A Veteran's Affair...

As anyone who has been in the military will tell you, it's not an easy life even if no one is shooting at you, far worse if someone is. Younger folks do hear much about the camaraderie, excitement and adventure of the military from us veterans of a certain age that make it sound like a great life...and mostly it was. But if I think back on my 6 years in the regular army I can, without too much effort, remember that much of it was not pleasant at all. Like sleeping in the mud for months or living in a tent when the temperatures are in the three digits during the day. I can recall living in what was termed "sub-standard" housing for half a year because that was all that was available while I made $500 a month after all my efforts in earning a college degree. Then there were the absences. Absences from all you knew of home and family. Relatives, friends and beloved pets died while you were away and you didn't get to say good-bye. Friends were married and had kids and got a six year head start on their careers while you, the solider, had advanced to the point where you were making $700 a month.

Am I complaining. Hopefully not, I wouldn't trade all my experiences and friends from the military for the world. My comments are actually a setup for my point of the day....I'm grateful as hell for having been in the army all those years ago. Because of the army I lived in places I never would have gone on my own, did exciting things that not many people get to do and met people who are still my friends today..close friends. And, I got a Masters Degree which cost me the grand sum of....zero, nothing, free.

Today I journeyed the 40 miles or so to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Big Spring, Texas pictured above in the photo I took this morning. It was like old home week, for it was here 7 years ago that I had a hernia repaired. Cost:$0.00. Because of the hard times endured all those years ago I am entitled today to a certain amount of free medical care, a benefit that frankly had not seemed terribly important for decades. It does now.

Years ago I had heard horror stories about the VA medical system and how it should be avoided at all costs. That, perhaps, is the case in other locales, but in West Texas the VA gets high marks from me. I have always been attended to promptly and in fact, probably more courteously than at other large private medical facilities. Of course, one of the "tricks" of negotiating through any bureaucracy is to find and befriend an "angel" on the staff [a trick I learned in the army]. My "angel" today was Ricky, a young man at the admin desk who I struck up a conversation with after learning he had just gotten out of active army service. I could have made it through the system without him today...but with him it was a breeze, getting evaluated by a nurse right away and doing the unheard of, seeing a doctor without an appointment. I was out in under three hours with my presciption in hand.

Now my daily dose of Zocor will be mailed to me every month....something I don't get even in the private sector. If you are fortunate enough to have come this far in life without having to be on modern medication and knowing the costs associated with this privelage let me give you an example of what my army service has saved me. This one prescription is about $2400 per year. I pay zip, nada. I never realized that sleeping in the mud for Uncle Sam would be so worthwhile all these years later!!

Laura Bush....recycler

Today I bring you a story with some local color. The story is one that Julie received from a friend and we have no reason to believe that it is not true. The source of the story is a biology teacher at Midland Lee High School who happens to be a Sunday School teacher at the First Baptist Church here. We all know that there is no better source of veracity than a Baptist Sunday School teacher....

Lee High School is in the process of remodeling and renovating the school. Most of the work will be done this summer, and during the first semester of next year. Portable buildings are being brought in for them to meet in until the work is finished. They are in the process of cleaning out closets, classrooms, storage facilities, discarding out of date chemicals, books, etc. The city brought one of the big industrial size garbage dumpsters out to the school and placed it right in front of the building to facilitate the process. The city told them they would come this past Wednesday and dump it, so they could add more trash. Well, one of the departments decided to throw their old desks in the dumpster, and they were put in upside down with the legs sticking up out of the filled dumpster. The city failed to come empty the dumpster on Wednesday as they had promised so when there was no room for more trash, they called to remind them that it was supposed to have been emptied on Wednesday The city told them that they had been told not to dump it. It seems that someone passed by and saw the desks and requested that they not empty the dumpster until they could salvage the desks.... Guess who????

Our first lady, Laura Bush, was in town last week visiting her mother. When they passed by Lee High School, and she saw all the school desks that were being discarded, she called the city and told them not to empty the dumpsters, that there would be someone coming by to collect the desks and they would be sent directly to Afghanistan for the schools there.

