The Hollow Men - Episode 3

Drew takes another step up the ladder, and learns another lesson that things aren’t always what they seem after just a few too many beers.

Last week in Episode 2 of The Hollow Men Drew, in a hungover state of mind, learns something about his Business Law course and Drew goes on not just one date, but two with the same person.

If you’re the type that likes to read things from the very beginning feel free to start with The Cold Days of Summer, the first collection of not quite true tales of Texas. Each episode contains a link to the previous and next episode so you can easily move through all of the episodes.

One step up the ladder

My first semester at Odessa College was going well as the month of November 1976 started. Back in September I had taken Advanced Placement tests in Trigonometry, Freshman English and American History. In late October I got the results of the Advanced Placement tests, I had scored high enough to get three hours credit in Trigonometry, and three hours credit each for the first semester of Freshman English and American History, a total of nine hours credit and I never had to attend a class in any of those three courses. I had solid As in Golf, Algebra and Spanish, and from everything I could tell I had at the worst Bs in Business Law and Chemistry. The workload wasn't too bad at all. Truth was, I had a lot of spare time on my hands and wound up playing a lot of golf during the week. Jack and Rick were both working so I usually played alone. I only had one problem, I was close to being broke. The money I had saved up during the summer was almost gone. I needed a job.

I decided to take full advantage of the career counseling services at Odessa College. The services largely consisted of a bunch of 3x5 note cards describing job openings. It didn't take too long to skim through them and sort out which ones to focus on. Out of about 25 openings I narrowed in on two. RainMaker Sprinklers was looking for people to help install sprinkler systems, in other words, ditch diggers. Good, honest, sweaty work, but winter was coming and if I could avoid being outside I would. The second opening was a drafting position paying between $3.00 and $5.00 an hour at SouthWestern Tank, located just south and west of the intersection of 2^nd Street and West County Road. I called the number for SouthWestern, asked the receptionist to transfer me to the person who wanted to hire a draftsman, talked with him for a few minutes and set up an interview for Thursday at 1:00 pm.

Oil storage tanks ready to be moved to the oil fields. Every tank manufacturer in Odessa had their own tank yard where ready to be shipped tanks were kept.

The interview went well. I met everyone who worked in the shop office at SouthWestern Tank. There was the shop foreman, Jim Wallace, a quiet man, didn't say much, but I could tell from the way everyone treated him that he was the day to day boss. Bucky Buttons, oh, that was a name to make fun of, answered the phone in the shop office and helped line up the shear and brake work. Bucky looked to be a weightlifter, he wasn't very tall, but he had a big chest and arms. Carey Johnston worked the desk next to Bucky and was responsible for managing most of the small bids for tanks and containers. Finally there was Ned Patton, the engineer. The shop office was a cinder block building with a large front office for Carey and Bucky and private offices for Jim and Ned. Ned's office had a large drafting table against one wall. The shop office was connected to the shop itself, a metal building large enough to more than contain a football field and tall enough that a 32 foot high tank could stand upright and not touch the roof.

When I first walked in I met Bucky, whose desk was right by the front door of the shop office. I introduced myself and Bucky pointed me to the back office. Ned was sitting at his desk. He looked to be 5-10 years older than me and was bigger than me, taller and heavier. Ned asked me how much drafting experience I had. I told him two years in high school. He asked me what I was majoring in. I told him engineering because I figured that would be what he wanted to hear. He asked me if I thought I could do the job. I said yes. Finally he asked me what I expected to be doing in five years. I looked at him and said “If I'm still here, sitting where you are sitting.” He was a little startled by that but must have liked the answer because he smiled and said “All right, all we got to do now is negotiate a starting salary and your hours. Since you really don't have any professional experience drafting I would like to start you at $3.00 an hour.”

That's what Rick was making an hour and I wanted to beat that.

I told Ned “$3.50 an hour would make me a whole lot happier.”

Ned looked at me curiously, then shook his head and smiled. “All right, $3.50 an hour it is. Now let's talk about your hours.”

“Right now I can be at work on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 1:00 pm. I have a lab on Wednesday's that lasts most of the afternoon so I don't see much point in coming out on Wednesday. I can work as late as you need and can work Saturdays too.”

Jim leaned in the doorway between his and Ned's office. “That ought to work fine. We have a fair amount of work for you to do, but if you work five hours a day during the week and another five hours on Saturday, we work most Saturdays from 7:00 am to 12:00 noon, that's 25 hours a week and that should be enough if you're any good.”

Ned nodded his head and I tried not to wince at the idea of being at work at 7:00 am on Saturdays. That might have an impact on my Friday nights.

