Days of Our Lives, the daily tv show featuring a character named Hope, has been on since at least 1964. The introduction "Like the sands through an hour glass, so are the days of our lives" burned into my memory that summer in 1964; I watched the daily episode with my mother, after lunch, before leaving to work as a Roughneck on an oil rig. The words meant so much to me that I had then engraved on my iPad 3 a few years ago.
Every summer I found a job to earn spending money for the coming school year and challenge my body so I would be in shape for the fall football season. This 1964 summer I scored the highest paying and most physically challenging job, way beyond my expectations. The good news was the job paid over $800 per month and more because I often would work double shifts. In today's dollars that would be more than $8,000 per month. In the recent hot Texas oil market a Roughneck can make as much as $189,000 a year. The bad news was the job is 7 days/week in Alvin, Texas an hour's drive from my parents home in Spring Valley, Texas.
In 1964 there was quite an active wildcat drilling business in Texas. One of my closest high school football buddies, Bob Vines, dated an attractive blond, Polly Parrot, which as I remember was a name her father went by as well. One Friday night eating patented peppers, very hot, with her dad I expressed my need for a summer job. He said he had one for me and I should show up on Monday afternoon about 3:30 PM in Alvin, Texas. Polly sold oil field equipment for Cameron Iron Works and knew a Tool Pusher who needed more Roughnecks.
The rig was a short distance west of Alvin. I was introduced to the big boss, the Tool Pusher, who a temporary office building near the rig. I never interacted much with him except when he discovered I was not 21 years of age. The Driller was my direct boss, he managed the Roughnecks, 5 of us including himself that did all the physical work. The Driller operated the rig controls and the rest of us did hard physical labor, the 3 Platform Roughnecks and 1 Derrick Roughneck. I was one of the 2 Platform Roughnecks that handled 2 huge counter balanced pipe wrenches that were used to screw and unscrew drilling pipe together. My wrench job was to just set the bite of its jaws before the Driller activated a powerful cable reel that pulled the pipe wrench handle to either loosen or tighten the pipe joint. When I started we were drilling at 15,000 feet. Every time the drill bit would wear out we would have to take all 15,000 feet of pipe out 90 feet stand at a time. A stand of pipe is composed of 3 sections of pipe, about 500 pounds per section. The drill bit would wear out after just a few hours of drilling, so most hours were spent either taking pipe out or putting it back in the hole. It would take an 8 hour shift to put in and another 8 hour shift to take out. There were 3 shifts and often one of us, usually me, would have to work 16 hours straight because a Roughneck failed to show up. So 24 hours a day and 7 days a week the rig was worked hard, time is money.
The 3rd Platform Roughneck is the cowboy. All 3 Platform Roughnecks are responsible for lifting a 200+ pound slip that lies between the wedge shaped hole in the rotter in the rig's platform floor and the pipe in the hole to keep the pipe from falling into the hole. Imagine lifting 70 pounds 300 to 400 times every 8 hour shift as well as wrestling a counterbalanced wrench that weighs more than you do. The 3rd Platform Roughneck, the cowboy, is responsible for wrestling the loose end of a 90 foot stand of pipe lifted by the elevator block and tackle. He must precisely place the male screw end in the rack, if taking pipe out of the hole, or into the female end of the pipe in the hole, if putting pipe in the hole. The cowboy part of his job is tossing into the air and coiling a chain treating it like a rope around the pipe hooking it on a cable pull that power screws on the new added stand of pipe going into the whole.
All the other Roughnecks I worked with were career Roughnecks. They were all at least twice my age. The work is so hard that these middle aged men followed a strict high protein diet. One would bring a bag containing a dozen hard boiled eggs to snack on during our shift. Then there was a heavily used coffee pot, the huge handfuls of Louisiana Strong blend. The Cajon that operated the other counterbalanced wrench weighed over 300 pounds, all muscle. His fingers were the thickest I ever saw. I used to exaggerate that his thumb was as wide as my wrist. When we needed to add an additional section of pipe as we drilled deeper, this Cajon would down a demitasse cup of New Orleans thick strong black coffee. He then walked down to the racks that held the unused pipe, lifted a 500 pound section of pipe from the middle balanced on his shoulders and walk it to the rig where a chain could lift it to the Platform.
The work environment for the Roughneck is very dirty and buggy. First there is drilling mud everywhere, you can not get away from it. It drips on you and comes at you surprising you from the oddest directions. Sometimes it is welcomed as a mosquito repellent. There is also the airborne humid salty sand sticking on your cheeks and feeling like damaging grit in your eyes. Everyone chews tobacco and spits constantly. Two days on the job I started chewing and never swallowed at work again.