Laura Bush.... First Lady, teacher, recycler!

Hack

Hack...

Thanks to a post by Mike over at Bunker Mulligan I sadly noted the passing of one of America's truly great and most decorated soldiers Col. David Hackworth. Hack, as he was known to his troops, lied about his age to enlist in the army during WWII and later gained a battlefield commission during the Korean War and was a legend in Vietnam. He was put in for the Medal of Honor three times; the last application is currently under review at the Pentagon. He was twice awarded the Army’s second highest honor for valor, the Distinguished Service Cross, along with 10 Silver Stars and eight Bronze Stars. When asked about his many awards, he always said he was

proudest of his eight Purple Hearts and his Combat Infantryman’s Badge.

Although he was a great combat leader and military theorist, he is best known and remembered by legions as holding most dear the welfare of the individual soldier. Hack was open and outspoken, a trait that effectively ended his army career in 1970 when he publicly denounced, not the war in Vietnam, but the way it was being fought. For the next four decades he made his mark by trying to expose ineptitude in the military and the political process by which it is controlled.

Many of us veterans did not agree with everything Hack attempted to do in later years but there is no doubt that his consuming interest was always the "grunt" out in the field. I had the pleasure of communicating with Hack over the years and the autographed copy of his Vietnam "after action report", The Vietnam Primer that he sent to me is a prized piece in my signed book collection. Hack will be missed.

Taos 2003.....

While words sometimes escape me, images never do. Having already put pictures of our last several forays into New Mexico on the web, I felt remiss in not having done so with the 100 or so shots I took when we were in Taos two years ago. So, lucky you, here they are. Taos 2003

Santa Fe
Galisteo/Chama


PS: with a special thanks to Donnie and Karen Michael for the use of their wonderful house!

Roger L. Simon....

I had a nice long telephone chat with Roger L. Simon this afternoon. It's always a pleasure to speak with someone whom you feel you've gotten to know in some small way by reading their online journals, their Blogs. Roger is a mystery writer, screenplay author [an Oscar nominated one at that], interesting commentator online and on TV and most importantly a good family man and nice guy.

And Roger has an idea. An idea that may change the landscape, scope and breadth of Blogging. If you haven't seen Roger's idea take a look here. I had emailed Roger that I was interested, made application and signed the non-disclosure agreement to join in the idea. Roger emailed back, supplied his phone number and asked me to call with my thoughts on putting the idea into action which, as mentioned, I did. In my opinion, it's a hell of an idea. If you have an interest in learning more leave a comment with your email address. I'll forward information.

Here are some mentions from around the web about "the idea"...
Pro Blogger and The Blogger Herald

Vietnam: A final note:

Joe Galloway Vietnam '65

One final posting about Vietnam and then I believe that I'll move on to thinking about something else for awhile. I had to note a great piece by Joe Galloway as he journeys back in time and space to Vietnam in the present day. Joe emailed me late last week and told me that he was working on putting his thoughts of Saigon down in prose. I kept looking for the article on his Knight-Ridder News online site, but thanks to Viet Pundit I see that the article has been syndicated and is at: Galloway, Saigon Today. A great article, hope you'll find time to check it.

30 Years.....

U.S. Embassy April 30, 1975

It was 30 years ago today that our efforts in Vietnam came to a close with the fall of Saigon. It seems strange that something that occupied so much of my time then is now distant more than half the time that I have been a mortal on this earth. The ten years of major troop involvement is, of course, only a part of the total story of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam that began immediately after WWII.

But a picture is worth more than a thousand words, my words at least, so here are some remembrances of Vietnam by two photographers whom I have had the privelage to know, Steve Stibbens and Catherine LeRoy. Steve was a combat photographer for five years in Vietnam from 1962 till 1967. He was the first correspondent for "Stars and Stripes" to arrive in Vietnam, later with the Marines "Leatherneck" magazine and then with the Associated Press where he was one of the best in the business, winning the Newspaper Photographer of the Year twice. Steve was my guest in Midland some years ago to speak at a seminar on Vietnam journalism.

