Immense mutual admiration, passion, and pride are evident when chatting with Doug and Ash Orringe. An undeniable bond is clear. Yet it was a simple newspaper advertisement back in 1959 that has led to a combined 110 years in the transport industry for this proud father-and-son team.

Doug’s dash through the decades

Doug Orringe had no interest at all in trucks until he visited his Uncle Fred. While reading his uncle’s newspaper, he noticed a job advertised for an apprentice diesel mechanic at EF Nattrass, an International Harvester agent in Napier. He applied and was successful above 20 other applicants. During his two and a half years working on trucks and machinery, Doug wasn’t inclined to drive trucks.

“A chap named Hugh McAllister would often pop into the workshop. Over time, Hugh pestered me to come and drive for him and carry out some mechanical duties as well.”

This led to what would become a lifetime career on (and off) the highways of New Zealand. “In 1962, my first driving job was on the Napier-Taupo Road, just after they built the current Mohaka Bridge. We carted metal for the road rebuild and maintenance work. The first truck I drove was an ex-RFL S Bedford tractor unit with a tipper on the back. I’ll never forget coming up past the Mohaka Bridge, metalling the new road near Waitara Road. The truck had a very short tipper body. You had to make sure you tripped it early, otherwise it would rear up with the wheels off the ground.

“A great day was the day we sat under the new bridge and watched them blow up the old Mohaka Bridge. It was pretty amazing – like watching a movie. It all just floated down the river. You wouldn’t get away with that these days.”

Doug progressed to an International AA164 petrol, blue diamond motor. It was a 4×2 with a six-yard tipper back then. “We metalled the road from the tip of the Titiokura Hill to the Rangataiki Plains. The roads were mostly gravel, with some sealed parts.

“Hugh got a job metalling a new road at Maungataniwha (a 6120-hectare native forest in northern Hawke’s Bay), a couple of hours’ drive from civilisation. The road was going to be used for carting out the native logs.

“I was based in Napier then, still living at home, a townie, so not used to the bush living. All we had at Maungataniwha was an old railway hut with a potbelly stove, a couple of bunks and a table. No running water, no nothing. We had to go down to the stream to get water. We would stay in the hut up there for a month at a time. We were out in the middle of nowhere, carting the metal and grading the road. In the morning, one of us would start the dozer (an Allis Chalmers HD16), while the other cooked breakfast. Then we would swap over and the other person would clean up. We did the same at dinner time. There were always two of us on the dozer during the summer, but in winter, I was there on my own, metalling and grading the road … and doing a lot of hunting.

“One day up in the bush, I was dying to cut down a tree… Nobody ever said you couldn’t. I saw this massive bloody rimu. I had a Canadien chainsaw, but I realised it wasn’t long enough. I thought to myself ‘this is gonna be a cock-up’. I went round and round, cutting… Next thing I hear crack, crack, crack and down it went. I thought, ‘if it lands on the road, I’ll be in the shit!’ Luckily it went down a deep ravine. I’ve always wanted to go back and see if that log is still there.”

It wasn’t all isolation. At times Doug would come out of the bush job to help road metalling contracts on the Napier to Wairoa road. He reckons those six years working up at Maungataniwha were the “best days of my life”. During this time, he met and courted young Kathy. They married in 1968, and three children (Kerryn, Ashley and Stephanie) soon followed.

Doug had always hankered to drive a log truck. “When I was up at Maungataniwha, T.Doidge Ltd had a truck in there, a brand-new petrol R190 International driven by Tony Bekkers. This truck really impressed me. I was a real big fan of International trucks. The gear was so big, compared with what we were used to. Doidges then got ‘Brutus’ an ex-NZFP Sterling, rebuilt by Ross Todd Motors with an International cab (New Zealand Trucking, October 2020 – ‘With Heart and Soul’). I was even more impressed with this truck. I would park up the grader, stop Tony, and cadge a ride back to camp. I loved it so much, I pestered Rotorua log-truck operator Bob Woolston for a job. He ended up ringing me and he said, ‘I’ve got a brand new International F1800 for you to drive.’ I told Hugh I wanted to leave today. His reply was, ‘You can f&%k off now, but if you stay, you can have a Ford D1000 truck and trailer and I’ll pay you $1.50 an hour.’ I had been on $1 an hour, so it was a pretty good increase. I decided to go to Bob Woolston, even though he was only paying 98c an hour. I would have my own truck there and no double-shifting. I didn’t want to share.” Doug started with Bob (RG Woolston) in 1969.

