If you've read Neil Peart's book Roadshow then you are probably familiar with his tour bus driver Dave. Dave has a MySpace page and recently posted a humorous tale involving Neil Peart and cookies to his MySpace blog. Here it is:

From time to time there are tour road stories that are so funny they beg to be told. The following is not only funny, but true.

Neil has his favorite cookie, made by Pepperidge Farms called Nantucket. It is a chocolate chip crispy cookie so good that you can not each just one. I have had a problem leaving them alone while on my diet. For some reason as good as these are, they have become very hard to find. No one seems to stock these morsels anywhere. Every day I write the grocery list for the bus and include in my request for as many that can be found. Each day the runner comes back empty handed after allegedly looking several places.

While we where in Philadelphia, the runner of the day knew of a Pepperidge Farm store. I had him to check to see if we could purchase a case. This would solve our problem for the rest of the tour. It took him over an hour to return with a full case of fresh chocolate chip Nantucket's. Getting these cookies have caused several problems for two tours now and having them would help solve the tensions.

We finished the second leg of the tour two days later in Mansfield Mass. I decided because of the bus being shut down at the Nashville shop and the summer heat it would be best to take them home. Arriving in Nashville at 1 AM Tuesday morning I went home and to bed. At 8 AM, I awoke, dressed and went back to the bus shop with my truck and trailer to haul Neil and Michael's bikes to Bloodworth Motorsports. Both bikes needed to be serviced and repair work done. While at the bus I placed the case of cookies in the cab of my pickup. From there I proceeded to the bike shop, dropped the bikes and then off to lunch at my favorite hangout in Nashville. It is a great little restaurant and bar called South Street. Donovan, the band's assistant just happened to miss me by fifteen minutes that day.

Now for the fun part!

While on my way home I caught the smell of something burning. I assumed (and we all know the definition of assume) someone was burning trash. Several minutes later the same smell became more prevalent and I soon discovered that my box of most precious cargo was burning! I pulled my truck over to a quick stop, cars going in every direction, and with trailer bouncing in tow to the side of the road. Quickly I jumped out and to the other side to pull the burning packs of cookies out, throwing them to the ground. The cardboard box was also burning. Normally, I would have a water bottle or a cup of coffee in the console, but as fate would have it there was nothing. I was spitting on the burning box, considering another source of moisture and using my hands to extinguish the box fire. As I turned around the three burning packs where now fully involved. Picture me on the side of the road stomping on three packs of burning cookies. I was mad at myself and laughing at the same time, for throwing a cigarette out the window and starting the fire inside of my truck. It had came back in the window and into the box of the now famous Nantucket cookies!

Upon telling Neil the story he laughed and said "It is a shame you didn't have a movie camera. That should be on Youtube!" Needless to say, the whole tour got a laugh.

Hilarious. :) Thanks to Asif for the heads up.

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