I met Catherine LeRoy in 2001 at a reunion of the veterans of the Ia Drang. Catherine was one of the premier photo journalists in Vietnam and one of only a handful of female journalists active "in the field"...out with the troops. Catherine was captured by the North Vietnamese Army during the Tet Offensive in Hue, but managed to talk her way to freedom. Her photo gallery here is a compendium of works by photographers she knew.

Take a look at their poignant photos.....
Steve Stibbens: My War
Catherine LeRoy: Images Under Fire

I would be remiss if I didn't mention our website with Joe Galloway's excellent images from the Ia Drang Valley, 1965. The Ia Drang Campaign

Notes from Vietnam...

Joe Galloway finds a little time in his busy schedule to write.

"...finished in hanoi. now in hue. heading for saigon. home may 2 or 3. shot a few pix. laptop works just fine; writing this on free broadband connection in my hue hotel room....go figger! joe"

Cryptic and short as usual, but Joe gets a zillion emails a day and I know it's hard to answer all those while on the road. But free broadband....in a communist country. That's a better deal than I have under the capitalist system! Moving from Hanoi to the old historical capital city of Hue, Joe writes again.....

ref hue, looks right good. even the citadel which was heavily damaged in 68. lots of new construction too. folks seem right prosperous round here.

Hue would be one of my first choices while touring Vietnam. It was once a grand and beautiful city that during the Tet offensive in '68 was nearly ground into the dust by the fighting. It also is a good reminder of why we fought that war, the North Vietnamese Army brutally murdered 1000's of citizens in Hue who were loyal to the government...men, women and children. I asked Joe about the state of the city and he wrote back.....

"....ref citadel, well i walked thru the dang place. there's your occasional bullet ding in the big brass bells and urn and on the walls here and there. but cept for the queen mother's reception hall everything else done been restored. to include the famous flag tower....go figger jg"

It's not surprising that the citadel has been restored, it is an integral part of Vietnamese history, but the flag tower Joe mentions was basically a symbol of the American victory when we took the town back in '68, so it's strange that it would be rebuilt.

Can't wait to hear more from Joe and see some of the pictures he's no doubt taking.

Trip down memory lane....

Please pardon my reverie back to the past and the 60's, but last night I watched a part of Vietnam: A Television History on PBS, a very good series about the history of the conflict. Then when I checked my email for the final time of the day there was a note from Will Parrish up in Oklahoma. Will sent along a link to a very intriguing website [below] named "The Vietnam Era in Music" which is guaranteed to take anyone of that certain age back on what may be a very joyful, tearful and heart tugging journey. My partner Del and I listened at the office for a half an hour or so until we just couldn't take the memories anymore.

Will Parrish is a veteran of the battles at the Ia Drang in '65 and through the last years has become a good friend. We email often and see each other at various reunion events such as the one in Fredericksburg, Texas pictured above. Will, in the red polo shirt in the photo, standing alongside his daughter, is a very humble guy and won't ever voluntarily tell you his story himself. But I will. In brief, Will singlehandedly held off a North Vietnamese human wave attack for several hours with a machine gun and when his M-60 ammo ran out he stood up and emptied two .45 pistols into the NVA. Somewhere over 100 enemy soldiers were found dead in front of his position when the day's fighting was over. Will was awarded the Silver Star for Gallanty.

Pictured at the far left is Vince Cantu who has his own amazing story. He graduated from Refugio [Texas] High School with my friend, and author, Joe Galloway. They did not see each other for many years thereafter until, amazingly, they met under a tree in Vietnam at the battle of LZ XRay neither knowing that the other was "in country". The bride and I are 3rd and 4th from the left above. Rounding out the group, is Chip Parker and his wife Vicki. Chip was a helicopter gunship pilot in the Ia Drang, now lives in Dallas and has been a visitor in our home.

