RB-034 Piggyback

Leonard Grant's Canyon City Truck Lines are struggling to survive. His trucks can't handle the combination of mountainous roads and heavy snow and ice during the winters in and around the Knotty Pine area. In addition to tough roads, Len's trucks must compete against the railroads who can get in any sort of weather. Len buys new trucks with special gears for icy weather. The trucks also have road sanding equipment installed. The trucks are even traveling in groups of three for safety.
The railroads are having troubles of their own. They can't provide door-to-door service that their customers get from Len's trucks. And they aren't making money on many of their contracts.
Len's men and the railroad workers are fighting and arguing constantly. Can Bill do something, anything, to bring peace and harmony to this situation? Can he find any way for both companies to keep business and do it profitably?

Knotty Pine GAZETTE - Jefferson Box Opened

A locked wooden box discovered by Henry Scott in Ranger Bill Jefferson's attic was identified and opened yesterday. The box appears to be connected to a mystery going on at Ranger Headquarters concerning the origins of Big Pine Forest and Depression era workers called the "3C Boys."
Ranger Bill and Henry took the box to Masters Lock and Key to have its lock opened. Maggie Murphy arrived at the locksmith with a key that unlocked the box. Mrs. Murphy is housekeeper for Ranger Bill's co-worker Stumpy Jenkins. She said that Mr. Jenkins told her of the box with the initials "JJF" on the lid. Maggie said the box must have belonged to her oldest brother John Jeffery Flanigan. Maggie, along with Ranger Bill and Henry, found letters from her family to her brother, a diary, and more.
Maggie told the GAZETTE that her brother worked on a Knotty Pine CCC crew to help his family survive the Depression. John was also called Jack because so many Irish boys were named John then. Maggie was a baby when Jack worked as a 3C Boy. Jack came home to Ohio in the early 1940's with stories of a quaint little town that he helped build called Knotty Pine. The family eventually moved to Knotty Pine. Maggie has lived here ever since.

Thanks for your support!

Thank you one and all for your support of this Ranger Bill web site. On Fathers Day we reached the mark of 10,000 hits so far for 2009! What a wonderful Fathers Day gift!
And many thanks to HisKids for the wonderful Ranger Bill audio each week!!! The Ranger Bill Fan Club is most blessed to have such faithful Ranger Bill listeners and such good friends.
Have a blessed day everyone!
And again, my thanks,
Ranger Dave

Knotty Pine GAZETTE - More Big Pine Finds

The GAZETTE reported last week that boxes and a shovel were found at Big Pine Forest's ranger headquarters by Henry Scott, ward of Ranger Bill. These items appear to connect Knotty Pine's own Big Pine National Forest with the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930's and early 1940's. The Corps was a government program that gave jobs to unemployed young men during the Depression. These CCC boys were organized into camps of about 200 young men who built roads, planted trees, fought forest fires, and more.
Young Mr. Scott went to the Jefferson home to look for more CCC artifacts based on information found at ranger headquarters. Henry found a small wooden box which was locked. The box is inscribed with "3C Boys" and the initials "JJF." Ranger Bill tells the GAZETTE that the box looks very similar to the drawers in his desk at ranger headquarters. Ranger Bill believes that the 3C Boys may have built his desk. Henry and Ranger Bill do not want to break open this box if they can avoid it. They plan to see a locksmith to open the lock.
Anyone having any information about this box or about the CCC boys at Big Pine are asked to contact ranger headquarters or the GAZETTE.

RB033 Chinook

It's winter in the Shady Mountains. At least it's supposed to be. The dreaded Chinook winds are blowing. The winds make it 50 degrees in the mountains when it ought to be 15 degrees below zero. The snow in the Shadies is melting and filling up Mid-Mountain Dam and cracking off huge chunks of glacier ice. The rising waters and the moving ice are threatening Mid-Mountain and Knotty Pine Dams. The threat to Mid-Mountain Dam grows with each passing hour of thaw. The dam operators ask Bill and the boys to do something to stop the ice. Bill calls on the one person he thinks can stop the ice boulders - Frenchy DeSalle. How can logger Frenchy help Bill stop tons and tons of speeding ice flows?