“I have fond memories of that F1800. It was a bloody nice truck to drive, with the twin stick gearboxes, a fivespeed main and four-speed auxiliary. Bob Woolston really looked after me. When I was cold in that truck, he gave me an order number and said, ‘Here, go and get yourself a heater.’ It was a Natra heater wired into the truck. I was rapt!” (It wasn’t until the 1970s that most trucks had heaters from new.)

After a year on the F1800, Doug moved on to an International DCF400 6×4 tractor unit, with an 8V71 Detroit engine and 13-speed Roadranger gearbox. A single-axle dolly and a twoaxle long-pole trailer followed behind. First, he carted logs out of the Kaingaroa Forest to the Napier Port. However, the work changed and he had to decide whether to finish up or move the family to Rotorua. The move took place, and Doug was soon carting logs to Mount Maunganui.

Over time, Doug dreamed of having his own truck. “I always thought, ‘If I win the Golden Kiwi, I’m gonna go to Tokoroa, give someone all of the winnings and say ‘I’ll have your truck.’”

In 1971, Doug’s brother-inlaw, Robbie (Grant Robinson), stopped him and said, “There are two guys at the Mount looking for a driver for a Kenworth carting logs for NZFP [NZ Forest Products], Kinleith to the Mount.” These two men were Shirley Tadman and Brian McLean. Doug grabbed the opportunity and ended up driving a Kenworth LW923 with an NH250 Cummins, towing a two-axle spring trailer carting pine logs. After two years, Tadman McLean decided to sell up, allowing Doug the option of purchasing the Kenworth.

“I paid $30,000 for the truck and the goods and service licence. You had to go to court back then and stand in front of a judge to apply for the licence. It was only valid for a certain region of New Zealand, though. Mine covered South Waikato to the Taupo area and over to the Bay of Plenty. I couldn’t go to Auckland, couldn’t go to Napier. I could get as far as Taumarunui.”

The Kenworth purchase was the start of 16 years of truck ownership for Doug.

“I had that truck for five years before I bought a new Kenworth W924 in 1976, still with NZFP. It had an NTC350 Cummins and RTO9513 13-speed Roadranger gearbox. Back then, they came in knocked down and were assembled in Palmerston North. At the time, I owned a 1974 Valiant Regal V8 in ‘Sundown Yellow’. I said to Ron Wood, the painter, ‘I want the Kenworth the same colour as the Valiant.’ He copied the colour and chose to paint it the same design as Monfort Meats, a well-known trucking company in the USA.”

Doug upgraded the Kenworth in 1981 to another W924, adding more grunt with a CAT380 and 15-speed Roadranger. Roy Brown of Te Awamutu was the guy to add colour this time. “I asked for the same design, but Roy said ‘no, that’s old-fashioned’, so I let him paint it the way he wanted. Same colour, just a different design.

“Things were changing in the industry with maximum payload increased. I put a lazy axle under that truck for a better payload. You could only get 37 tonne gross with five axles. So with six, I could go to 39 tonne.

“After only a year or so, I decided to change again. I bought a four-axle Tidd hydra-steer quad bailey bridge trailer. The Kenworth wasn’t really suitable for the new trailer, with too little space between the cab and trailer when loaded. We had removed the bull bar, but it was still too tight.”

In 1983, Doug decided to replace the Kenworth with a cabover International Eagle F4870 with an NTC400 Cummins Big Cam 3. “That truck did a bloody outstanding job. It was an honest truck. I didn’t care how it looked. I bought it because it had plenty of room in it.

“I loved contracting to NZFP during those times. It was the best company, and the best people. I still follow NZFP on Facebook because of the great memories.”

Doug’s wife Kathy chimes in and comments: “Those were great days. There were no worries at all. You could pay your bills and have money in the bank. We were happy, with not a worry in the world.”

In 1984, Doug sold the Eagle to Arnold Hema, an NZFP driver, with Doug looking into a new venture. Unfortunately, that fell through. But then another opportunity arose to purchase a 375hp V8 Mack FR797, carting stock all over the North Island for Total Transport in Taupo.

