The name of a pretty decent Spencer Tracy movie and an apt description of my day, night and 95% of today. My half jaw won't back off at all, the rat bastard. So far, and as far as I can tell, it's down in the bone. Feels like a fucking tooth ache all the time, then if feels like the the tooth ordered a 20# sledge hammer to jack the piss out of it. So yeah, I can handle the all the time ache, but that damn stabbing pain can fuckin near drive me to the floor. Hell, I've only been hit hard enough to take me to the ground twice in my life. Once before first period my Junior year in High School. (set my own nose before I went to my first class) The second time some douchewater spit on me at the doorway of a bar. I back handed him but the slippery little snot got the jump on me and took off. I was so pissed I didn't even think that he might be waiting right on the other side of the corner I came around at full tilt. Ha! Man, that was a surprise. His little fist felt like a hammer wrapped in skin. His punch, my speed. E'en a the twain met, slid I too the ground on my ass. He took off, and I started laughing before I stood up. Score one for the 130lb pounder with a fast right hand.
That was a funny hurt. This pain ain't funny any more. I'm hookin up the morphine, smack on top of having my Fentanyl patches jumped to 100 mg. It slows it down a little, and they are going to up the patches again Wednesday. I hope I don't get addicted. Something like that can follow you the rest of your life. I suppose that's not going to be a problem. Although it's only been that last month or so that I really started having extra pain. The past ten days have been really telling though. That's when the jaw pain got to be more often, then all the time, then all the time and stronger. Well, this was prophesied by the MD Anderson Doctor. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut and not asked what was coming down the pike. "Ignorance is bliss", nice sentiment, full of shit, but a nice sentiment. I was hoping that as I went along I'd figure out a way to reconcile my knowing with the actual events. I had, right up to this point. This time it's a lot more difficult to put the two together. I will, but it's going to take a little more time. I've got to find the route for a little bio feedback to work it's magic. Then I can take the pain, lower it to a more manageable level. If there is a path for the bio feedback to work. Sometimes there just isn't. This may be one of those times, if that's the case I'm just gonna have to pull my big boy underwear up and call it good.
Besides the pain, it does nasty things to me mentally. While I'm working on keeping my pain manageable I can be a real horse's ass in the way I answer people, even when I don't want that. I can be short, or just plain rude. I'll be working on that as well. In fact in the last three weeks I've chosen not to answer, wave my hand and show that I need a minute. That's working so far. Worse than being a horse's ass, I catch myself getting down in the dumps. Never lasts very long, but that's the thing that scares me worse than not waking up one morning. Getting depressed can kill your ass, not because it saps every ounce of energy you have, worse than that, it takes your "Give a Shit". When that's gone about your life……I can't imagine. No dumps for me. I'll work around that until I find a way to shut that down.
Well, now if that wasn't enough to make you open a vein and you're still with me, let me see if find something to remember.
One July, In the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Seventy-Five, 0430. The light comes on, blinding my permanently in my left eye (that's bull shit, but it sounds tough). My Father threw a pair of work gloves at me and said "Hang these on your shit hooks, time to go to work." So began my career in the Oil Patch. That day, one of Pop's hands had called him at midnight (fast way to piss the old man off) and twisted off. Quitting wasn't what would piss Pop clear off, it's waiting until midnight to tell him. After that, I worked a goodly share of every summer vacation, a couple of days when he took me to work because he needed the hand on a work over. The first rig I worked on of Pop's was a nice little Franks 658 Draw Works, Double Double (two rods, two joints of pipe). The last one I worked on was built and on the location seven months before I was born. I worked on that rig for nine years. Good and bad, I learned a lot on that old chunk of iron. 96', 240 thousand pound working capacity, triple/double, 658 Draw works. Rolled out of the Pampa Texas yard the 5th day of March 1960. There were only two rigs like this one built. Bitch's twin sister had rolled out the last week of February 1960 and went on to tail in the deepest well in Oklahoma at the time. Neither rig had a rod basket, but they both could handle 13,500' of 2 7/8" drill pipe, or tubing. Pop had the fingers in the tubing basket cut down since about the deepest anything we'd see out there was under 8000'. He added a rod basket and we were off and running. I worked it until I went to work for Anadarko in Elkhart Ks on June 9, 1989. I'd ridden out the nastiest industry bust in close to 20 years. Oil was $36/bbl on January 31, 1986. By February 15, it was $7/bbl. No one was working. The silly bastards that cut the rig price so thin if anything happened they went broke, went broke. I didn't miss any meals, but the family sure had to suck it in a little bit. That October we had a new baby girl, just two days before my birthday. Damn nice present too. In January 1989 we had a son. A year later I got divorced, got custody of the kids. Met a great woman in 1991, Married her on Sept. 12, 1992. We moved to West Texas in January of 1993. In 1994 we had a beautiful baby girl. In 1998 we had a handsome baby boy.
It's been a great ride and party. I'm gonna miss all the fun we've over the last 21 years. God, we've had fun even when we didn't have any fun. I'm gonna miss it all. Hopefully in there somewhere I've helped make some memories with friends and family.
By God, I hope that everyone gets to have the charmed life I've lead. I've seen and done enough stuff that I can talk about, and a bit of some other I WON'T talk about. I've done pretty much like I've wanted. I've gotten everything I've wanted, and some I didn't want or even ask for, along the way.
When the time comes, and I slip these mortal coils, make no mistake, I'll be watching. That gives everyone an opportunity to slip around and hunt for that treasure I've left. You'll never hold it in your hand, it won't pack for shit, it's never gonna make you a dime to live on. But it's there, and it's made for living.
Go look for "Amour de la Vie"
Happy hunting
