There is one more glamorous job in which I was granted the privilege of participation! We needed to cut 1500 sacks of cement to feed into the hopper to cement the casing in the hole as we were finishing the well. This was before the days of OSHA or any such regulatory agency was around. Here was the setup. Before the operation started, 1500 sacks of cement, weighing fifty pounds each, were stacked into a corner of a room just under the deck on the ship with a forklift. There was a table saw set up adjacent to the hopper where the cement needed to be fed continuously until finished. The saw had a flat surface, four legs, and a blade with teeth that rolled on a shaft in the center of the table. The room itself, had no windows, but a hole in the ceiling, or roof, which was oval shaped. There was a fan in the room, and its purpose was to attempt to blow the dust out of the hole in the roof. Remember I said, "attempt"! There were four of us assigned to handle the entire job. One man stood close to the bags and handed each one to another man, closer to the saw, and he handed the bag off to two of us who drug the bag over the blade ripping the bag open, and finally emptying the contents into the hopper. The work was extremely exhausting, and we rotated positions about every 100 sacks. Once the process got underway, it could not be interrupted. In other words, no matter how tired anyone was, no matter how much cement dust got into the air at one time, or no matter how damned hot it got, we simply could not stop until the entire 1500 sacks had been sucked into the hole! I really cannot say how long the whole thing took to complete, but suffice it to say 1500 sacks of cement is a hell of a lot! That room got so full of dust that we could barely see one another, and the sweat allowed it to adhere to any bodily surface instantaneously! When we finished, I had never in my life, seen four more totally exhausted men. Each of us was caked with cement, and I got some into my lungs, which resulted in a "Chemical Pneumonia"!
That job ended my offshore career! I coughed so hard and so frequently, that the sclera (whites) of my eyes was solid red as a result of broken capillaries! Medical attention did nothing at all to alleviate the symptoms. It was not until sometime that following fall, when the weather cooled off, that I got back to normal!
The fall ushered in my tenure at Northeast Louisiana State College in Monroe, LA. This was the only public Pharmacy School in Louisiana at that time. The other school that was active then was Loyola in New Orleans. Pharmacy School was such a welcome change of pace. Everyone there had the same goal, so it was easy to establish relationships. However, it was still school, so I don't wish to embellish this inordinately.
It may have been that semester that I flunked the first course in my life. Quantitative Analysis Lecture was really an easy course, but we only had two exams the entire semester. Each exam consisted of five problems worth twenty points each. The math involved in each problem-involved calculations about eight inches wide and about a foot long! The mistake that I made was wearing my watch to take each exam. We had 50 minutes in which to work the problems, and as I repeatedly looked at my watch, I skipped all over the board in a frantic effort to solve as many as possible. The result, of course, was 40% on each exam, or to put it simply "F"! Quantitative Analysis was only offered once each year, so I did not take it again until my fifth and final year. When I repeated the course, I left my watch in the dormitory, and I made 100% on both exams.
The year that I worked offshore, I did not make enough money to make it through two complete semesters of college. I welcomed the opportunity to work during the Christmas holidays that year, because I needed the money to make it through the rest of the year. So, when Steve Schooler called me to see if I would be willing to go to Sabine Pass, Texas, to work during the Christmas holidays it was a very welcome invitation!
This was going to be a piece of cake, or so I thought! Leroy Mire was going to move his family down there from Morgan City. He was going to move his mobile home there and stay until Rig 40 made however many wells as the company anticipated making. He asked me if I would be willing to run things while he got his family settled. Leroy and I were buddies, and I would have done anything for him. I told him not to worry that I could handle anything that came along. When we arrived, the first thing that happened was his mobile home got bogged down to the axle in the mud. He was a little bent out of shape, and he said that he would like to go back to Lake Charles so that his family could be more comfortable in a motel. Again, he asked if I thought I could handle things while he was gone. Again, I assured him that there was nothing to worry about! "Just take your family and get out of here", I distinctly remember telling him. I had no earthly idea what I was agreeing to as I waved to him upon his departure. "Oh What a Christmas To Have The Blues!" Charles Brown was probably somewhere on that old burned out shrimp dock writing the lyrics of his Christmas song!
