By News Hub Staff
Have you heard of Taylor Drift?
Yes, Drift, not Swift.
This catchy name, given to an orange Cedar Falls city plow, by a diehard Swiftie fan, brings an instant smile and a wink to those who hear it or see it emblazoned on the front of the plow’s windshield.
A city initiative to show appreciation for the work of plow operators, the hardworking Public Works employees at the frontline of every winter storm, invited residents to tap into their creativity and come up with names for 24 of the city plows. As part of the process, nine were named by students from the town’s elementary schools and the remaining by residents.
Close to 300 submissions were entered, many of them funny and pun-like, like Sleetwood Mac, Mr. No Cancelation, Edgar Allen Plow, Darth Blader and Roundabout Rescue, among others. Taken together, all the names, which are listed below, represent the collective wit, making it hard for members of the ad hoc selection committee to come up with a short list. The playfully named plows do a serious job of keeping the city streets safe thanks to the dedicated public works employees who operate them.
Taylor Drift made the cut and on Saturday, I was lucky its operator, Josh Timmerman, agreed to host me for a ride along so I can glean an insight into what it takes to get the city streets clean when the snow comes.
A journalistic assignment is not the same as doing the job day in and out, year after year, as many public works employees do, but it gave me a glimpse of at least two of the men who do the job– Nik Erickson, a street supervisor and Josh Timmerman, the man behind the wheel of Taylor Drift.
They are two members of the dedicated public works team keeping the town streets safe in bad weather.
Both were welcoming and candid, answering my questions with insight and humor.
Nik said the city is divided into 15 areas, and on Saturday, about 30 pieces of equipment worked, he estimated. Keeping a watchful eye on the forecast is essential as sometimes predictions don’t pan out but the plows have to be ready and the team has to be on task.
“So a big consideration as us is, we wanna get this stuff off of the road before it gets super frozen and creates traffic hazards,” Nik told me.
The plows in town cover 500 center lane miles, he said, explaining that a center lane is measured as twice the length of the city streets, which are approximately 200 miles, as plows go over back and forth.
Nik introduced me to Josh, who helped me get into his plow truck, after I climbed several steps.
Riding along in Taylor Drift
One of my first questions was about the name, of course. What does he think of Taylor Drift?
“I thought it was pretty funny,” Josh said.
He is quick to admit that the superstar the plow is named after is more to his teen daughter’s and her friends’ liking than his, but he recognizes the special honor of driving the wittily named plow. He added that his daughter always asks about coming to ride along with him and the two spend some special bonding time while he works and she sits in the passenger seat, mostly snapchatting with her friends.
Josh beams when I ask about the capabilities of the truck.
“It is top of the line,” he says.
The cabin is spacious and equipped with the levers he needs to drop salt or adjust the plow in the front of the truck, among other things. It is one of two orange plows in the city’s fleet–the others, which vary in size, all sport the city’s signature white color – and it is big and bulky.
Not everyone covets a truck as big as this one, Josh says, as it takes special skills to maneuver it in the traffic and in bad weather on the road, but he loves the challenge.
“I just got lucky,” he said.
Plowing through snow storms
Before they see them, city residents usually hear the plows thundering down the street in the early hours of the morning as they wake up.
This typically means that Josh and his co-workers have already been on the job for a couple of hours.
When snow storms are predicted, everyone at public works is at the ready and even if the snow dump is not as serious as expected, the main arterial streets, like University Avenue are cleared first, then the inside residential ones follow.
For the past 20 years, Josh has been on the public works team. What they do is seasonal and ranges from clearing snow drifts to removing debris from wind storms, pouring cement to building or fixing storm sewer intakes and storm catch basins,to working on small engines or putting in a drinking fountain.
The variety of tasks the team handles keeps the city safe, accessible and operational in times of emergency and in daily maintenance, keeps the job interesting, Josh said.
“There’s a lot of variety. I’m not a person that likes repetitiveness,” he said. “So for me, I like to come into work and do something different every day of the week.”
Josh was in his early 20s when he took the job and now he is a father of soon-to-be 16-year-old triplets.
His family obligations have changed, but the demands of the job have not. Like his peers, he has to answer when duty calls.
What this means is that when bad weather barrels in, Josh is likely to miss birthday parties or wrestling matches or basketball games for his kids to get the job done first.
It is not just an inconvenience that comes with the territory, it is a sacrifice his family, and the families of the rest of the public works employees, live with, much like the families of first responders, law enforcement, firefighters and medical workers.
Except that the public works employees are not always afforded the public recognition they deserve for their dedication, hence the city’s initiative to elevate them and engage the community through the naming of the plows.
Josh doesn’t have to look hard to find an instance of when he last had to abandon a personal plan to fulfill his job duties.
