Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
Ernie and I were thrilled with anticipation when 'Sinky' told us we had been hired to work for California Standard following army camp in the summer of 1943. I had a few things to take care of at home so Ernie volunteered to go out to Black Diamond and look for a place for us to stay. He returned to Calgary bubbling with enthusiasm over the 'digs' he had found for us.
As we descended the steep hill on the east side of the town of Black Diamond we could see a solitary two-story building next to the creek at the bottom of the hill.
"That's it, that's our new lodging place!' Ernie said enthusiastically. We stopped the car and mounted the steep stairs to the accommodation. I looked around for additional rooms when we entered the tiny bedroom but saw only a small window on the east side, a small wooden desk and chair and a three-quarter size bed.
'Very nice, Ernie,' I said. 'Where am I going to sleep?'
'Well, there's a bed,' he said apologetically.
'A three-quarter bed! I exclaimed. 'You expect us both to sleep in a three-quarter bed? What are you, nuts or somethin'?'
'I'll admit it'll be a little crowded,' he said sheepishly, 'but fifteen bucks a month, you can't argue with that, can you!'
'Yeah! I can argue with it! I'd argue with it if I were a fucking sardine, for God's sake!'
'I think you'll get used to it,' he said weakly.
'The hell I will! Not unless I turn queer! I'll start looking for a place to stay first thing tomorrow.'
'You won't find anything this cheap.' he said.
'Ernie, let me tell you something...I'm the 'King of Cheap', but there's a limit to everything. I'll stay here tonight, then I'm outta here!'
'Whatever you say,' Ernie said dejectedly. In the event, getting another place to stay was more difficult than I anticipated, as a result I spent nearly a week sleeping in the 'cosy' bed Ernie had found for us. We didn't exactly sleep by numbers but it wasn't necessary to have a sergeant-major shouting out numbers. Ernie slept next to the wall and we were required to sleep 'spoon style' if one wanted to avoid sleeping on the floor. If he turned with his back to the wall I had to roll over with my back to him to avoid being shoved out the side of the bed onto the floor.
There was a hotel called 'The Holmwood' on the main street in Black Diamond just across the street from the 'Horseshoe Coffee Counter'. I was scheduled to move into the Holmwood the following week. I don't think they served full course meals at the 'Horseshoe' but we hung around there drinking coffee or milkshakes after hours. Fortunately, this was also the favoured place for the nubile young girls of the town to 'hang out'. Ernie soon became an item with a very attractive young lady of good breeding whom I still see occasionally at Oil Patch Golf Tournaments. She ultimately married a young native of the town who became wealthy in the oilfield trucking business and finally succeeded in drinking himself to death.
There was also a pair of sisters, one of whom interested me mightily. The fact that she was a 'cock teaser' (to use our parlance of the day) was of no significance to me in the early days of my obsession. She had a slim, teen-aged figure, good chest and an attractive face and did not discourage my early importunities. Her sister, a couple of years older, who was not really unattractive if you didn't mind girls fifteen pounds overweight, was not flirtatious but was definitely 'available'. One of the older, more sophisticated members of our crew soon sniffed this fact out and was shortly thereafter poking her regularly after hours at the back of our survey office, located next to the drug store just across from the Black Diamond Hotel.
I was more cautious and although youthfully impatient I bided my time until I had a clear signal from my chosen one that 'the coast was clear'. I never learned what her mother's fate had been but the girls lived with their father at the bottom of the hill near the bridge at the west end of town. Their father was a drilling hand for one of the local oilwell drilling companies and when his crew swung onto 'night tower' from eight in the evening until four the next morning, 'the coast was clear'!
The minimal amount of 'grappling' I had been engaged in previously had been confined to doorways in cold weather or to the back seats of cars with occupants in the front seats. But this was different...we had an empty house, no time limit and an unoccupied bed wherein to engage in our embraces. The young lady was a great kisser and body rubber but no matter which of the numerous ploys I attempted over a period of two and a half hours she managed to outwit me. I suppose today she would have grounds for assault, on the other hand she never said 'No!'. She never said 'Yes!' either, and that seemed to be the source of my problem.