One night a week, Friday Night, we would all meet after work at a typical rural Texas family restaurant and drink beer after work, about 1 AM, as our shift ended at midnight. I say family restaurant even though we never saw a family that late. Each table had red and white table cloth, you could easily imagine the farm family sitting there eating pizza or a burger just a few hours earlier. Drinking our beer, we all talked about our lives. All 4 of my work mates took an interest in a college boy earning spending money and getting in shape to play football. All 4 of my work mates said they wish they had tried harder in school, but to tell the truth they made good money doing a job that required them to be healthy, there is nothing wrong with that. For me, this was just a summer job; the fall semester was calling me.
Is the Roughnecking job dangerous? I considered the job challenging but I did not consider it dangerous at the time. During my first week we scored a new bit in the hole and got to sit around and rest while the hole got deeper. There was a light bulb near the top of the rig burned out. My 4 mates decided to play an initiation trick on the new guy. They said since I was the youngest I would have to climb the ladder on the rig to change the bulb. No one changes a light bulb while drilling. The first 60 feet were easy, if you do not look down. The last 40 feet the rig starts to twist or torque as a result of the drilling forces 16,000 feet down in the hole. The higher you climb the more violent the twist. It took all my strength when I reached the burned it bulb to let go with the one hand required to unscrew and then screw in the new bulb. I did drop the spent bulb as near to my mates as I could.
When you perform a repetitious task over and over for 8 hours, you kind of loose focus and sharpness creating a dangerous situation. On one such night we were taking the now 18,000 feet of drilling pipe out of the hole. After securing the current removed stand of pipe in the rack, the driller lowers the block and tackle from the top of the rig to just above the platform to lock onto the joint of drill pipe at the top of the hole. At first the block free falls to max speed shaking the whole huge rig. At an appropriate time the Driller brakes the fall with a long leveraged brake handle, a job that is the most skilled part of any Driller's job. As the block slows it just so happens its shadow falls at our feet. At this time on this night I noticed the rig shaking as I saw the shadow. All of us intuitively turned and ran as far as we could before an explosive force occurred as the free falling block hit and crumbled on the platform, just where we all had been standing. Now I call this dangerous. The Tool Pusher came out to assess the damage and to ask me just how old I was. I told him I was 19 years old. He liked my willingness to work so I was not let go on the spot.
There was another wildcat drilling rig just several hundred yards closer to Alvin. I saw it every day as I approached the left turn off the highway to our rig. On this one particular day what I saw confused me. The rig was still standing, but it looked all puffed out, like a balloon or bomb blew it out. There was a large spaghetti cloud of drilling pipe balled up as tall as the rig. As I approach our rig the guys are standing around drinking coffee. The rig next door had experience a blowout since I left yesterday. Four of the crew were in the hospital and the Derrick Roughneck was killed. Furthermore, our Derrick Roughneck quit saying the job was not worth the extra $2 an hour. An older retired Roughneck was rounded up to take my job and no they did not want me to quit but to perform the Derrick Roughneck job. The ToolPusher handed me a release form he said my parents had to sign. He tried to put a positive spin on the scene by saying we could all go home paid for today while some oil field experts came in to insure our blowout protectors were sufficient.
I came back the next night with the promotion. It took a little selling to my parents who I did not tell how dangerous it might be. The Tool Pusher came to the rig's Platform for the first time. He had the Driller Bring the Block down where we both could stand on it as we were raised level to the Derrick Platform 90 feet above. We stepped off and he showed me a big bucket of grease and a stack of red mechanic rags. He then showed me a cable running from the platform to a spot far out from the rig. He says in case of a blowout just grab a few rags put grease inside it and jump out on this line that like a zip line, although steeper, would deliver me to safety. He then showed how to put on a leather harness that would save my life if I fell off or was knocked off the platform while working. We were going back in the hole so he demonstrated how to untie the top of a stand of pipe from the fork like structure, walk it over to the edge of the platform and as the open jaws of the tackle appear under and after the block, throw the pipe into the jaws which locked onto its neck. This way the pipe stand can be picked up as the cowboy wrestles the other, lower end, over to screw it into pipe already in the hole. I did this job better than I thought until we reached the last stands of the pipe. The last stands are leaning severely right to left meaning I had to throw the pipe in a curve going right of the jaws but ending in its sweet spot triggering the locking closure.
I missed a few at first, but the consequences are so bad I learned fast. If I miss the pipe falls up against the far side of the Derrick. Then the platform roughnecks use a chain pull to start the 1500 pound stand of pipe wiggling like a snake toward me on the platform. The plan is I will grab the undulating pipe and take another throw. I did not understand the power of pipe and the first few times the undulating pipe ripped me off the platform leaving me free falling the 90 feet to the rig floor. This is where the leather harness come in handy, my fall is quickly broken and as adrenalin flows I pull myself back to the platform to try to again.
I finished my summer as a Derrick Roughneck. Sam Houston State won a National Championship in 1964, I was in great shape, but spent most games on the bench. This is just how good the other players were. I did do my best.
