should expect sharp lighting and perhaps high winds at about the time we expected to be printing the papers. In response to the warning, we pulled out the stops and plowed ahead hoping we could finish our printing before the possible lost of power or a lightning strike that potentially could damage our press motors and control panel.

The press has a variable speed, 20 horsepower, direct current drive motor and a control panel which converts standard alternating current power to direct current. That apparatus is about 56 years old and is the main drive. In addition the press has eight fractional horse direct current motors which run specific parts of the dampening system.

Assuming these parts might be hard to get in a hurry, I've bought spare drive motors and controllers from press lines that were being shutdown. Hopefully they could be made to work with our press but until tested there is some element of doubt.

Hopefully, they will never be needed.

When the press was installed, we had nearby back up options. While we sometimes bought equipment from different manufactures, our goal in the early years was to have our shop and The Belleville Telescope's shop compatible. We have printed for the Telescope when they couldn't operate their press, and the Telescope has set type for us when we couldn't.

But the Telescope press was shut down about 15 years ago so we no longer have that backup option. Now it appears if our press goes down, we would either have to wait for repairs or go to Sheldon, Iowa, to have it printed.

There are closer presses but our systems are not compatible.

Our longtime press mechanic died before the pandemic. I've called three other mechanics. I have gotten promises that they would stop by but I've been waiting more than two years for that to happen. When asked when they are coming, they assure me they will keep our press running but we are located far away from their other customers. So far their phone assistance has been enough but I'd like to have their boots on our shop floor. We may be running but we need some tweaks.

So not want to risk a lightning strike taking out a running press, I made the decision to print the pages in the wrong order.

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Now this week I am worrying about rain. This area needs rain but I hope it doesn't come on Thursday while we are unloading paper. We are expecting a shipment of 50 rolls of newsprint to arrive Thursday morning from Quebec. It was to come last week, but the truck line called and said the shipper hadn't allowed enough travel time to reach our distant location.

The weather service puts the chances for a Thursday morning rain at 70 percent

. With a price tag of nearly $22,000, I don't want to risk getting that load wet and spoiling the paper.

The last load we received had been caught in a heavy downpour while in transit and the front of the trailer leaked a bit. We were however, able to separate the wet and dry rolls and dry the wet ones before the water soaked through the wrappers. We do not have enough floor space to do the same with 50 rolls.