The Butane Yard...Occasionally at this hot time of the year I recall the summer of 1965 when I worked in the Eddins-Walcher butane yard in Odessa.
My Dad, who had started working outside the home at age 12, was a firm believer that if one of his sons was old enough to drive an automobile [he actually still called them "automobiles" back in '65] then said son was old enough to drive himself to work. Way back then we could legally drive at age 14, which is a tremedously scary thought now, so in 1964 I started driving the 1957 VW beetle to work as a bag boy at the Furrs' Supermarket on Illinois street near the Village. The building is still there but is now the Eagle Academy or somesuch thing. I'm proud to say that by the end of the summer I'd worked my way up to bag boy/
stocker. Being a "stocker", if even part time, was a grand accomplishment for a man on his way up and meant that I could get away from the sniggling old ladies who always complained about the bag job. But it was the promise of higher pay and a more "manly" job that caught my attention the next summer.
My Dad was the V.P. and general manager of Eddins-Walcher Butane Co. which had become a rather large regional concern by 1965. E-W had fuel and transportation "yards", supply centers and service stations all over West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. Several summers later I ended up painting their service stations in such locales as Andrews, Kermit, Midland and Hobbs NM. But the first summer I was in my Dad's employ, my assignment was to paint butane tanks of all sizes at the Odessa storage facility. Somewhat naively I assumed that this must be a plum job if the bosses son was sent to do it. As you may discern this was not to be the case and, in fact, I was somewhat deflated when I learned that I was not to be the only privelaged employee that summer. The company owner, Jack Walcher, had also procured a job for his son Dan. Even though I was outranked in the progeny hierarchy, I was a year or so older than Dan, so things rather evened out and we got along famously.
My brother and I shared a car at the time, so since Dan had his own vehicle he agreed to drive all summer with me helping with gas money. And what a vehicle he had. A real classic of the gas guzzler era, a
1963 Pontiac Grand Prix. This was when the Grand Prix was a real car a "wide track", approximately 120 ft. long and the rear bench seat could fit 12 people comfortably. It is now a collectors item. I imagine the rougher working crowd in the part of Odessa where the yard was located thought it quite amusing to see two smallish white color kids arriving at our blue collar jobs in this immense car. As I remember Dan could barely see over the wheel.
The "butane yard" in Odessa was the main storage area for a massive amount of butane tanks of all sizes and was the central truck hub for the company; it was probably 10 acres all told. The smaller tanks were used for residential applications and the huge tanks, 30 ft. long and about 10 ft. tall, were used in the oil fields. Our job was to scrape and repaint each tank in the yard as well as the ones that were coming back in after hard use. We painted them white, in 100 degree heat, with no shade and the tanks were located on crushed caliche, which is a whitish limestone rock known for it's propensity to reflect the sun. We painted with ordinary paint rollers which, when working quickly, threw off a fine white spray. The reflection from all this white was immense and as I recall I went thru a pair of cheap sunglasses every other day. The glasses becoming useless as the paint spray slowly covered the lenses. I had a great tan, though rather dappled as ones body would tend to become sprayed over also. We carried our own water and weren't allowed to come back inside to the "shop" until lunchtime or we were about to pass out....whichever came first.
Our chief source of amusement was "flash freezing" anything we could find. Butane is stored at extremely high pressure to keep it a gas. The result of this is that if the small valve on the tank is opened, the outflowing gas is released at a temperature of about -100 degrees. This would quickly turn lizards, ants and other life forms [including fingers if not careful] into solidly frozen chunks of matter. You could hit a frozen lizard with a rock and it would break apart like an ice cube. We learned also that you could do a fast cleanup of paint rollers using this technique, knocking the frozen paint off like broken glass.
The yard and shops had two full time employees. Jeff McSpadden was the yard foreman and Alan was the mechanic who worked on the large fleet of trucks required of the business. Courtesy of these two I learned that, indeed, there was another side of life other than the comfortable upbringing I had been used to at that point. Jeff, was a decent hard working man who alternately treated us as if we were either full fledged adults or children getting in his way. He had no compunction against using language fit for a sailor in our midst and this was often directed at Dan and Me.
If we did not go to lunch at the What-a-Burger [one of the first by the way] on the Andrews Hwy. we were allowed to eat our sack lunches on the work bench inside the shop. Until the day which I will remember forever. After lunch this particular day, Jeff called us back in from the yard to lay a tirade of epic proportions upon us. The topic was "piss ants". Jeff made us come close to the bench to inspect the "piss ant" infestation which he blamed on our eating habits.
"You little Sons ** *****s are such sloppy little Ass*****s that you've got my work bench full of piss ants. You know I'm going to get bit by piss ants everytime I'm at the workbench. You know how hard it is to get rid of piss ants?" I had no idea but from his tone I suspected it must be very hard. We were forever banned from eating at the work bench again, and to this day piss ants still make me nervous, though I'm not fully sure that I even know what a piss ant is.
Alan, the mechanic, however was the real piece of work. Whereas Jeff had his good points, Alan had no discernable skills at being a human being at all. Looking back on it he must have been a good candidate for AA, at least his actions make me suspect. I suppose he was a good mechanic and he did seem overworked, but if ever there was a candidate for the looney bin he was it. Dan and I dreaded the times that he needed our assistance on some mechanical project, like holding a nut while he tightened something. We could never do even the smallest jobs to suit him and I don't recall a single time that he didn't end up cursing us and telling us to get out of his F****** shop. Alan also had a bent for throwing tools....hard, at anything he didn't like so it was better to stick close by his side during these psychotic episodes. He couldn't hit you if you were next to him.
On more than one occasion even from far out in the yard, you could hear his cursing and screaming then the sound of tools hitting the metal shop wall. Within a flash he'd be in his old pickup roaring out of the yard spinning caliche stones behind him. Several hours later he would return as if nothing had ever happened, having probaby imbided a couple of cold beverages to calm himself down. Even Jeff left Alan alone mostly.
Dan and I survived that summer and as I know now, it was a good learning experience as most difficult things in life are. It made my desire to go to college grow intensely so I wouldn't have to end up working forever in a butane yard. For some reason I remembered that Jeff grew up in Rankin and in one of life's coincidences, just several years ago in AA, I met a McSpadden from Rankin. It was Jeff's cousin who told me that Jeff had retired to Rankin and had lived a good comfortable life there....hopefully "piss ant" free until his death. Eddins-Walcher Fuels was eventually sold to Franks Fuels and is now a huge business. Jack Walcher is still alive and well into his mid 80's and I see he and his wife often at church.
The next summer, of 1966, and on Saturdays during the school year I graduated to working in one of the company service stations on Wall St. There I had to adjust myself to working with other mechanics and to waiting on the ungrateful public while wearing a blue workshirt emblazened with the Amoco logo, my name and a bowtie just like in those quaint old commercials you see. I even mastered the standard, "Welcome to Amoco, may I fill 'er up?" I did this with a smile even though I suspect it may have started me on the road to strong drink.
Professor 
Attention shoppers.....!
