JULY 1997

I grew up, among other places, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. As a teenager, I was out one night, just rambling East bound on W. Lakeview Road, a disaffected youth, with their disaffected friends looking for mischief that we were sure to find near the Tumbleweed Dance Hall. “The Weed” is an iconic country western bar, full of shit-kickers and rednecks that might give a teenager a long neck after closing time. While the area is more developed today, it was solidly “the country” then, even if it was technically just outside of the city limits of that big cow town. Giant jacked up pick up trucks, with pipes and stacks that bellowed black smoke were common sights and sounds as they dangerously sped up and down those roads. However, when one of these wasn’t passing it was quiet enough that you would hear even a more modest vehicle coming from miles away. My friends and I had just made it over the top of a hill, when the blinding headlights and roaring engine of one of these trucks snuck up behind us! We all jumped off the road into the ditches, so surprised by the impossible appearance of such a thundering vehicle! The truck never passed though! The headlights and engine sounds just cut out. It was dead quiet except for the hollering in the distance by The Weed. We all ran back to the top of the hill as fast as our legs would take us and looked West down the road. There was absolutely nothing there! We were all thinking it, but nobody wanted to say it. Were we just visited by a phantom truck? At once we started an ad-hoc investigation. County Road 3290 was too far West for the vehicle to have coasted back down the hill with its lights cut in neutral, and the only other turn offs were into private residences that we knew the owners of and were either gated, or we trespassed on immediately in order to see if it could have possibly turned off. We found nothing and checked in with the neighbors the next day. Our only conclusion was that we had seen a bona fide phantom lifted truck; it’s passengers probably on their way to The Weed for a cold beer, calf fry, and some good ol’ fashioned two steppin’!

Submitted by Thesp