So courtesy of Will, take your own trip down memory lane at:
Vietnam Era Music
Scroll about half of the way down and start selecting tunes off of the three "players".

Wish I were there..

Joe Galloway Vietnam '65

My good buddy Joe Galloway ought to be just about approaching Vietnamese air space at the time I write this. He left Washington D.C. yesterday afternoon for the 20 some hour flight to Hanoi. I can only image what he is thinking as he approaches what used to be the most heavily defended piece of airspace in the world. This however is not his first trip to Hanoi since the war ended. He, Hal Moore and several others were there in 1990 to interview General Giap, commander of all North Vietnamese forces during the war and architect of their victory.

The interview was done as research when they were writing what turned out to be their best seller, We Were Soldiers Once.....and Young and later the Mel Gibson film, We Were Soldiers. They went back in 1991 to interview the commanders who were their opponents on the battlefield in 1965 and then again in 1997 to spend time at LZ XRay, site of the battle.

Joe knows Vietnam well, having spent the better part of five years there as a journalist with UPI and probably having seen more combat than the majority of infantry soldiers. He is returning to Vietnam now to commemorate and remember the fall of South Vietnam, on April 30, 1975. Thirty years seems so far removed yet the faces of those who were left behind are as fresh as yesterday. Joe is going to pay homage to them. His itinerary is described by Joe as....

we fly hkg to hanoi for 2-3 days; then to hue; then to quang tri and dmz; then to danang china beach resort; then on to saigon for april 30 30th anniv. of fall of the whole shootin match.

Joe still writes in the terse no nonsense style of the combat journalist that he is. Short and to the point with a minimum of punctuation, a style made neccesary in the war years by the short time the reporter had to file his story on the phone lines available.

Joe has promised, if he can find an Internet hook-up, to email some of his thoughts and perhaps a picture or two that I will post. While he's there I've asked him to try and find a souvenir for me, a 25th Division Zippo lighter, though Joe's comment on that was....

they ain't no original zippos of any sort in all of Nam; they counterfeits them thangs. complete with misspelled 1st Calvery Divisin etc. but i will look.

Joe also talks in Bubba-ese to me, his West Texas buddy, and I only wish I were there with him to look.

Update 4/25: Comment #4 below rec'd from Dick Ackerman. Here's a picture of Dick and Ed "Too Tall" Freeman who received the Medal of Honor for his actions while flying into LZ XRay in 1965. Dick was the "point man" in his battalion at the horrendous action at LZ Albany. Dick and Too Tall

Corporate benevolence....

I haven't listened to the FM radio in my car for the longest of times and so this week I decided to give the "oldies" station a try. I did like the music but remembered why I gave up on radio years ago. The advertisements outweigh the music played by about 5:1.

I did listen long enough, however, to repeatedly hear one ad from a group who is looking out for my best interests. If you live in Texas, perhaps you've heard it too. A soft spoken Texan voice tells me that the lawmakers down in Austin are once again trying to shaft me, the little guy, by raising my taxes. And pardner they [it's always "they"] don't care a lick that when I stop in at the 7-11 I'm going to be paying more for things like soda pop, Cheeze Puffs, Slim Jims and cigarettes. Oh yeah, cigarettes. Tex, on the ad, intimates that by Gawd this is just un-American and decidedly un-Texan. Those lawmakers don't give a squat about me.

I especially like the part where Tex tells us that this tax, if passed, will "hurt the people the most who can least afford it". Those people being the po' folks that buy the neccessities of life like Ding Dongs and cigarettes at the local convenience store.[note to these people: don't buy snacks and cigarettes, you'll avoid most of the tax].

Listen long enough to Tex's pontification and you'll discover that, lo and behold, this paid political advertisement is being presented for the benefit of all us little guys in Texas by none other than our friend.....Phillip Morris. I'm grateful to a large conglomorate like this for sticking up for me, the average Texan, in this fight against Austin and "them". I wonder if the fact that Phillip-Morris makes cigarettes has anything to do with their care and concern. Naw.

