Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/634029
Diversions February 2016 | Overdrive | 39 Sideburns? Check. Cabovers? Check. Hardcore CB chatter? Check. Yes, we're talking 1970s trucking. Specifically, 1979 – the tail end of that decade's trucking craze, popularized by CB lingo, trucker hats and trucker movies. That was also the year when a little-known film collective in San Francisco, Optic Nerve, produced "On the boulevard." The half-hour trucking doc- umentary shows the real thing: drivers talking about the struggles of surviving as an owner-operator, being apart from their families, taking pride in running without authority and dodging scales. "We were really into doc- umenting different aspects of American culture we didn't know much about," recalls Lynn Adler, who was part of Optic Nerve. The filmmakers also made a documentary on California rodeo cowboys. They did another on a Cal- ifornia beauty pageant. And with trucker shut- downs in the 1970s being in the news, Optic Nerve seized the opportunity to interview truckers and ex- hibitors in 1974 at the 10th International Truck Show in San Francisco. "One thing that attract- ed us to the independent owner-operator is that was what we were," being struggling independent filmmakers, says Adler. Some parts of Optic Nerve's 10-minute video The Optic Nerve crew, working from their motorhome, records truck- ing footage. Their two trucking videos have existed for years on the website of the University of California, Berkeley, Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. You can view both videos and read more details on them by searching "when filmmakers" at OverdriveOnline.com. Katherine Clendaniel is interviewed in her home and on the road in "On the boulevard." Jobie Vaden is among drivers featured in the half- hour documentary. Video gems reveal a bygone era BY MAX HEINE Photos © Lynn Adler