What Was Your Favorite CB Handle?
Human beings are social creatures, but we aren’t alone in wanting to associate with our peers. Even bacteria is known to socially interact amongst themselves, and to protect themselves from threats. But what makes us unique is how and where we interact. We get our fix of social interaction in person, at a computer, on a dumb/smart phone, and even on the road. Since this is Hagerty and not the Science Channel, let’s marinate on that last concept.
There are many hands-free options to integrate a telephone into the audio system of almost any vehicle (thanks for that, Bluetooth), but how did we perform the same action before the advent of the cellular phone?
Many of you already know the answer, and the advent of the citizens band radio forever altered the way we rolled down the highway. And that’s where a previous installment of According To You comes into focus, namely a comment from one of our most beloved community members:
“You once got several articles out of vanity/personalized license plates – how about one on creative CB “handles?” (By the way, I think “Holy Cow” was brilliant, and your dad just gained all kinds of style points in my book.)
Of course, I started driving semi-trucks in the late ’60s and really put on the miles in the ’70s, right when the CB phase was at its peak (along with cowboy boots) in trucking. And sure, when we piled into the family car to make a trip in those days, the CB came out of the rig and went right along with us. Each of my kids got handles and each took turns calling out to find out where the Smokeys were up ahead. Great fun.
In my trucking life, the CB was as important as having an empty bottle on board (TMI?), and it saved me more than once. I suppose that most of the truckers today are just using their cell phones for a lot of what we relied on our CBs to do. Auto drivers, too. But honestly, I would still consider digging out the ol’ Cobra 29 and sparking it up if I was driving across the country again!”
Hagerty Community Member DUB6
So do DUB6 and me a favor, and tell us what your favorite CB handle was back in the day! (Or maybe even now?)
***
Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.
My friend had a brand new Cosworth Vega and wanted his handle to be “Twin Cam Man” But given the fidelity of the CB radio, this quickly became Tin Can Man” which in retrospect, also seems perfectly appropriate.
I drove sleeper-team with a guy named Gene for a bit. Gene had had his right forearm “removed” in a sawmilling accident and wore a metal hook contraption. Gene was one of the neatest characters I ever met, and you shoulda seen him run through the gears in a twin stick KW by holding the wheel with his hook and reaching through with his left hand – amazing! The only thing he wasn’t terribly good at was stacking freight that was coming down a track fast. Lotta holes punched in cardboard boxes when Gene got to flinging things around. 😜 He was a great storyteller and jokester. I really enjoyed my time teamed with him.
CB handle? Depending on his mood, he went by either Captain Hook or The Happy Hooker on the radio.
CB handles were a bit before my time.
I do call my buddy and leave a message on the phone. “Bandit this is the Snowman Bandit. You want yo meet at the Choke and Puke for a Diablo sandwich and a Dr Pepper.
He has a Trans Am.
This is definitely not the right place to do this, but here goes: Sajeev, we’ve been seeing the news about the devastation in Houston and Mrs. DUB6 and I send our hopes that you’ve escaped the worst of it. We wish your city a speedy recovery. With floods and storm damage from Minnesota to the Gulf and fires in California, our country has taken a natural disaster beating this summer.
I think there is no wrong place to check on someone’s well being, and thank you for asking.
My house is fine, I am fine, but I have no power and even cell service was out for a while too. It was a pretty bad storm, but we’ve gone through stronger hurricanes in the past 20 years with far less inconvenience. And that is frustrating, and a bigger problem for those who aren’t as fortunate as me.
I was a rookie OTR driver in about 1970. Previously, I’d only done local pick-up and delivery (like in a bulk milk tanker visiting local dairies and delivering product to valley grocery stores). Until I got on as a driver hauling flatbed loads of lumber from Idaho mills to California, I’d never had or used a CB. The guy who was showing me the ropes (before I was let loose to ‘solo’) installed his on the dash of the old Frieghtliner COE and we set out. Someone hailed us and he wanted me to answer. I had no idea what to do, so he grabbed the mike. He asked me my handle (to which he only got a blank stare in response). In those days I was smoking White Owl cigars, and a box of them was on the dash. He gave the hailer his handle and said he was accompanied by “One White Owl” – and thus my very first CB handle was created.
Im bias; I liked mine the best – the “BushWacker”.
I had CB’s in all of my cars from 1983 – 2021 nothing better than knowing where Smokey Bear was waiting for a triple digit traveler. I also avoided some serious inter state back ups! My handle was the “Hare Srambler” sadly with truckers yacking on their cell phone headsets so much I found it almost impossible to get Smokey reports so I finally gave up on my last couple of cars.
My first wife’s stepfather was a trucker, so, when we went on vacation together, he would toss a CB into my van with a stick-on antenna. My handle was “Sidewinder.”
We borrowed my dad’s ’72 Pinto for a road trip once. I tucked my CB inside and cobbled an antenna on it. Seemed reasonable to me to use “Mini-Mustang” as my handle on that trip.
Classmate of mine lost his legs in Vietnam. He had a car with hand controls and a CB. Literally standing in a wheelchair all the time, his CB handle was “Chief Ironsides”.
👍
In 1972 my first company car was an AMC Matador coupe. As I was doing a 750 mile round trip, Toronto to Montreal to see a girlfriend (future wife then and still) every three weeks a CB radio was a necessity. Communicating with truckers and other CB users on Highway 401 saved me many tickets I”m sure.
I got many waves when meeting someone I had been talking to travelling in the opposite direction when they recognised the car and the connection with my handle. My handle was “The Bullfighter” of course!
Of course! Fitting!
My handle was “Brown Eyes”. I will never forget the time we were going from Texas to Pennsylvania and my friend was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him up and every time we traveled thru Tennessee, I would get lost so since he was asleep, I got on the CB and asked for help and 2 friendly truckers helped me out. They put me in the rocking chair and helped me to get thru Nashville Tenn. I was driving a big pickup and a Harley on the back and pulling an Airstream. The CB’s were a great help.
Creeping out of the parking lot of the NHRA Spring Nationals in Columbus, Ohio, in the early ’70s, at the height of the CB craze, the radio in our car was alive with chatter. Pretty soon, the group conversation came around to the traffic. Nothing much happened until the young woman in our car picked up the microphone to ask for directions. “Who is this,” someone asked. “Magnolia Thunderpussy,” was her reply.
The radio exploded.
Yoikes. I imagine it did!
Back in the 70s in South Jersey a friend dated a young woman who drove a Corvette. Her CB handle was Eager Beaver.
My handle was “NOMAD” I had a 1955 Nomad at the time.
Back when CBs were usable, before the overpowered armchair wannabees started blowing us off the air, my handle was “Chain Drive”, as I and my two sons were also superbikers. My handle got some comments from truckers when they saw me pass ‘rather rapidly’ on the western Interstates in a modified Pantera!