Doug did not intend to drive the Mack full-time, so employed Graeme Benson, a top stock-truck driver. Doug had other plans up his sleeve. He teamed up with his mate, Gary Ross from Tokoroa and together purchased two Ford LTD limousines. “We were based in Tokoroa, but mainly worked out of Rotorua. Gary and I were chauffeurs for dignitaries and the very rich from around New Zealand and all over the world. There were multi-millionaires… I felt big time!”

Things weren’t going so well on the trucking side, however. The stock industry took a dive in the mid-1980s, and work for the Mack dried up. After sitting idle, it was sold to Chris Parker, another Total Transport stock-truck owner/driver.

Then came the 1987 sharemarket crash, and that really put a dampener on things, especially the limo industry. This put Doug’s backside firmly back in the seat of what he knew best, a logger, this time for Colin Sargison at RFH (Rotorua Forest Haulage).

“Back then, Colin only had five trucks. There may not have been many drivers, but there were plenty of shenanigans while we were there! Jim Paget and I had a discussion one Friday night over a few drinks. We decided the smoko room wasn’t big enough. I went home and got my chainsaw and before you know it, the wall was cut out into the empty room next door. Job done… bigger smoko room! Jim and I had some hard-case moments during my three years there.”

By 1990, Doug’s hometown of Napier was beckoning. A shift of town and a shift into the seat of a Wagner log stacker on the Napier Wharf. “Those were five years of great camaraderie and good times with an awesome crew. The truck drivers coming in to unload were the best. We also had the perfect manager, Phil Coulton. He was a great guy. If he were still there, I would still be there.”

Unable to settle, Doug moved back to Tokoroa to take on a log-splitting contract at Kinleith. “The price was too low, so I decided not to accept. My old logging manager and mate, Bob Third, had previously said, ‘If it doesn’t work out, I’ve got a job for you on the log stackers at Kinleith.’ I decided to take up that offer and ended up there for seven years. I still did the odd bit of driving – mainly on a Friday night on my son-in-law Jamie Stephen’s truck.”

By 2002, Doug was yearning to own his own truck again and get back into the industry full-time. He purchased an ex-Panpac 1985 CAT-powered Mack Super-Liner, with a Caterpillar 3406B engine, kitted out with a Jacobs and a BrakeSaver. Contracted to RFH, he was carting logs mainly from Kinleith to Mount Maunganui.

The Super-Liner purchase led Doug into a new chapter in his life, teaming up with son Ash, who was in the process of purchasing his first truck. In 2005, they formed LMC Roadways, known as Orringe Trucking.

The Ash dash

Trucking had always involved the kids in the Orringe family. Doug and Ash recall trucking together in those early days, when Ash was just a kid.

“The kids rode with me a lot. I remember one trip down to Tauranga-Taupo on a Sunday. I took Kerryn and Ash – they were about five and three at the time. Whenever I took Ash in the truck, he would fall asleep. I would always put him on the floor to sleep while Kerryn had the seat. With each corner of the road, Ash would slide across the floor and end up under my clutch pedal. I had to lean down and push him back to the other side so my clutch pedal didn’t hit him in the head!

“I carted Ash everywhere with me – after school, school holidays, as much as possible, really.”

Ash pipes up, “Orringe base to 891. We had a CB radio at home. After school, I would call up Dad and try and get a ride somewhere. Sometimes I would be watching TV and I would hear ‘891 to Orringe Base’. I was there like a shot to see if I could head off somewhere with Dad.

“When I was four years old, my uncle asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I said ‘truck driver’. He laughed at me, and I wondered why. I just wanted to be like my dad. He was my hero, and he still is.

“I thought every kid at school had a dad driving logging trucks. The first time I realised not every kid’s dad drove trucks, I felt sorry for all of the other kids – they didn’t get to ride with their dads in a Kenworth logging truck!

“I was in my dad’s truck as many hours as possible, even wagging school to have rides around the countryside. I spent hours getting dirty, pulling tyres off, and touching all the greasy bits. I did this so I could use the Swarfega [industrial handwash] to wash all the dirt and grease off. One day at the Doidge yard in Tokoroa, Roger Clotworthy gave me a big growling. I had used way too much Swarfega. I had it right up my arms… I was covered in it! He was not impressed at all.

