TIN HATS

The male side of my kin mostly paid for groceries by slaving in the East Texas oil field around Turnertown, Kilgore, Gladewater, Joinerville, etc.

They worked on drilling rigs, workover rigs, and pulling units (mostly tired old pieces of junk). They also toiled as lease pumpers, oil pump renters, and gasoline refinery workers.

They shared some commons traits of this trade:

1. Economic deprivation (the money train didn't stop at their house often)

2. A life of grease and grime, with their rears constantly exposed to the elements (rain, ice, heat, humidity)

3. Injuries (crooked limbs, missing digits, scars, hernias, and bad backs)

4. No job security and no retirement (with frequent trips to the unemployment office)

5. Great sun tans (at least on their arms and faces, damn they had white bellies and legs!)

At the minimum age (17) to legally enter this lucrative profession, I started out on a pulling unit working for Dad at Major and Garvin's in Turnertown.

I was awarded the magnificent wage of $1.25 per hour and Dad "loaned" me his round brim, domed, aluminum hard-hat to wear while working. I say, "loaned" because Dad said in no uncertain terms that he wanted his sombrero back. Seems when Dad was 14 (1946), he went to work on a drilling rig near Wright City. On the first day, the driller "gave" him a new "tin hat" to wear (Dad learned on payday that they took $1.50 out of his check to pay for the hat). Dad wore only that tin hat in the oil field, except for the time I had it on loan. (I scratched my initials in it cause they all looked alike)

I learned a myriad of lessons in the oil field.

1. There was the never ending filth of grit/grime/grease/dirt.

2. With all this work being outside, there were the unyielding elements of weather (with no place to escape for a breather).

3. It was all about muscle and endurance, lift more than anyone could imagine, more times than you believe can, and do it every day.

4. And there was the danger.

Oil wells produce, yeah, oil. Oil is flammable (duh!). All oil field workers are periodically COVERED and soaked in oil (think fires and carcinogens). Natural gas comes from these same wells in varying quantities. Now bring together the wells, the internal combustion engines powering the engines that work on the wells, and mix in the iron things around well work that bang together to make sparks. If you think a long tail cat in a room full of rockin' chairs is skittish, try oil field work for a day.

Add to the carcinogen/fire issue the fact that some very heavy iron in various shapes and size is constantly in motion in an around the oil field work. Hence the crooked and missing stuff on oil field worker bodies.

There were other somewhat annoying issues. When I worked for Kitty Barber in Kilgore, he had a ragged outfit that didn't float much capital. Each payday when we would get our checks, it was a race to his bank to cash them. The bank teller would deduct each cashed check from Kitty's balance and when the "well went dry", she would tell the rest of us we could leave? Kitty finally had to pay in cash as no one would work for him anymore.

All this is to say that when my companions on the Texas Highway Patrol griped about our job, I would always tell them, "At least the checks cash", and "Yeah, but its clean work".

To remind me of "where I came from", I have on the desk in my office Dad's 62 year old tin hat. It is sitting on a walnut stand I made with a brass plate inscribed, "GENE WALLER, East Texas Oil Field, 1946 - 1974".

Thanks Dad. Your hat reminds me every day that I have "a good job", and "the checks cash".