The negotiation was done, we all agreed I would start the following Monday. I shook everyone's hand and Bucky took me out for a tour of the shop, pointing out the machine shop area, the small and big steel rolls, the shear and brake, the angle rolls, the painting area and the tank yard outside of the shop.

Rick was appropriately jealous of my high wages. Two weeks later he quit his job and found another one that paid $3.60 an hour.

That first Monday afternoon I learned how little I knew about drafting. I wasn't accurate, I wasn't fast, I was just incompetent, but I kept at it. I went back and looked at some of Ned's drawings, I studied them in my spare time and I learned from them. By the time Christmas rolled around I was actually decent and Ned said so.

I had just received a set of drawings for a three phase oil/gas/water separator and needed to make a single drawing that laid out the elevation, orientation and construction details on one single 22” by 34” D size sheet. I was focused and wasn't noticing what else was going on in the office until Ned spoke up.

“Damn, you've gotten good.”

I looked up to see Jim, Carey and Ned all watching me. That was a little embarrassing.

Ned spoke again, this time to Carey and Jim.

“Notice how he sized up the drawing, blue lined the orientation and elevation in first? Then the first thing he drew in black was the orientation. That's going to help him figure out the details on the elevation as well as the pipe lengths he will need for the nozzles. He's seeing the whole vessel in 3D. He actually understands what he's doing.”

Carey smiled at all this, he seemed to sense I was embarrassed by the talk. Jim just nodded his head and spit his Copenhagen into a plastic cup.

“All right, no need to watch me anymore. Hell, you're making me nervous. Just let me get this done.”

They all laughed and let me get back to drawing. I did see things in three dimensions and that helped in figuring out how all the pieces fit. I liked how the drawings I made helped the guys in the shop. Sometimes, in between drawings, I went out in the shop and watched how the guys used my drawings. I noted how they marked them up and then added that information to the next drawing. I talked to them about what was good information on the drawing and what wasn't. The guys in the shop were helpful, they liked having good drawings, ones that could count on and they seemed to appreciate that I was interested in their feedback.

All in all, it was a good gig, I was getting 25 hours a week at $3.50 an hour. After taxes that came out to about $65-66 dollars a week. We got paid on Fridays right before lunch.

I opened up a bank account with my first full paycheck at the National Bank of Odessa during lunch hour my second Friday at SouthWestern Tank. I walked in, waited in queue, then told the teller I wanted to open up a new checking account. She gave me the forms and I started filling them out. I had completed the first one, handed it back to her and was working on the second form when she said “Remington? Are you related to Bill Remington?”

“Yes, he's my uncle.”

“Oh, well, always glad to meet another Remington. Mr. Remington is a wonderful person to work for.”

“Not surprising to hear. He's a pretty nice uncle. Is he in today?”

“No, you just missed him, he's out for lunch.”

“Tell him I dropped by, would you?”

“Glad to.”

With the small talk out of the way I got the rest of the forms filled out to her satisfaction, deposited my first paycheck, ordered my first book of checks and withdrew $10 dollars just to know what it felt like.

After a few weeks I managed to average saving about $25 a week, taking into consideration golf at $5.00 on Sunday, Quarter beer night ($2.00 to get in plus $4.00 to $5.00 for beer), the occasional What-a-burger meal ($4.00), Friday and Saturday night out ($10-20), gas for my truck and miscellaneous expenses. In February of 1977 I opened up a savings account with $200. The plan was to keep adding to it, to save for the inevitable rainy day.

The same afternoon I opened my first bank account I met Matt Johnson, the owner of SouthWestern Tanks. His office, the sales and admin office for SouthWestern Tank, was located on 2nd street. He came over to our tank shop nearly every morning when I was at school. This Friday he came over in the afternoon.

Matt was in his 60's, tall, still in good shape, mostly bald, and smiled nearly all the time. Never, ever swore. In fact, no one swore around him, which was strange because most of the time there was some swear word in the air. Carey and Ned were both creative swearers, sometimes coming up with combinations so creative I just had to write them down. Bucky didn't swear too much, at least in comparison to Ned and Carey and his swearing was rather pedestrian, as compared to the soliloquies that Ned and Carey came up with. Jim naturally swore, it didn't mean he was angry, it was just part of his natural way of speaking, that is, until Matt walked in. Then it all changed. It was like being in a church, the change was so significant. Absolutely no one swore when Matt was around. His daily routine was consistent, he wanted to check on the business of the day, bring over the latest set of drawings for jobs to come, check with everyone on the current inventory of pipe, plate, flanges and bolts.