“I was as happy as a pig in mud, being around trucks, lying underneath them, getting as dirty as I could … like my dad. I would wash Dad’s truck for the reward of being allowed to rev the truck’s engine to a maximum of 1500rpm. Sometimes I would rev for up to three hours while Dad was having a beer upstairs with the boys. I was stoked. I didn’t need to drive a truck when I could do plenty of revving!

“When I was about 17 and truck-mad, I was still riding around with Dad. As always, I knew I wanted to be a truck driver and needed to learn more. I continued to spend as much time as possible with Dad, learning from my idol.

“Whenever we left the Mount empty, Dad would let me drive back to Rotorua. That was the highlight of my week. My first experience on a loaded truck was from Paengaroa to Kawerau with Dad beside me. He was giving me instructions the whole way, ‘Go left, go right, change down, change up.’ I’m changing up through the gears when suddenly Dad yells, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, turn right here.’ Luckily, even as a young fella, I knew not to turn suddenly. I hit the picks and kept it straight because I didn’t want to turn the truck upside down! This led to my first practise backing up a road. I had to back up to the intersection, before cars started lining up behind me. I had Dad yelling at me the whole time. ‘Didn’t you see the f&$king sign saying Kawerau?’

“In 1988, as soon as I turned 18, I wanted to get my HT licence. Colin Sargison let me use one of his trucks to sit my licence. He also organised a job for me with Murray Jackson in Rotorua.

“My first truck was an International S-line with a 270 Cummins, pulling a transporter with a roller and digger on, the machines used in the roller-spreading of chip seal for roading.

“Galatea Transport would regularly get their trucks serviced at the Jackson workshop. I loved the look of their trucks. They always had a great paint job and looked cool. It was my dream to work for them.”

That dream was to come true when Leon Batchelor turned up one day to offer Ash a job. “I spent the next two years working with a bunch of young guys, all learning off each other and helping each other. We carted general freight on flat decks with freight gates. You put your gates up, then you tarped it. I remember getting back to the yard after a really wet night. I had about 50 boxes of oil heaters stacked up on top of each other. The rain got on the deck. I didn’t realise you should never put cardboard straight onto the deck – there should have been pallets first. Leon said, ‘If you’re not going to stack your freight properly, I’ll take the freight gates off you. See how good you are then!’ I learned from that day on, to take more care with the stuff I’m carting. Someone has to pay for those damages.”

At 20 years old, Ash had a six-month stint driving his brother-in-law Jamie Stephens’ ERF E-Series, ‘Madison Blues’ at Trailways/ Owens Road. Soon after, Ash took up a position in Tokoroa with John Thomson, on NZFP731, a 1989 Mack Super-Liner off-highway double unit. The rig hauled 100-ton loads to the Kinleith Mill, with the regular make-up being 12m export logs on the front trailer and 8m export on the back.

“I also spent time on John’s 1979 R797 375hp V8 Mack, known as ‘Galactica’. This started my love of V8 Macks.

“John was a great teacher. One day, he gave me the biggest telling off. I had been slacking on maintenance and hadn’t been adjusting the brakes and doing the basics. I was extremely embarrassed and pretty much pulled my pants up from that day on! I remember thanking John for that. He made me realise I needed to take responsibility for my gear.

“John is also grandfather to my twin boys, Sam and Tyler. The boys would often come for rides with me in the Super- Liner. One day, they went for a ride with John out to the back blocks behind Raglan. It rained and rained, and everyone got stuck. The boys had to spend about 18 hours in the middle of nowhere, stuck in the truck. That was the day they decided trucking was not for them!”

During Ash’s NZFP years, Doug was living in Napier and was not always available for mentoring. Ash was very appreciative of the help and watchful eyes from a few of the older guys he worked alongside at NZFP. “I learned a lot watching those guys and always took their advice.

“I overtook Gary Paltridge one day on the Maungatapu Highway (Tauranga to Mount Maunganui). When he arrived at the wharf, he grabbed me and told me ‘never do that again’. He said, ‘If your old man saw you do that, he would kick your ass.’ I respected him and pulled my head in and learned to be a better operator.”