During the prolonged encounter, I found when I eventually gave up my attempts that I had oozed a substantial amount of certain essential bodily fluids into my jockey shorts. This was an uncomfortable but painless development but when I stood up I found that it was accompanied by fierce lower abdominal cramps. I was having my first experience with the syndrome referred to by the juvenile intelligentsia as 'lover's nuts!'
I excused myself and hobbled painfully out to the car I had parked in front of the 'Tack Shack' (a misnomer if ever there was one), and grasped the front bumper. Then I heaved up mightily expecting the immediate relief promised by the wise fellows who claimed to have experienced this problem in the past. Nothing happened. After several heaves I wisely decided that it was better to drive the short distance back to the room with abdominal cramps than to drive back with abdominal cramps and an inguinal hernia!
Ernie was sleeping peacefully when I entered the room and turned on the light. I had to shake his shoulder several times before he opened his eyes blearily.
'Wake up, pal, I've got a problem,' I said.
'Problem, what problem?' he mumbled.
'I can't untie my shoelaces,' I said.
'You can't untie your shoelaces?'
'That's what I just said!'
'What's wrong with you, anyway?' he asked.
'I've got terrible cramps in my lower bowel...I can't bend over!'
'Maybe you should go to the hospital,' he said sympathetically.
'No, no, it'll be gone by morning. Just get my shoes and pants off and go back to sleep.'
'What happened to you, anyway?'
'Never mind, I'll explain it in the morning.'
-o-
There were several days of testing required during which the levelling instruments were tested and re-tested, all according to the book. I was anxious to get started right away but the operations managers were correct; there was no point in spending the summer getting data that might be inaccurate. However, the tiresome exercise was finally completed; I was walking erectly once more and the surveying began. I was assigned as rodman to Jim T. Jim tended toward thirstiness, if you understand my meaning.
I had moved into the Holmwood by this time and was pleased that the tariff included full board. We were given a traditional breakfast of bacon and eggs, a box lunch and a passable meal at dinner time. For some reason the windows to our rooms were only about a foot above ground level, meaning that we could come and go unnoticed without drawing attention in the lobby. As a result our continuous drunken misbehaviour was carried on throughout our stay. Our windows were closed only at night when we went to bed.
Jim managed to consume a minimum of a 'mickey' (12 ounces) of rye whiskey nightly. Extremely short-sighted, he depended on his 'bottle-top' spectacles to drive and survey correctly. Sometimes he spent an hour or so in the bar with us drinking beer after work, then he went out and bought his mickey of whiskey. On these occasions he would have brutal hangovers the following day. He always showed up for work on time the next morning however, but the quality of his work was subject to question.
The 'rodman' was required to be able to drive a car, of course, sometimes in unusual conditions. When he saw a flagging strip on a fence line he would stop the car opposite it and drop off the 'instrument man'. There was a vertical steel post about ten inches long fastened to the top of the vehicle on the driver's side of the car. The instrument man would ufold the legs of his instrument, whether an alidade or a sextant and set it up over the peg in the road or roadside while the rodman drove on to the next survey point. He would stop the car, remove the folded rod, reassemble it and set it on the top of the flagged peg. The only really technical requirement for 'rodding' was the necessity to move the rod backward and forward while the instrument man was making his shot. If the rod was leaning toward the instrument man the shot would read too high; if it were taken leaning away, the shot would also read too high. Our university training was really paying off! All the instrument man had to do was to take the lowest reading. i.e. when the rod was vertical.
When the instrument man had finished making his reading he would wave his arms and the rodman would turn around and drive back to him while he made his survey notations. By the time the rodman arrived back and turned around, the instrument man would have folded his instrument legs and was ready to proceed to the peg the driver had just left. He would simply step up on the welded foot board with his instrument resting on his left shoulder and wrap his right arm around the post projecting from the roof of the car. The driver would drop him off at the flag just viewed and drive on until he came to the next flag point and the routine would be repeated.