He talked me with me for a few minutes. He looked over the first couple of drawings, really didn't have too much to say, which was being kind, because as I said earlier, I was just incompetent when I first showed up for work. Ned talked with him some, so did Joe, then he followed up with Carey and Bucky. Last thing he did was look out at the shop, as if he were getting a feel for how things were going out there, then he said goodbye and see you on Monday.

Later that afternoon, when Ned was sitting at his desk working up an estimate for some vessels that Exxon Pipeline was interested in having us build and I was drawing up a free water knockout vessel, he told me a little more about Matt. After World War II, Matt Matt and his four brothers came out to West Texas and bought three struggling companies. All three companies were still in business in 1977. Sandhill Steel sold and trucked plate steel all over West Texas. Johnson Fab was a specialty fab shop for the oil fields, making some of the strangest things I have ever seen. Over time three of the brothers stayed in the business while the other two were more like silent partners. Matt, with Jim running the shop, managed the day to day business at SouthWestern Tanks. I asked Ned about how everyone changed their language when Matt was in the office.

“Matt is a very religious man. He doesn't cotton to swearing. Hell, he knows people do swear, he knows we swear all the time. He just doesn't appreciate it if you swear around him. Funniest thing about Matt is to see him get pissed. He does get pissed, but at first glance, he still looks the same. He will still be smiling, he doesn't raise his voice, he doesn't swear. The only way you know he is pissed is that his face turns bright red, bright as a tomato. Funniest thing you've ever seen, but it is not worth getting him mad. It's like getting your granddad mad, you do it, then you feel guilty as hell, a hell of a lot more guilty than when you piss your own dad off. He won't do anything, you wish he would, he just makes you feel guilty enough so that you never do that one thing again.”

By the second week of December I had completed my first semester at Odessa College. Fifteen hours, A's in Golf, Algebra and Spanish, B's in Inorganic Chemistry and Business Law. Add it all and divide by 15 and I had a 3.53 GPA for the semester. Combine that with placing out of Trigonometry and the first semester of both Freshman English and American History and I had 24 hours my first semester of college. Not bad, not bad at all. More importantly I was halfway up the next step, one semester of Inorganic Chemistry down, one more semester to go and I would be qualified to be a lab technician at Shell. That was a good fallback just in case college didn't work out and I needed a full time job.

Woody’s Lounge is the top building on the right, near the corner of University Boulevard and Dixie Boulevard in Odessa. Note the homes directly behind Woody’s.

Woody’s Lounge

Several of us started hanging out at Woody’s when we were juniors at Permian. Woody’s was a true neighborhood bar. It was located near the corner of University and Dixie and if you walked out the front door, around the side and hopped the fence you would find yourself in someone’s backyard. Like I said, truly a neighborhood bar.

Like a lot of the bars in Odessa, Woody’s didn’t care how old you were, all that mattered was if you had cash. The one big difference about Woody’s was the beer, cold Coors on tap. Most other bars had Budweiser on tap. After a hot day there was nothing quite as good as a Coors on tap at Woody’s. Once you had your pitcher and mug you just wanted to watch the cold of the beer form small ice crystals in your mug. Then, once you took that first sip, well, you knew you were drinking true nectar.

Woody’s was one of the darkest bars I’ve ever been in. Other than the light over the pool table, another light at the bar and the small light that hung out over the dance floor, Woody’s was pitch black. It was definitely a place to develop one’s night vision at. Every night we walked in, I walked in blind for the first few steps until my eyes got used to the dark. Thank God I knew the layout of the place.

It was on Woody’s little dance floor that I learned how to drunken two step the summer of our junior year. Mark, Rick, Jason and I had driven over to Woody’s one Saturday night and it didn’t take us too long to wash away the heat of the day. In the corner of the bar were two women, clearly older than us, but somewhere along the way Mark grew bold enough to walk over and introduce himself. Before long he was dancing with them, then Rick, then Jason until I was the only one left. Only problem was I didn’t know how to dance. Two beers later, and many stumbling steps later I at least knew how to rudimentary two-step.

One night near the end of our Senior year at Permian a large group, around 10 of us, stumbled into Woody’s on a Thursday night. We had school the next day but we didn’t care. We started drinking and the beer flowed quickly. Now, I don’t know if Woody’s watered down their beer, but it always seemed like I could drink more there than anywhere else. As the night passed the pitcher count rose, around 10:30 pm we were up to over 50 pitchers of beer. Yeah, I know that sounds ridiculous, but that count was ratified and certified by three of us so there is a reasonable chance it was correct.