On Valentine’s Day, just a day earlier than when I rode along with him for this assignment, instead of celebrating with his wife and kids, he cleared arterial streets until 8 p.m.
“So, we did not have what we thought we were gonna have last night (Valentine’s Day) for supper” he said.
On Saturday, he had planned to go ice fishing with one of his boys, and then gone shopping with his wife but those plans too were derailed by the storm. When he climbed into the cabin of the plow while it was still dark outside, he thought he would be back before his kids woke up, but it soon became clear that he may have to stay until the evening.
“We’ll probably be here until 7 or 8 o’clock,” he said of Saturday’s duties. “So it could be gas station food again today.”
Tellingly, at Josh’s house, the snow removing duties fell on his wife for years, as he had to dash out the door to attend to the city streets, but now his two sons pitch in.
Challenges of the job
Balancing work with family life and showing dedication to both is by far the biggest challenge for Josh.
But beyond that, the job of plowing the streets presents other issues that need to be handled diligently.
One of them is overcoming the mind-numbness of repeatedly driving the same route.To break up the monotony of hours of “just staring at the curb,” Josh has found ways to keep his mind alert– he pays attention to the traffic around him, listens to music and the internal communications he hears on the scanner. This “alone time” can also be good for thinking and not every job allows for that, he said. He drinks plenty of water which makes him stop multiple times at gas stations, which helps keep him alert.
At the end of a shift, he catches up with fellow workers and they swap stories about how the day went, which also helps them destress.
Other logistical challenges of snow plowing Josh lists are visibility and traffic.
Some drivers, he added, are impatient, but a plow operator cannot be.
Asked what the single most important quality of a plow driver would be, Josh laughs:
“Patience.”
He says signs of appreciation for public works employees are not as frequent as in some other professions, but on occasion, especially on smaller routes, community members have waved their thanks or offered a chocolate bar or a can of soda.
“Definitely some citizens out there that are very happy to see us knowing that we’re there to make things better,” he said. “I like running equipment, so this is fun. This is enjoyable to me.
“I have no intentions of leaving,” he said.
Winning entries
- Blizzard of Oz
- Frosty the Snowplow
- Sleetwood Mac
- Crtl+Salt+Delete
- Plowasaurus Rex (Lincoln Elementary)
- The Big Snowplowski
- Betty Whiteout
- Hansen Hustler (Hansen Elementary)
- Roundabout Rescue
- Blizzard Wizard
- Taylor Drift
- Snow Force One
- Princess Sleigh-a (St. Patrick Catholic School)
- Cedar Heights Shoveler (Cedar Heights Elementary)
- Scoop Dogg
- Elsa (North Cedar Elementary)
- Southdale Sweeper (Southdale Elementary)
- Panther Plowler
- Clearapathra
- Plowabunga (Aldrich Elementary)
- Darth Drifter (Orchard Hill)
- Buzz Iceclear
- Mr. Plow
- Clark W. Blizzwald
Community-submitted snow plow names
- A Little Salty
- Abolish Ice
- Betty Whiteout
- Big Birtha
- Big Daddy Disco
- Big Schnack
- Billy Bob Sr.
- Blade
- Blink 182- Dragonforce- Nirvana- Guns and
Roses- Metallica – Van Halen- Led Zeppelin-
Black Sabbath- The Beatles- The destiny balcony - Blizzard beast
- Blizzard Buster
- Blizzard of Oz
- Blizzard Wizard
- Bob
- BOBTHEGRAPE
- brotherin
- Bruce
- Buddy the Plow Truck
- Buzz Iceclear
- Catch My Drift
- Cedar Drifter
- Cedar Heights Shoveler
- Cedar Sweeper
- Charlie
- Chilly Eilish
- Chug chug going through the snow
- Clark W. Blizzwald
- Clean Machine
- Clearapathra
- Clearapathra–scoop dogg—mr plow–sir plows
alot–ctrl salt delete - Clearopathra
- Cookies and Cream
- Cool Runnin’s or Cool Runnings
- Cousin Eddie
- Crtl+Salt+Delete
- Crystal
- Ctrl Salt Delete
- Ctrl Salt Delete Fast and Flurrious Fast and
Flurrious - Ctrl-Salt-Delete
- Curb Busters Inc.
