Feeling The Hot Breath Of Texas
In those days, oil companies offered plum summer jobs to engineering students within a year of graduation. Landing one, Mary and I married on Saturday, drove to Humble Oil's Houston headquarters on Monday, and reported to their district office in Tyler on Tuesday.
Though our little apartment on North Broadway in the beautiful "City of Roses" stood just blocks from the office, most of my work that summer was in the field--literally. Several times a week, Doug Wilds, my boss, dispatched me 20 miles northward to Hawkins, location of one of the largest oil fields in Texas. A pleasant rural town of about 900 people, Hawkins quickly sprang to prominence after oil was discovered there in 1940.
And in those pleasant years B.C. (before cholesterol), my expeditions to that quaint town usually required a visit to Petty's Café to fortify myself for the hot breath of Texas with chocolate pie, naturally washed down with a glass of whole milk.
Charged with verifying that new equipment had been installed according to plan, crude maps and faded signs helped me navigate to obscure destinations among the five square miles of oil wells. But once located, matching confusing arrays of tanks, pipes, valves and flow meters to the crisscrossing squiggles on the construction drawings proved an even greater challenge.
Being unfamiliar with oil field hardware forced me to lean on others' expertise to fill significant voids in my knowledge. Consequently, I often threw myself on the mercy of "John," an older engineer who repaid to my unabashed confessions of utter ignorance with rich nuggets of advice. Though I don't recall John's real name, I've never forgotten a decision he made.
From comments made by others, I gathered that John had apparently chosen to decline promotions and transfers, preferring to rear his family in Tyler. This unwillingness to move, however, had seemingly "frozen" him in his current job.
How strange, I thought, that a man of such experience would permanently limit his career for a few years of stability. But just 13 years later, our son's birth, coupled with and our daughter's relentless physical decline, placed me at similar crossroads.
The summer job over, I returned to college and chose electronics over oil. And we've never been back to Tyler. Humble Oil and Refining Company became Exxon and later ExxonMobil. And the Tyler district office eventually closed as part of corporate streamlining.
John had no reason to remember me, just one of a steady flow of unremarkable summer employees. But like the hot breath of Texas, the feel of our encounter yet wafts across the decades.
To this forgotten man, perhaps still in Tyler, I'd like to say, "Thank you, John, for sticking with what you felt was right." True convictions are always costly, and others probably won't understand. But I do.
Copyright 2004 James McAlister
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