Driving under these conditions was a marvellous opportunity to improve my driving capabilities. Looking into the rearview mirror while driving backward was not a good option; the slight delay in reaction caused the car to swerve back and forth across the road. I discovered that placing one arm over the back of the front seat and looking out of the rear window with one hand placed on the steering wheel was very effective. If the hand on the steering wheel was centred at the top of the wheel I merely had to move that hand in the direction I desired the car to go and steering was simple and effective. By the end of the season I could drive backward comfortably at speeds up to forty miles an hour.
A great place to practice 'skids' was on the flat dirt roads on level plains that had no side ditches. If it had rained recently and the black dirt had turned into greasy mud I could build up speed and then put the car into a deliberate skid. It wasn't long before I was automatically reacting and turning the car in the direction of the skid.
One morning when I went to pick up Jim he opened the passenger door and climbed in beside me. 'What seems to be your problem?' I said.
'I think I'm still drunk!' he stated bluntly. 'When I start reading telephone lines and barbed wire instead of crosshairs I know I've got a problem. See if you can find a coffee shop somewhere in the next mile or so.' So we found a coffee shop and took time out while Jim had two or three cups of black coffee before he felt up to continuing.
Hangovers were troublesome but Jim had usually begun a recovery by noon and managed to finish the rest of the day with a minimum of discomfort. There was a day when a more serious problem confronted him, however. It was a Monday and Jim had caroused more zealously than usual throughout the weekend. When I first saw him I was aware that there was something different about him beyond his usual sickly morning pallor. Then the penny dropped; he was not wearing his glasses! I was surprised that he had been able to find the dining room unaided.
'Where the hell are your glasses?' I asked.
'That's what I'd like to know,' he replied grouchily, 'I've looked everywhere for them!' That wouldn't be much help, I thought. He may as well have been blindfolded for all the good that would do!
'Don't you have a spare pair?' I asked gratuitously. I had reasoned that anyone as close to being blind as he was would surely have an emergency set in readiness even if it required packing around a couple of extra pounds of bottle glass.
'No, I don't have a spare pair!' he snarled angrily. 'Look, you go to the office and pick up all of our gear; we may as well be out in the field doing bugger all as sitting around here looking stupid.'
'Good thinking!' I said, thinking quite the opposite. I later thought that there might be 'guardian angels' after all; if there were, Jim's was hovering closely overhead.
The cars the company had rented for the campaign that summer had cleverly been designed so that when the doors closed they concealed the running boards. This had required that standing plates had to be welded below the doors for the instrument man to stand on while moving between set-up points. This ultimately made a hell of a mess of the doors but it was a blessing in disguise for poor short-sighted Jim.
Jim had kept the car over the weekend and I went out to the front of the hotel where he had parked it. As I opened the driver's side door I saw that the running board was covered with close to an inch of dried mud. Where the hell had the man been? But there was something embedded deep in the hardened mess that glinted in the reflected sunlight. I reached down and broke away the section of mud and... lo and behold!
I immediately recognized Jim's 'bottle tops'; temple bars neatly folded, glasses undamaged. What could possibly have required him to remove his spectacles in such a muddy location? I smiled wickedly. Perhaps he'd been making a spectacle of himself! Har har! Big joke. I returned to the dining room carrying the muddy exhibit.
'Do these look like yours?' I said, handing them to him with a snide smile. The look of relief and gratitude on his debauched features came close to embarrassing me, but I was able to handle it with my usual composure and humble graciousness.
There was a similar surveying crew operating near Taber in the southeast part of the province. For some reason unknown to me I was informed one morning that I would be working with Art Webb in future. Jim T. had been transferred to the Taber operation, or so I was told. I never saw him again. I think the new advances in eye and liver surgery may have come along too late for him. I'm personally counting on the liver research people to move along with despatch.
Webb and I were what the old timer's refer to as 'a real pair to draw to!'. Art was not a particularly heavy drinker and not subject to the crippling hangovers that used to plague Jim. He was not averse, however, to joining us for a few beers after work in the bar at the Black Diamond Hotel. I guess our (my) first memorable 'boo-boo' happened about a week after we had become a team. I'm assuming that it was a result of some last-minute diversion before we headed out but I was unable to pinpoint anyone to blame it on. We had been directed to do plane table levelling measurements several miles to the west of the town of Turner Valley. We had passed through Turner Valley and were fifteen or twenty miles beyond the town nattering mindlessly about various matters when I suddenly had an apprehensive surge of sludge to my brain. Art was driving and I wound down the window on my side of the car and reached gingerly up to the roof to where my rod was supposed to be strapped between its retainers. Nothing!