- Danny Plowdick
- Darth Blader
- Darth Drifter
- DASHING DANNY
- Dome Defender
- Doogily The Great
- Dunc Loves Ya
- Edgar Allen Plow
- Edward Snowed-In, Arctic Thunder, Nippy Skippy,
Winter Warlock, Wingardium Levi-Snow-sa, Steve - Elsa
- Farty
- Fast And Flurryous
- Fast and The Flurrious
- Fluff the Magic Wagon
- Fluffy
- Flurry
- Frostbuster
- Frosty
- Frosty and Fabulous
- Frosty McSnowplow
- Frosty the plowman
- Frosty the snow plow
- Frosty the Snowman
- Frosty The Snowplow
- Frosty the snowplow or home alone with a
snowplow - Gary
- Gingerbread
- Growler
- Gwyneth Plowtrow
- Han Snowlo
- Hansen Blizzard of Oz
- Hansen Hustler
- Happy
- HolidayHooPlow
- I’m Snow Excited
- Ice Ice Baby
- I’m Snow Excited
- It’s Sno Trouble
- It’s Snow Problem
- Jamal Adams
- Jeffrey
- Jimmy John Jr.
- Jingle Bells.
- Justin Jefferson
- Kaplow!!!
- Katy. ( from the book Katy and the Big Snow by
Virginia Lee Burton ) - Kevin McPlowister
- Kung Plow
- Lil Plow Wow
- Main Street Mauler, Roundabout Snow Rumbler,
Panther Plower, Falls Drift Destroyer - Mary Anne (in homor of Mike Mulligan and his
Steam Shovel children’s book) - Mr. No Cancellation
- Mr. Plow
- Mr. Plowface
- Mr. plowser
- Mr.Snow The First
- My Fair Bladey
- No Snow Days Allowed
- Obi-wan Ke-snow-bi
- OBJ
- Ope, just gonna plow right past you
- Panther
- Panther Plower
- Panther Pusher
- Peppy Le Plow
- Peruvian Owl
- Pheebie
- Piper the Plow
- Plow Chicka Wow
- Plow McCartney
- Plow McPlowface
- Plowabunga
- Plowabunga!
- Plowasaurus Rex
- Plowbie Wan Kenobi
- Plowboy
- Plower Ranger
- Plowmeister
- Plowster
- Plowy McPlowface
- Plowzer
- Plowzilla
- Powder
- Powder Pushers
- Princess Sleigh-a
- Prowler
- Pushy McGee
- Roundabout Rescue
- Rudolph
- S’now Problem
- Saint Plowmore
- Sand Man
- Scoop Dogg
- See der snow fall plows
- Shovelicious
- Shovel-upagus
- Sir Plow-a-Lot
- Sir Plowsalot
- Sir Salts-A-Lot
- Skibidy Dump Truck
- SKOL Plow
- Sleet Caroline, The Ice House-Mobile, The Cedar
Sweeper, Sleeter Falls, The Dome Cruiser, The
Dome Driftmaster, Frosty the Overman, Sturgis
Snow Shifter, The Blizzard of Big Woods, The
Cedar Trails Glacier Glider - Sleetwood Mac
- Sleighin’ The Day
- Slush Puppy
- ‘Sno trouble
- Snohawk
- Snow Angel
- Snow Ballin’
- Snow Bawling
- Snow big deal, dudeskis
- Snow Business
- Snow Cat
- Snow Day Ender
- Snow Day!
- Snow Drifter
- Snow Force One
- Snow Me the Money
- Snow Mercy
- Snow Panther
- Snow White
- Snowball McPlow
- Snowbi Wan Kenobi
- Snowbie Wan Kenobi
- Snowbuddy
- Snowbuster
- Snowcat
- Snowcone Maker
- Snowday Maker
- Snowday Slayer
- Snowden
- Snowdrop
- Snowflake
- Snowflake Scoop
- Snow-Force One
- SnoWhite7Drifts
- Snowmadillo
- Snowminator
- SnowNoMo
- Snowp Dogg
- Snowplow
- Snowplow Name
- Snowpoke
- Snowsculptor
- Snowstorm
- Snowthern Iowa Pathers
- Snow-Tigers
- Snowy
- Snowy McPlow Face
- Snowy McSnowface*
- Snugols
- Southdale Sweeper
- Stegosnowrus
- Steve the Plow Truck
- Sturgis Plows
- Sturgis Sweeper
- Super Scooper
- Supernova
- Swiftie mobile
- Taylor Drift
- The Bad Blizzard
- The Big Leplowski
- The Big Snowplowski
- The Blizzard Wizard
- The Giant Shovel
- The heavy shovel
- The Marvel characters
- The Muscle Machine
- The Prowler
- The rizzler
- The snow destroyer
- The Snow King
- The Snowy Bandit
- The Snowy Fart Blaster
- Tiger Toboggsn
- timothy
- Whispy Road (play on whisky road)
- WhoLetDaPlowOut
- Winter Warrior
- Yer a Blizzard, Harry
- You got snow in me
- You’re a blizzard Harry