The Patch

Or as I've heard it called, the Oil Patch, although it's pronounced more like "oawl" patch. Anyway, back to blogging about family history. I was on a roll there in May but since the first day of June have been either about to go on the road; on the road; coming back from being on the road; or just generally burned out/jet-lagged from being on the road. And I'm going again soon but in September I hold great hopes for more continued writing.

Anyway, here is a story that Randall wrote about some of Roy Lee's oilfield experiences. I should say by way of (another) preamble that oil rigs constitute one of my very earliest memories. I have a very vivid impression of driving through the night with my father, seeing a tower of lights reaching into the sky, climbing metal stairs to a metal box (the doghouse) where there were tired, dirty men sitting, and then following him through the doghouse and onto a rig floor and...I was just overwhelmed. I couldn't have been 5 or so, and I remember the noise, the vibration, the feeling of gathered raw power, and then looking up into the lights disappearing into the inky night. I have no idea where it was or even how old I really was, but I sure remember that impression. Then as I grew older we would often go out on rigs, where Roy Lee's job, as he joked, was to "point his finger." My siblings could tell much more about our lives as oil field trash, as the saying went, but by the time I came along he was pretty much an executive. Not one that was treated all that well, as we several times had to up and move on the company's whim, but still, he wasn't working the rig floors like he had up until then. I know he used to work 364 days a year, only getting Christmas off; and I know from my own brief experiences how hard and dirty and fatiguing and scary oil field work is. He did it pretty much his whole life. Anyway, I would go with him out to rigs in the New Mexico desert (thereby giving me an appreciation for badlands that I have to this day) and since I was the boss's son, they would give me free rein. Throw clods or whatever into the mud pit, no problem. Pick through the core samples for something interesting, go right ahead. Sometimes when I was bored he would give me his gun, a snub-nosed .38 pistol, and a box of shells and say "don't shoot at the rig." Otherwise I was free to blast whatever came across my field of vision. That was always great fun. But going with him, and then later working on and around rigs, affected all of my later life in a number of ways. On the one hand, I remember many phrases--"assholes and elbows," used to describe what should be seen when you are working hard, is still one of my favorite phrases although not in polite company. "Twist off" is another, when you party or drink or generally goof off. "Goat'th'howse," or "Go to the house," is another I use all the time. On the other hand, seeing how hard my father worked, literally to death although the cigarettes and buttermilk and fried salt pork didn't help any, and then working on rigs myself steered me toward the academic life, where you are always working indoors and no one is cursing inarticulately at you and nothing ever falls on your head or snaps off your fingers.

But enough about me! Here, then, is Randall's story of Rosie the monkey...

"The picture of Rosie in Daddy's hard hat got me to thinking about a couple of Rosie stories. She was a monkey from somewhere in south east Asia and was brought home from WWII by a friend (or hand) of Daddy's. While we were in Monahans is the only time I remember her being around so I guess she didn't go with the crew of Daddy's rig when it moved away -- first over to Snyder, thence to Brownfield and even more thence to Farmington. Anyway, Rosie would grab our dogs and hold them with her hind feet and pick fleas and I guess other critters out of their fur. I remember Curly just standing there and taking it cause he couldn't get away. My favorite story though concerns Ray Moore who I think is the one who had a Texaco Station there in Monahans. The station was always kept spotlessly clean and it was a service station in every sense of the word. Anyway, it turned out that Daddy discovered that if you spank (or whip) Rosie she immediately took a dump. Quite messily in fact. One day Daddy took Rosie down to the Texaco Station and led Rosie all around the place whipping her the whole time. It was a real mess and one of the funniest things Daddy seemed to have seen! Another thing they would do to bother Ray Moore was to race through the station without stopping and ring the bells so he or his help would rush to the front to serve someone that was no longer there."

Nowadays we would call this animal cruelty, but in those days it was funny. In fact that's how I always think of oilfield humor: if it's not fatal it's funny, and even if it is fatal sometimes it's humorous. Also included with his story was another picture, towit:



I have no idea of whom any of these men are; nor where, nor any of the circumstances. I'm sure somewhere in someone's family vault there are other oil field pictures, although the environment on an oil rig, or a location, more properly, wasn't exactly conducive to taking pictures. But one I know of that Guinn has a large framed print of that I've always loved, it shows Roy Lee on the motor handle, or is it Cagle Jordan? But at any rate it's a great shot of a rig floor in action.

As always, if anyone else has oil field photos or stories, I'll be glad to post them.

Next up, more horsey tales from Jimmy; photos, please?