The Big Gold Dog.....

The other day Eric over at The FireAnt Gazette had a fine picture of his dog Abbye posted along with the cryptic message that more pictures of Gold Dogs should be posted. Since Eric is a friend and knows of my Big Gold Dog, I took this as a personal note to let the readership finally see a photo of the namesake of this website. So here my friends, is Tres along with the master of this domain. Our images rarely grace the

pages of this journal, usually because there is no byline necessitating our photos. We thank Eric for the opportunity to fit our mugs into the scheme of things.

This photo was taken a year or so ago at our offices where I was teaching Tres how to read the drilling reports that come in daily, my thought being that if he could learn this skill I could stay at home. In a place like Midland where we all mainly work for ourselves, one can do things like bring his dog up to the office. About the only comments I had from my partners on this day were, "oh, I see you brought your dog". "Yes", I answered, and that was the end of the discussion. Tres had a wonderful time, especially looking out the window on the 12th floor.

A Taste of Honey......

I'm very busy in the yard this week so I wasn't going to write today....until something caught my eye. It's no secret that I like the 1960's. As time goes by I'm more enthralled with the people, places and things that I lived with then. Probably my fascination has to do with my age at the time. I went from 10 to 20 years old in the span of 1960-1969. From a kid to virtual manhood.

Perhaps you have the same feeling about those years of your development, whenever they may have been. But, in addition to counting as my formative years, I think that the 60's were a special time. So much happened, so much changed. We went from flying prop driven aircraft to landing on the moon during this ten years, from 45 rpm records to FM stereo on our radios.


What brought me here was an article on CNN today announcing that this is the 40th anniversary of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass launching their big hit album "Whipped Cream and Other Delights". Herb and the TJB may seem a little hokey to today's hip set, but they were a big deal in '65. Some of TJB's album sales records still stand. They crossed the cultural divide, being popular with the 15 year old set as well as with their parents. I can't think of a single dorm room I visited in college that didn't have at least one of their albums on the play list. On a side trip down memory lane is the very interesting website for Dolores Erickson, the whipped cream lady pictured above, which I suspect is why the album was standard fare in so many dorm rooms, of the male students anyway.

Another noted visitor...

Saturday we heard one of the most preeminent aviators in the world speak. Tonight Midland hosted the most noted paleoanthropologist living today. Dr. Richard Leakey was in town to speak at our college's semi-annual lecture series, his topic being "Why our origins matter". Leakey led us through his adventure filled life including a stint at, in effect, running the government of Kenya and how he went from high school drop out to being listed as one of Time Magazines "100 Greatest Minds of the 20th Century".

He spoke, with some degree of aplomb, about why he believed in the theory of evolution and why in his opinion this did not conflict with his strict Anglican upbringing. He reminded us that although there are millions of species known to be living today, this is just a small fraction of the total that have ever existed and are now extinct and that man is not immune from the same fate. Skirting controversy he mentioned his concerns for the environment based on his work in the conservation field, but he also gave many examples of why we have reason to be very optimistic.

The man possesses a dry sense of humor which kept the audience chuckling. A question from the audience asked "do you think that even though the Neanderthal's had become extinct, did their DNA continue on with modern man"? Leakey's quick answer was priceless.

"The answer to that is Yes and No"
"When I am at home the answer is no"
"When I'm walking through Heathrow Airport, the answer is yes"

It was quite an evening. And I'm grateful to our friends, the Davidsons, for funding this lecture series which began in 1997 and several times a year since has brought such notables as David McCullough, Ken Burns, Shelby Foote, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Mark Russell, Bill Moyers, David Brooks, Marvin Hamlish and Bob Newhart to regale and entertain us. The Davidson Family Charitable Foundation sponsors this lecture series which is available free to all citizens who wish to attend.

And coming next September........Ben Stein.

