..."TRAGEDY AND TRIUMPH!..A CONTRADICTION OF TERMS!"
"AMAZING GRACE HOW SWEET THE SOUND THAT SAVED A WRETCH LIKE ME!"
"I ONCE WAS LOST BUT NOW I"M FOUND WAS BLIND BUT NOW I SEE!"
"...The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."
"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of corn falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces much fruit." {John 12:23-24}
...I have no idea what all went on after I went to bed?...I crashed hard and some how slept through any noise or commotion that continued amonst the celebrants...
...The next thing I know, Doug's Date Lisa, is waking me up all distraught...asking me to help her get Doug back inside the house, because he was outside in the front yard Buck ass Naked and she was afraid someone was going to see him and call the cops. She said she couldn't get him to listen to reason or anything she was trying to get him to do...
...This was a little after 3:00AM, right before my alarm was set to get me up for work...
...I HAVE TO ADMIT, I AM NOT A VERY PLEASANT KIND OF GUY WHEN SOMEONE WAKES ME...ESPECIALLY WHEN I'M SLEEP DEPRIVED, OR A LITTLE HUNG OVER...I REMEMBER THINKING, "WHAT THE HELL? I COULD HAVE SLEPT ANOTHER HALF HOUR"...
... I DON'T HAVE A LOT OF TIME TO BE FOOLING AROUND WITH A SLOPPY DRUNK! I WALKED OUTSIDE AND SAW DOUG STAGGERING AROUND AND HANGING ONTO A SMALL TREE TRYING TO TAKE A LEAK...BTW HE REALLY WAS STARK NAKED, NOT A STITCH OF CLOTHES ON...
...I hollered at Lisa to run back in the bedroom and grab a pair of gym shorts or sweats or something for Doug to put on...I got a hold of him and started talking him back into the house...Lisa re-appeared with a pair of shorts and after getting him dressed I guided him back inside...He was coherant in the sense that he was able to talk and form sentences, but he was staggering all over the living room, falling onto the portable TV and knocking it off on the floor, not able to maintain his balance...
...All the time that I'm dealing with Doug, trying to get him settled down and sorted out before I had to leave, Lisa is recounting to me about how drunk Doug had gotten even to the point of violence, where he had picked a fight with somebody and something about him pulling a knife on some guy, anyways, she said that the fellows got it broke up and that had pretty much ended the festivities for the evening...The rest she didn't go into detail about but I got the sense that they had laid down together with Carnal intentions which led to him wandering around Naked...
...Finally, I got Doug settled down in the Bedroom that I had just vacated and admonished Lisa to look after him and make sure he didn't get into any more trouble...
...She assured me that she was going to stay the night with him, there was nobody else there in the house to give her a ride a home anyways...
...Feeling confident that she would keep an eye on him, as well as the fact that he now seemed to be fast asleep, I figured he would be fine...
... after all...He just needed to sleep it off...
...It really was not anything out of the ordinary...Just another friend that had too much to drink, we would all have a good laugh about it sometime later and embarass him by telling him what an idiot he was drunk ...
... Maybe I was a little distracted being under a time deadline, starting my new job and all, but I had to get going and that's what I did!
...I remember how excited I was heading out on my grand adventure of a new job and possibly a new career in the oilfield...
...I had only gone a few miles down the road and thought no more of the events that I had just left behind...
...Why should I?
... Situation normal in our world...
...Drink too much...Make a fool out of yourself...
...sleep it off...and start life all over again...
...We had all done it a million times...
...That first week in the oilfield was almost my last!
...As tough as I was, and as stubborn as I am, nothing in my life up to that point had properly prepared me for all of the challenges, both physically and emotionally that immediately assaulted me on every level of my existense...
...If you have ever watched one of those military style movies, where the new recruits are put through pure hell at boot camp...
...Constantly being bullied, yelled at, people screaming, hollering, insulting, humiliating you, swearing, cussing, cursing, and even threatening you...
...Your every sense is assaulted, by the noises and the smell of smoke and diesel fuel from the dozens of huge caterpillar and Detroit Diesel motors being pressed into service, exerting the forces of thousands of horsepower, to move and push and pull tons of iron pipe, tools, etc, etc...