Art had been watching my moves and when I turned to him with my red face and sheepish smile he knew immediately what I had done, or not done!
'You forgot the rod!' he said.
'Afraid so,' I replied. He said nothing but waited for a wide spot in the road and turned the car around and headed back for the half-hour drive to the office. When we arrived back in Black Diamond he did a U-turn at the main intersection and pulled up in front of the office. I waited for him to go in but he just sat looking at me with his hands on the steering wheel and a wry smile on his face. When I finally got the message I reluctantly opened the door and walked into the office.
'Sinky' was standing at a draughting table studying a map with Bob Augenthaler, the project manager from the Calgary office. When I walked in they looked up with startled expressions as if I were about to announce a fatal automobile accident. I looked straight ahead and walked into the back of the office where the rods were stored. I picked up a rod and walked back past them and out of the office. They were still standing nonplussed in an immobilized condition the last I saw of them out of the corner of my eye. Not a word had been exchanged.
'What'd they say?' Art asked after I had strapped down the rod and climbed back into the car.
'Nothing!' I said.
'Nothing?'
'Absolutely nothing!'
'Jeezuz!' Art breathed as we headed back toward our assignment for the day.
One day some time later we were surveying near Priddis up toward the northern section of the company's allotment. I had packed a couple of beers in with my lunch and hauled them out when we sat at the edge of the road after putting in our day's work.
'We're not all that far from 'Dangerous Dan' Renner's place, you know,' he said. 'Maybe we should drop in and say hello to him.'
'Why not?' I said. 'I didn't realize we were that close.' So when we finished our beer we headed over to the Renner farmstead. We were welcomed by Bob (his real name) his brother, his sister and his mother. The home was not like the usual farmhouse in Western Canada; it was a beautifully maintained two-story clapboard house with fine furniture and all of the modern conveniences.
'Why don't you boys stay for dinner?' Mrs. Renner said in her soft Kentucky drawl. 'We've got lots of food!'
'We didn't intend to impose,' Art said.
'It's no trouble at all,' she replied, 'we'd just love to have you!' Needless to say, very little additional assurance was required and as Bob opened more beers we settled back and looked forward to a delicious home-cooked meal. We were not disappointed; Mrs. Renner set out warm plates piled high with Southern-fried chicken, baking powder biscuits, dishes of mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts and a gravy boat full of chicken gravy. I felt like we were in 'Bubba heaven'. We were just being questioned about whether we wanted cheese or ice cream on our apple pie when Art suddenly got a strained look on his face. I was afraid he had bust a gut from overeating. In fact, he had suddenly remembered that he hadn't phoned the office in Black Diamond to inform them that we were O.K. but we would be back late.
'I wonder if you'd mind if I used the 'phone?' he asked politely.
'No problem,' Bob said. 'you know where it is.'
When Art returned to the dinner table he looked decidedly unhappy. 'Did you talk to 'Sinky'?' I asked.
'Afraid not, he left some time ago to look for us!' he said glumly. Oh, oh! I thought; it was a company rule that any team that would be more than an hour overdue was expected to phone the office with an explanation. 'Sinky' would know where we were supposed to be but I wondered if it would occur to him that we might have gone to 'Dangerous Dan's' for dinner. I doubted it. What I didn't doubt was that he was going to be steaming mad when he found out what we'd done and had forgotten to phone in.
When we explained our problem to the Renners they all tried to take the blame but we soon disabused them of that conviction. 'I guess we may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb!' Art said resignedly.
'Whatta you mean?' I said.
'I mean we might as well have a piece of that delicious apple pie before we go to face the music!'
'Ha, ha...that's the spirit!' Bob said. That was the last bit of laughter we heard for some time. 'Sinky' was furious and chewed on Art mercilessly after he drove back into town about an hour after we had arrived back.
— The End —