After the muffled sounds of my momma's beating heart (heard in close, internal proximity, the sort that binds a child to his mother in such wonderful ways) and perhaps the highway and car noises when my parents brought me home from the hospital for the first time, this pumping unit was probably one of the first things I ever heard in my life.
I grew up smack-dab in the middle of the oil patch, living in a company owned house for the first 18 years of my life, right on the dividing line between the "A" and "B" leases. This "pumpjack" wasn't but a few hundred feet from our front porch.
My dad was a "pumper"; he took care of this and a dozen plus or so other wells and the assorted primary processing equipment (heater treater for sediment and salt-water removal), storage facilities (the tank batteries and pumps) and initial transport (pipelines from the wells to the tanks) and was the oil company's first financial agent in that process from oil in the ground to gas in your tank, keeping track of production and responsible for those documents that initiated the crude oil and natural gas transfer to the buyer. (which was Phillips Petroleum Corp, now Conoco-Phillips)
When the field was first drilled in the early 50's, this particular piece of equipment was state-of-the-art, I suppose. It was powered by a Continental-Emsco motor fueled by wellhead gas. They were contrary things, at least they were after multiple dozens of overhauls and thousands of spark plug changes and countless hours of chugging away, bringing up the black gold from nearly a mile deep.
These days nearly every pumping unit is powered by electricity, with perhaps the most remote wells, those far away from the electric grid, which might still be powered by these powerful old motors. The ones my father took care of had enormous, heavy flywheels that were hand-cranked as so to start the engine running. It was almost as complicated as crankin' an old Model-T (not that I've ever done that, I've just heard stories from my dad
(Pop always said he always wanted to have a tail, like a monkey, that way he could crank one of those old one-lung motors easier, at least have sumpthin' to hold on with)
It was not only a task that required some dexterity, it was - 'scuse my French - dangerous as hell. Just like crankin' that old Ford I was talking about as if I actually knew, a guy could easily get a darn good whap on the hand, even breaking it, or with my vivid imagination on MY first stab at crankin' an old Emsco, knock it clean off. Sheesh.
My first attempt wasn't so hot, I will admit. I finally got the thing to start bangin' off, but then let go of the heavy crank the very same time the motor decided it wanted to co-operate and operate as machinery should (well, perhaps not in Stephen King's world, but...). I'd like to claim the crank was possessed (ala S. King) but it was just a case of biting off a bit more than I could chew, I shoulda paid a bit more attention the times my old man was doing it when I rode with him instead of being in that perpetual state of boredom only teenaged boys can achieve.
My dad had been standing there, letting me make some minor mistakes, gently coaching and correcting me (he wasn't always the best at that, bad memories, sorry) but letting me have a go, most likely amused I wanted to prove I was his equal, and I'm hopin' he was secretly proud I wanted to at least try to be his equal.
I barely got my hand back in time and my dad quickly went to the other side and killed the engine, all the while hollerin' at me to back up, back up! At some slower but still frightening RPM the crank flew off a hundred or so feet out in the adjacent wheat field, plowing a deep long furrow fit for planting. Could've been a shallow grave for me if the thing had whacked me in the head, for sure.
I sucessfully started that motor a few months later, but that was the last time I ever tried. I think about my ol' man cranking on those cantankerous things in winter time, or what's worse, in the summer when the Texas sun and heat try their best to not only tear the hide right off ya, but make an attempt to pull every bit of moisture from your body, starting with a river channeling through one's eye sockets, the sweat stinging like hell, then detouring through the nether regions and finally puddling in the boots.
(I knew a guy who pickled his toes that way, sweating so profusely, but I'll save that story for some other time, I'm sure you won't mind)
Who was Beulah Edge? I will reveal that mystery at a future date.
July 27, 2008
Livin' On the Beulah Edge
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3 comments:
Who did you and Sandy scare to death by telling them that sound was Indians coming? Surely you remember that story. I don't think I was with ya'll when that happened. Maybe I was just walking down those oiled dirt roads by myself toughening up my feet! LOL!
I bumped this up because I got a search hit on it the other day, and had done away with the particular keyword for this post they had searched for . Yet again I disappointed someone, I'm sure, and they'll never be back.
Sharon, that was Debbie H. She called me a few years back, is working in Houston. She didn't remember the story.
I knew what it was, but she was so persuasive that it scared me a little bit. She threw all her Easter eggs in the direction of the well that was just the other side of the house (the one down in the gully, NW of the house)
In 1968 when I was in first grade, my dad was transferred to southern California, and we moved to Huntington Beach. There were oil wells and those pumpjacks---just like the one in your picture---EVERYWHERE in Huntington Beach. In certain places you could look around and see about 50 of them. I lived there until I left for college in 1980, and when I went back many years later, all of those pumpjacks were gone. I remember feeling sad that they were gone. Without them, it just wasn't the same, and I wanted them back!
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