Life brings loads of lessons outside the classroom

From My Front Porch

Sam Houston

Houston is a newspaper executive and columnist. He is also an actor, author, playwright, and entertainment producer and promoter.

The summer between my sophomore and junior year in college, I went to work in the oil patch of Oklahoma.

A fraternity brother’s father owned a small oil and gas company, and he wanted his son Steve to get out into the field and get his hands “dirty.” Steve did not want to go alone and so he asked if I wanted a good paying summer job laying pipe, tying in wells, and doing a thousand other oilfield related chores. How could I pass up an opportunity like that?

The men Steve and I worked with that summer were hardcore oilfield hands and I am pretty sure no one would call them the cream of the social crop.

From day one they made a point of letting us know we were “college boys” and telling us we clearly did not know “come here from sic em.”

Since Steve’s Dad was their employer, they went a little easier on him, but I had no such luck. I got the dirtiest job, the hardest chores, and the most grief. I decided early on I was not going to give in and let anyone run me off the job. I understood they were hazing and initiating me into their world, and I was bound and determined to measure up.

One day the crew strung some 6-inch pipe over a creek. It was about 30 feet from the pipe to the water and creek bed below. Just as I unhooked the chains from the equipment which had drug the pipe in place, the foreman reached into the back of his pickup and pulled out a gallon of silver paint and a 4-inch paint brush. He called out my name and I quickly walked over to where the foreman stood, as the other field hands gathered around. The foreman handed me the paint and the brush and in a demanding tone told me to “get out there and paint that pipe.”

The field hands all giggled under their breath, but I never flinched. The only way to paint the pipe was to straddle it, with both legs hanging down and a bucket of paint in one hand and a brush in the other.  I had to scoot backwards as I painted and traversed the nearly 120 feet of space between the two banks of the creek, all the while dangling on the pipe and hoping not to fall.

To make matters worse, all the field hands started throwing dirt clods at me and screaming insults and instructions. I could hear, “I think you missed a spot there on the right,” and “don’t spill any,” and of course, “I bet that water down below is cold”.”

I dodged the clods and managed to get covered in silver paint but continued to work. Finally I made it to the other side of the creek bank. When I got there, I jumped off the pipe and proudly painted my initials to memorialize I was the one who completed the job.  I shouted over the divide asking the crew if they had any other pipes which needed painted. I never got angry, called names, or lost my temper. Surprisingly, the men never answered, they simply grinned sheepishly and giggled a little bit and then went back to work.

From that day on, the field hands never gave me another day of grief.

Friendships were formed and some of them remain till this very day.  The creek crossing had been some sort of unspoken test and I had passed.

Some might call it bullying. Some might call it hazing. Some might call it dangerous tom foolery. Respect among men is always earned — it is never given away like Halloween candy.

College boys sometimes learn lessons outside their classrooms.

Thought for the day: We all learn by experience, but some of us must go to summer school.

Until next time….

sam@hcnews.com