Jason and I hadn’t anything to eat that night and were starving. We had stumbled up to the bar to order the next round of pitchers when we noticed that Woody’s had food. Well, we always knew they had pickled eggs and sausages but that never really seemed like food. What we saw was ham sandwiches that could be warmed up in the small toaster oven, what we saw was real food. Jason and I told that bartender to fix us a couple of sandwiches. He stared at us for a minute, then shook his head and put the sandwiches in the toaster oven. Five minutes later he handed us each a sandwich on a paper plate with a paper towel for a napkin. Five minutes later, we handed back to him the empty paper plates with the paper towels crumpled up on the plates. The sandwiches were the best sandwiches we had ever had. The ham blended in with the melted cheese and the bread toasted up just right. We went back to our table and told the whole group how good the food was. No one else seemed interested, but we knew a place to get a great ham sandwich was Woody’s.

The next morning hurt a little bit. I stumbled my way through school and somewhere around lunch began to feel alive.

But the real point of this story is what happened during one day in June of 1977. I was working at SouthWestern Tank and now that it was summer, I was working full time, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday through Friday, and from 7:00 to 12:00 noon on Saturday. That was 55 hours a week, or a total of 62.5 payroll hours at $3.50 an hour. I was making pretty good money for someone just out of high school, particularly considering that I spent most of my day over a drafting board in a small air conditioned office.

Sometimes I brought my lunch to work, when I had the energy and motivation to make something after I woke up in the morning. Sometimes I went out and grabbed some take out. Sometimes I just grabbed a coke and a bag of popcorn from the vending machines in the storeroom out in the shop. Sometimes I just got tired of the place and drove off at lunch, just killing an hour before I had to be back at the drafting board. That June day was one of those latter kind of days, I just got in my truck and drove off at lunch, with no real destination in mind. Whether my subconscious was giving directions or the wind just blew me along I found myself on University Boulevard when it hit me: how about a couple of cold Coors and a ham sandwich at Woody’s? That ham sandwich I had with Jason towards the end of our senior year at Permian was one of the best sandwiches I had ever had and suddenly I knew that’s what I had to have.

I pulled into the parking lot of Woody’s and before the dust settled I was walking out of the bright sun into the dark of Woody’s. I walked up to the bar with great anticipation and placed my order: A mug of Coors and a ham sandwich. Different bartender, same quizzical, doubtful look. She put the ham sandwich in the toaster oven and poured me a mug of Coors. I was nearly finished with my mug when the bell on the toaster oven rang and the ham sandwich was placed in front of me. Something was wrong. The sandwich didn’t smell anywhere as good as it did that night over a year before. It was a little soggy, the bread and the whole sandwich just folded over when I picked it up. But, with a fresh mug of Coors in front of me I started eating. The first bite confused me, the second bite confounded me and the third bite was the last bite. That was the worst damn sandwich I had ever eaten in my life. I looked at the bartender and said “What the hell is this?”

She just shook her head and said “No one eats those sandwiches, they’re just damn evil. Last time anyone had one of those sandwiches was over a year ago when a bunch of high school kids stumbled in here.”

I didn’t know what was going on, the best damn sandwich in the world (well, after a few pitchers of beer) was now the most God awful thing I had ever placed in my mouth. I couldn’t eat another bite and damn near threw up thinking back to the night when Jason and I wolfed down two of the sandwiches. The bartender was right, that sandwich was just damn evil. I had to drink two more mugs of Coors before I was sufficiently convinced the taste was gone from my mouth.

I drew a couple of shaky lines on the drafting board that afternoon before the third coke kicked in and washed away the last effects of the Coors.

Three weeks later I did it right. On the way to Woody’s I stopped by Buck’s, got a cheeseburger and fries and had that with a couple of mugs of Coors. That was a good lunch.

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Author’s notes

There is no SouthWestern Tanks in Odessa, but there is Western Tank Company of Odessa. I worked at Western Tank Company of Odessa from the spring of 1977 to the late summer of 1980 while going to college part time.

The Matt Johnson character in this episode is based on Don Williams, the owner of Western Tank Company of Odessa. For more about Don Williams see What would Don Williams do?

The Williams brothers. Don Williams is the smiling one on the far right.

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Next week in Episode 4 everyone has a rough weekend: a bottle of El Guitarra teaches another drinking lesson, Drew’s truck gets hit by a runaway trailer, the cops pull Drew over while looking for illegals, and Barry tells of an encounter with a Jack in the Box that refuses to let go of his car.