Update: Having never been shy about contacting people by email, I sent a short note off to Ben Stein telling him how excited we were about his upcoming visit, adding that appearing after the world's most formidable paleoanthropologist would be a tough act to follow. I shortly received a pleasant and humerous note back from Ben saying that this had been his lifelong fear but that he would do his best.

Fireball.....

It was a fairly quiet around the Craig household this weekend. Jack had a few little league practices, but no games, I caught up on some yard work, we went to the stimulating talk at the CAF on Saturday night and.......oh yeah, Julie was nearly blown up in a large propane explosion.

Those from our local area reading this no doubt are aware of the explosion and subsequent fire at the Old Sorehead Trade Days in the neighboring town of Stanton, but for those reading from distant locales let Julie tell you the story over at The Yellow Bug News......

We thank God that our little homemaker, Mother and wife is OK.

The Right Stuff......

One of the things I love about living in Midland is the advantage of the city being big enough to draw some pretty interesting people, but small enough to actually meet them when they come. Tonight at the CAF we got to say hel-lo to aviation legend Scott Crossfield. If you know aviation you'll know him. If you saw the movie The Right Stuff, you will remember his name. He and Chuck Yeager were in a friendly competition to see who would be the

first to break the sound barrier.Yeager won that round primarily because the government wanted a military man to be the record setter and Scott by then was a civilian.

But Scott took every other honor thereafter, being the first man through Mach 2 and then Mach 3. He had more flights in the experimental "X" planes of that era than any other pilot and in fact Scott actually helped design the X-15 and made the first 3 flights in it. Scott was generally accepted as the best test pilot in the business working alongside Chuck Yeager and training new test pilots like Neil Armstrong who would become famous himself one day. Being the best test pilot of that era undoubtedly qualifies him as one of the best of all times.

Scott is 84 years old now and flew into town [in his own plane of course] to reagale us with stories from the golden age of aircraft design and experimentation. Can you imagine flying an "X-1" at 800 miles per hour with the windshield iced up so badly that you have to have a chase plane guide you down? Scott did it several times, among other things that he also fascinated us with in his hour and a half talk tonight. You can tell that after 70 years of piloting aircraft the man still loves talking about aviation. After he took us back to those aviation glamour days of the late 50's and early 60's he asked if were interested in hearing about his recent experiences while consulting on the anniversary flight of the Wright Brothers aircraft. We were....and so we heard his 45 minute description of this enthralling story. Scott chose the pilot who was to fly the reproduction aircraft at Kitty Hawk in 2003 and taught him how to fly it.

As I told Jack on the way home...."I'm glad you got to see Mr. Crossfield, he's as an important man in the history of aviation as there is". And he is.

PS: The most interesting and amazing thing I learned from Scott was that in all the years of flying the most cutting edge experimental aircraft in the world.....he never was instrument rated. A fact he kept well guarded. He finally had to get "certified" in 1983 when he started flying general aviation aircraft!

One armed paper hanger...

I've been busy. Busy with actual oil field business. A project that had it's germination with an idea in June 2002 is finally getting nearer reality. Now for the negotiations. These should start next week. We hold most of the cards, so it should be fun.

This development has held my attention so work on meaningful blogging has been light, except that I spent some time today generating a new, mostly private, blog for my tight knit group of old fraternity brothers. I keep in fairly regular contact with 20 or so of these guys, so a blog to let them have their say online seemed a natural. Hope they can manage the technology.

And then, speaking of technology, I have to be honest and say that some good bit of my time this week was taken up with the new PlayStation2 racing system I bought. Gran Turismo3 is something I learned about on the web. It is sports car racing, where my other PS2 racing has been of the Formula I variety. There are things about GT3 that I love and some that could be improved upon but the graphics are simply stunning, some of the race venues being almost photographic in their realism. GT3 has now been superceded by GT4 but the "3" version was on sale so I thought I'd try it out before going with the just released GT4 with it's hefty price tag. It'll take about a year to complete all the variations in GT3 so perhaps by then, I'll upgrade. Speaking of which, I had to buy a new PS2 to run my new game.....the old one was just plain worn out.

