GIGGLES

"T" sent me an oil field story from Dr. Bud that concerned puttin' an antique oil field unit into a gear other than "low" and causin' some consternation.

Reminded the ole ranch hand of the day Kelsey (the "tool pusher") came to Dad's well site and watched the work occurring to try to dislodge a "stuck" pump on the end of the sucker rod string.

Kelsey (who Dad called "Giggles") razed Dad about not pulling hard enough on the "string".

Now my loyal reader needs to know that Dad and I were in an East Texas pasture working under a "standard" derrick. This means the edifice above our heads included 80 feet of galvanized steel angle iron bolted together to form a fulcrum by which one could pull a mile of pipe out of the ground using the "draw works" of the "pulling unit" operated by Dad. No simple feat considering the antiquity of the equipment Dad was assigned to operate.

Dad "beat" on the pump for a period of time to dislodge it. At long last Giggles stated that he did not think Dad was really "pulling".

Well sports fans, you just had to know my Dad to know what a grin that put on his face. Dad knew all there was to know about motors, machinery, and the oil field. He could gently work machinery to make it "last", make it perform to its maximum, and to "bust" it if he had a mind.

Gene just casually said, "OK, lets pull on it then". And he let out the manual box clutch on that puppy and watched as all four derrick corners buckled under the strain.

Giggles ran like a scalded dawg to his truck yelling, "You are crazy!!!!", and Dad had a laugh and a good story that he retold for many years.