Every thing was bigger and heavier than anything that I had ever had to work with in my life...It didn't take me too long to figure out what they were hollering about...
...They kept screaming at me to get the 48 or the 60...It was the size in inches of the largest, heaviest Pipe wrench I had ever seen...
...The job we were doing, required us to use these mammoth size tools repeatedly, as often and skillfully as a carpenter uses his hammer...
...It is no understatement when I tell you that it was pure hell in every sense of the word...
...The filth, of the Drilling fluids = Mud...
...The Pipe Dope = Buckets of Grease or Oil...
...Wet water dripping and splashing constantly all over you for your 12 hr. shift...
...Exposed to all of the Elements, Weather, Hot , Cold, Wind, Rain, Lightning, and you cant even imagine all of the huge bugs, insects, animals and creatures that crawl out of the bayous and swamps...
...You have no idea how relieved I was on that 4th day of our hitch, when we packed up and left that little Roach Motel they had us holed up in...
...I'll never forget the Phone conversation I had with Miss Beth after that 3rd night...
... I told her, "That I didn't think I was cut out for this roughneck crap and I just wanted to come home..."
"That was the turning point right there that was going to make me or break me...Because she said to me,..
... That I only had to survive for 12 more hours and I could crawl into my old rust bucket and head back Home to DeRidder...
...and make no mistake about it...DeRidder was now our home so I had better just suck it up, and do what I had to do to get through it...
"...Her and Aimee' was counting on me to move them down there as soon as possible, they wasn't going to live like we had been living any longer..."
...The Upshot of that conversation was, that if I quit my job and gave up, I essentially was giving up and quitting on our marriage...
...That was all the motivation and kick in the seat of my pants that I needed!
... I toughed it out, got through the last 12hr shift of my hitch, and headed towards DeRidder!..
...I could go on and on but I think your getting the idea of the kind of culture shock this young naive Damn Yankee was encountering...
...The strange thing is...
...As much as it hurt...
... as much as I hated it...
...I Loved it!..
...I was so relieved to pull into the driveway after the 3 hour drive to get back to the house...I was tired, hungry, and filthy dirty! I needed a shower bad.
It was spooky and quiet when I walked into our apartment...Nobody was around, so I decided to hurry up and shower, get into some clean clothes and go find the gang and see if anyone wanted to go get dinner somewhere...I couldn't wait to tell somebody about my experiences and my first week as a RoughNeck...
There was one thing that really struck me as being odd when I went to get me some clean clothes out of the dresser...
...Doug's glasses were sitting on top of the chester drawers and I remember how everybody kinda ribbed Doug over him being Blind as a bat without his glasses...
...It just seemed strange to me, but I didn't dwell on it very long, I just blew it off and took care of my business and headed up the street to Debbie and Koch's house, figuring to run into everybody up there...
...I'll never forget as long as I live the look on Smiley's face, when He opened the door for me and stepped out on the porch instead of inviting me inside...He was speaking in hushed tones, almost a whisper when He asked me the most ridiculous question???
..."YOU KNOW DOUG DON'T YOU?"
Of course, I said...Why?
...And at that very moment, I knew what he was about to tell me before the words ever came out of his mouth...
...THOSE GLASSES SITTING THERE ON TOP OF OUR DRESSER FLASHED ACROSS MY BRAIN, AND SOMEHOW I KNEW HE WAS ABOUT TO DROP A BOMBSHELL ON ME ABOUT SOMETHING VERY BAD HAPPENED TO DOUG!...
...I THEN REMEMBERED THE SCENE I HAD LEFT BEHIND 4 OR 5 DAYS AGO WHEN I WENT TO WORK AND LEFT DOUG IN LISA'S CARE...
...It was an unbelievable sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and I remembar saying that Doug was about to turn 21 years old in two weeks...What the the Hell had happened?...
...Where was Barry and Page at?...
...I had a million questions all at once and the tears and my emotions were starting to run wild!
...How could this have happened??? What exactly did happen? What killed him? How did he die? Who found Him? When did they find him? Where did they find him? On and On and On...I kept firing the questions?
...I was sick and stunned and in disbelief, all at the same time...I was in shock!
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