After a short time of relief driving and a few months driving in Australia, Ash’s driving career took him to Mount Maunganui-based TD Haulage in 1994. “I spent two years falling in love with my 1984 Kenworth W924, running an 8V92 Detroit Diesel engine. I decided one day it would look really cool if I polished the bins. Once I started, there was no going back! In total, I spent 10 full days polishing bins over several months. It was worth it, they looked amazing. People still remember me doing it, today. TD Haulage was a company full of super-truckers, so I was honoured to be part of the team, at only 25 years old.”

In his early 30s, Ash had a brief move to Whangarei to drive a self-loader Mack Ultra-Liner 454 for Paragon Haulage, followed by a stint as night-shift driver for Ivor Gainsford in Rotorua, then a return to John Thomson, carting for Total Transport.

By his mid-30s, in 2005, Ash was ready to purchase his own truck. “Matt Purvis of Total Transport helped me into my own 2005 Freightliner Argosy. It had a 90” sleeper cab and ran a Cummins Gen-2 Signature at 620hp. It should have been called ‘Rocket Ship’ because it went like one!”

This Freightliner purchase marked the beginning of Ash’s half of the Orringe Trucking partnership.

Team Orringe

As Orringe Trucking, Doug and Ash purchased a P510 Pacific with 444 Cummins, painted in RFH colours. This replaced Doug’s ex-Panpac Mack Super-Liner.

Ash laughs: “We parked up the Mack on the front lawn for a year. It was our new garden ornament! Nobody wanted it back then. We couldn’t get rid of it. We ended up selling it for $10,000 just to get it off the lawn. These days you could probably sell it for $100,000 with Super-Liners being so rare.”

After two years of Ash driving the Argosy, it was sold. He moved on, and John Thomson’s Scania R144, 580hp, V8 logger with RFH was purchased. “Dad drove the Scania and I jumped on the Pacific, which I found was too slow. It was like going back a hundred years. We decided to look for something else and a 1997 FLB Freightliner with N14 525 Cummins came up. It had a 31.5-tonne payload capability. “Unfortunately, that truck was trouble from day one.”

Doug and Ash continued their father/son partnership for more than a decade. With the logging industry fluctuating, Orringe Trucking decided to diversify and purchased a 1994 525 V8 Mack Ultra-Liner log deck to utilise backloading options.

Team Orringe opted to finish with RFH and became shareholders of CCC (Challenge Carrying Company). “This gave us the security of permanent work with no downtime. We were never parked up,” says Ash.

A new Western Star came along in 2011. A 4884 with Cummins ISX EGR fitted with Koromiko logging gear. “It was a great-performing truck,” says Ash. “It was a relief to have decent, reliable gear. I made the mistake of letting Dad have a week on nights. He loved the quiet roads and wouldn’t let me back on nightshift.”

Ash’s face lights up when talking about the Western Star. “When that truck arrived, I decided I wanted to do something as a tribute to Dad. I wanted to paint it like his 1976 Kenworth. It had the very well-known colour scheme of Monfort Meats, from Colorado in America. They had the fastest, biggest gear in the States, with the biggest horsepower. In America, they call the fast lane on their interstates the ‘Monfort Lane’ because their trucks were always in that lane, being the most powerful trucks on the road at that time.

“The Western Star had too much bling, and I wanted to bring it back a bit more oldschool. It was all about the paint job. Lots of pinstriping, scrolls, lights and bold colour rather than stainless.”

“The Scania was the next truck to go,” recalls Doug. “I was glad to see the back of it. The best day was the day I saw the Scania drive away with someone else owning it. That thing cost us a lot of money.”

The Western Star continued under the Orringe Trucking banner for four years, being doubleshifted by Doug and Ash. The industry continued to change, making it no longer sustainable for them. Their shares in CCC were sold and the father/son driving team went their separate ways.

Ash’s current dash

Ash stayed behind the wheel of the Western Star for two more years at Aztec Logging before selling. His career has brought him to Brett Marsh Transport, where he has “loved three years on good gear, with good pay, a great team, and good people to work for”.

Ash is currently driving Brett’s 2019 S730 Scania. “I’m all around the country and loving it. I’m living the dream.