In closing, an exciting bit of news came this week via an email from Cris Simmons, wife of Doobie Brother Pat Simmons. The Doobies will be back in West Texas on May 28th doing an outdoor concert in Lubbock. This, I believe, is the day that my bride and child leave for their European vacation so I suppose in my lonely state I'll accept Cris's invitation to go up and visit with them after the show. If you have never seen a Doobie's concert you might want to take it in......

Trickle down economics...

Last week Jeff at Archaeo Texture made the observation that from his "windshield" view, economic activity in the Permian Basin looks fairly strong. He noted that as he drives to work at the Channel 9 media center he is seeing an increased pace of truck traffic and many more happy workers at the coffee and burger joints along the way. Jeff is in the TeeVee news business and so he asked several of us with experience in the oil and gas business to confirm his observation.

To confirm his thoughts one needs to look no further than the statewide unemployment figures where, amazingly to me, Midland now has the lowest rate in Texas at around 4.4% unemployed. During periods of very low energy prices Midland has tended to be in the higher percentiles of the unemployed. Higher oil and gas prices do wonders for our economy.

When energy prices are higher things happen in the oil patch. People drill new wells, build infrastructure or like we have been doing lately, recomplete old wells to get more hydrocarbons out of well bores drilled years ago. Our operations are small potatoes compared to larger firms, but what we do illustrates how funds, cash money, are injected into the economy.

We recently recompleted the Linaka #2. For this project new money was raised and deposited in our local banks. A good portion of the funds for the work came from our partners outside the local area, some coming from Europe. This is new money for the region. As we started to work a variety of trades were employed on the well. Dirt contractors were needed to clear and level the site. Key Energy provided the rig and a crew usually numbering 5-6 "hands". Hands being paid much more than fast food wages. Fresh water trucks were needed to provide fluids for the drilling process. "Mud" specialists provided their goods to stabilize the fluids.

As we neared completion of the project specialists in varying fields were needed to insure success. People providing equipment such as "packers" and "bridge plugs", a perforating crew to blow holes from the casing into the rock and people like Ralph and Stringbean who provided us with the acid fracturing job to get the well flowing. A crew was employed to re-install the pumping unit. A steady stream of workers kept busy by this one project. We worked on the Linaka recompletion for over 3 months so probably we provided an income for 8-10 families during that period. If one factors in the support personnel [mechanics, bookkeepers, dispatchers etc.] necessary to keep these workers in the field for that period, the number is significantly higher. Multiple this times the 100's of ongoing jobs taking place in the oil field on any given day and the impact on the local ecomomy is impressive.

As Jeff noted in his windshield survey, these people are busy, so that when they left our job another was waiting...and then another. And unlike most national retail and fast food businesses who take local money and send it out of town....our "employees" spend their hard earned cash here.

The Pope......

God bless Pope John Paul II. I believe that he will be noted along with Ronald Reagan as one of the most influential leaders of the late 20th Century. A humble man but a moral giant. His influence helped bring down dictators and change governments in many places in the world. Though we may not believe in all the details of his religon, we can truly believe that he was divinely inspired.

John Paul II has been the Pope and a leader for quite a long time and in the future it will be hard for me to think of "the pope" and not have that person be Karol Jozef Wojtyla.

Play Ball.....again

More baseball action for Jack tonight, under the lights. Jack's team got beaten by a team who had some impressive hitters including the son of a former major leaguer. Jack got smacked in the lip by a one hopper in warm ups...but took an inning to recover and then made his mark at second base big lip and all.

As we sat on the 3rd base sidelines we noticed the other team's third base coach looked familiar. It was none other than Randy Velarde who retired here to his hometown after a very successful career mainly with the Yankees and later with the Angels and Oakland A's. Randy is one of only 11 [I think] major league players ever to score a triple play single handedly.

More baseball action tomorrow and Sunday.