What came next were memories that are with me still today. Kerr McGee had rented or leased an old warehouse on an abandoned shrimp dock in order to establish somewhat of temporary presence on the Texas Coast. How could I ever forget that room that I was to call home for the next ten days? I don't remember much about the appearance from the outside, because as Leroy left, the fog rolled in, in such a thick blanket, that I could not even see his buried mobile home! In fact, visibility the entire time I was there was about 6"!
The room consisted of a concrete floor, old plywood walls and ceiling, and two doors that required a rope to tie them shut. The only problem with the doors was that once shut, there was still about a 4" gap in the center. Inside of the room was a regular office desk and swivel chair, a garbage can, a two way radio on top of the desk, me in the chair, several duffel bags full of soiled linen in the right hand corner, and several long strips of molding in the left hand corner. I assume the company intended to use the molding to board up some of the cracks.
I spent at least ten glorious days and nights in that room that December, and I don't even remember seeing "The Ghost of Christmas Past" in that room in all of that time! The one thing that I vividly remember seeing was "Wharf Rats" about 18" long! Every time that I tried to get a nap at night, there was a string of the creatures from the garbage can beside the desk, upon which my feet were propped, all the way back to the door with the 4" gap! I soon grasped one of the strips of molding with one hand, and if I was startled, I simply jabbed at the row of rats with the molding, and they hastily retreated toward the door.
The first real challenge came during a critical time when the drilling barge was having difficulty getting sunk onto the floor of the shallow water in the bay. I was the only source of communication for the Marine Engineer in Morgan City and the Tool-Pusher on the rig. The rig could get me on the radio and Morgan City could get me on the radio, but they could only communicate through me! I recall the genius of the Marine Superintendent, Mr. John Rowe. He must have given a 30-minute dissertation intended for me to relay to Mr. Frank French on the rig. I sat and listened, helplessly, until he finally paused for a response from Mr. French. I calmly explained to him that I was not even remotely familiar with what he was talking about. I recall telling him that I had not even been aboard Rig 40, and that I was just there until Leroy could get settled in. I also told him that if he could relay some short, concise information bytes that perhaps we could get something accomplished. Frank French overheard my response, so I imagine he had a pretty good idea what I was going through. However, once we worked out a suitable communications strategy, things began to improve, and we accomplished the job of sinking the barge.
The days were long and the nights, with the rats, were even longer! I finally got so hungry that I called the rig and then Morgan City, and told them that I was going in to town to get a bite to eat. Things were quiet so this did not meet any opposition. I had a company truck, so my greatest challenge was to find a place to eat that could accommodate my very modest budget. I think I had about three bucks and a one-way bus ticket to Monroe, Louisiana. I went very slowly through the thick fog, and came upon an old diner with a neon sign out front. I nearly missed it, but the neon barely shown through the fog. I parked the truck and walked into this old diner. The place was empty with the exception of the lady who owned the place. I took a seat, there were more than enough, and the lady brought me a menu. I quickly read through the list of goodies, and the word "Chili" caught my eye. There was a small bowl and a large bowl for another dollar or so. The key here was that the large bowl was within my budget, and I thought, "man that looks like it could fill me up!" I promptly placed my order for the large bowl and sat back eagerly awaiting to be served. When the lady brought the bowl of "Chili" to my table, I peered down at the bowl of grease she had neatly place in front of me. Oh my, I was so hungry, but I almost chickened out when I stirred through the grease, which had a few specks of burned ground meat on the bottom of the bowl. I finally got up the courage to taste the stuff, but as hungry as I was, I could not eat it! I was still young and polite, so I lingered a bit with my spoon in the bowl so as not to hurt the lady's feelings. However, I could not stand too much of this, and I got up and walked to her cash register. I gave her the $2.00 for the "Chili", and she remarked about my failure to eat very much. I recall her saying that she was tempted to cut down on the size of that bowl of chili, but she was afraid that she would get someone in there that was "Really Hungry!" Hungry, I was so hungry that I could have eaten the ass end out of a "Rag Doll", but I guess that was not quite hungry enough!
I was ever so grateful when Leroy finally got back from Lake Charles, and I was on my way back to Monroe on a Trailways Bus!
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