“I’m also lucky to have a supportive wife. Back in 2013, after dating Colette for a couple of months, I took her for a ride up into the Mamakus for a load of logs back to the port. While I was hooking up the trailer, the drawbar moved to the right before reaching the ring feeder. I pulled it back, and my thumb got caught as it missed the ring feeder. It took about 1cm off the end of my left thumb. I finished setting up the truck to be loaded and walked to the passenger side of the truck to get my firstaid kit from under the seat. I casually asked Colette if she was OK with blood. She said ‘Ohhh yeah, why?’ I showed her my thumb. She fell to bits and started blubbering. I grabbed a bandage, wrapped it up and wrapped some insulation tape around it to hold it on. I tried not to make a big deal about it, despite it hurting like hell every time I changed gear. I didn’t want Colette to think I was a sook! Colette thought it was just a normal trucking thing to lose thumbs and stuff. After returning to the yard and swapping with Dad, I went to hospital, where they removed some bone so it could heal. Colette reckons that’s why she married me … she wanted a tough Kiwi bloke!”

Doug’s dash to semi-retirement

With the Orringe Trucking partnership over, Doug’s memories of the years spent building roads at Maungataniwha drew him back to the place he had loved so much. JB Logging (John Burt) provided an opportunity to return. At 71 years old, Doug climbed into a Western Star 6900 with 600hp Cummins EGR engine, carting stems off-highway. “I enjoyed close to two years back up there, reliving the memories.”

Age is no barrier for Doug. The past three years have seen a selection of part-time driving jobs on both trucks and loaders. Now, at nearly 77 years old, Doug can be found on a local tipper truck with Addline Transport. “I’m enjoying it. I don’t want to sit around and do nothing.

“I’ve had over 61 years in the industry, and I wouldn’t change it.”

The Orringe Influence

Doug Orringe is an old-school legendary truckie who has created lasting impressions and great memories for a current legendary truckie, Bruce ‘Roadie’ Clotworthy.

“I was about 12 or 13 when I first met Doug. He used to park his truck at Doidge’s yard in Tokoroa. I would be hanging out at the yard a lot with Dad (Roger Clotworthy). I looked up to Doug, mainly because he had a Kenworth!

“I would try and ride in Doug’s logging truck whenever I could in the school holidays and on weekends. If Doug’s son, Ash, wasn’t in the passenger seat, I was! When us young fellas rode around in the passenger seat, that’s where we did our learning. Once we’d had a ride, of course, you’d wash the truck as payment. Washing it also meant we would be able to drive the truck around the yard and park it up. We would do anything to be able to do that!

“When I was about 14 or 15, Doug would let me drive his Kenworth down to Hutt Timber, about half a kilometre down the road from the yard. They had a gantry, so I would lift the trailer up or down and drive back to the yard. Ash would help me wash the truck, and he would come for a ride with me. He was just a young boy then.

“By the time I was 16 or 17, Doidges’ moved their yard further up the road, so it was a couple of Ks drive along to Hutt Timber. Sometimes Doug would come with me, but often it was just Ash and me. That drive was along the main road through Tokoroa. I had a car licence but no truck licence.

“I used to love going for rides with Doug, off-highway, up into the bush. Doug would jump out and start talking to the bush crew. He would say to me, ‘Here, back it under the hook, Bruce.’ I would back it up, lift the trailer off and then connect it back up to the truck, ready for the next load of logs. All the while, Doug would still be chatting to the foreman.

“Once I had my truck licence and was serving my time at TRT in Hamilton, I would come home on the weekend and drive for Doug on a Saturday. I would take his Kenworth 350 up the off-highway and pick up logs for local mills or export for the Mount.

“Doug gave me valuable experience back then on a truck that I loved. Nearly 50 years on, Doug and I are still friends today.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Doug would like to thank all the friends and colleagues who have offered and given him valuable help over the years. You will all know who you are. “You learn something new every day and right up until today, I am still learning,” he says.

Ash would like to thank his Dad for “always being there, being my best mate and great role model”. He would also like to acknowledge John Thomson and Ivor Gainsford, who have “both provided a bundle of knowledge and helped me out when I was starting out”. Thanks go to Leon Batchelor and Ra, who “took on young guys, trained us up and gave us opportunities”. Lastly, Brett and Leonie Marsh. “I thought about giving up trucks. I was only going to work for them for six months, but three years later, I’m still there! It’s such a great place to work.”

A note from the writer: It has to be noted, chatting with Doug Orringe was an incredibly entertaining experience. If I had a dollar for every time Doug said, “Oh, that’s another funny story”, I would be a wealthy woman. His stories were endless. In fact, I think he should write a book.