DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
The Mellow Years
Greg participated in the Spring Valley Athletic Association (SVAA) youth sports program for the Richardson and Far North Dallas area. Don volunteered to coach Greg’s football team two years and his baseball team one year.
Pat was the SVAA Umpire Commissioner one year. She scheduled umpires for eight hundred games without a mix-up. First time that had ever been done. Don decided it was best that he not coach Greg’s teams. So, he coached football one year and baseball two years for teams not in Greg’s league. Don found it humorous when spectators accused him of favoring his son when he made team changes.
One year when Greg was twelve years old he participated in the SVAA youth wrestling program.
As a beginner I thought Greg was becoming a fairly good wrestler. They practiced a lot and Greg held his own in a few local matches. Then the coach entered his team in a statewide tournament. Greg was matched with a blind kid. I thought, “How can a blind kid be a wrestler?”
I watched the kid hold onto his coach’s arm as he led him onto the mat. The kid tripped on the edge of the mat. I felt sorry for the poor little guy as the referee led him to the center of the mat where Greg stood. The only change in rules was 458 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 459 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
Greg had to hold out both hands so the kid could lay his hands on Greg’s.
The referee then said, “Wrestle.” That kid was all over Greg before he knew what happened–partly because Greg was taken by surprise. Any sorrow I had for the kid quickly evaporated as he soundly won the match.
That was the end of Greg’s wrestling career.
Greg continued to play youth baseball during the summer. He played catcher. He played one year at a summer baseball camp at Chandler, Oklahoma, while Pat had major surgery. He played baseball in youth leagues until he graduated from high school.
The summer of 1972 Pat’s mother was well enough that Don and Pat took her and Pat’s father on a vacation with Greg to California to visit Pat’s sister, Connie, and her family at Fillmore. Enroute they visited the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, and the Grand Canyon.
At Fillmore Don took Greg and his cousins, Cindy and Roseanne, to the Pacific Ocean swimming. The water was cold. They did not stay long. It was Greg’s first time to swim in the ocean.
Don took Pat, Pat’s mother, Connie, Greg, Cindy, Roseanne and Charlotte to Disneyland. It was a full day of fun for Greg and his cousins. They stayed until after the fireworks display and the park closed at midnight. The adults were worn out. It was a long drive for Don back to Fillmore. The others slept all the way home.
From Fillmore they drove up Coastal Highway No. 1 to Monterey and San Francisco.
It was a long drive from Fillmore near Santa Barbara to San Francisco. It was late when we finally arrived at a hotel in downtown San Francisco. We checked in and took to the rooms only what luggage we needed for the night. The parking was enclosed and we were assured an attendant was on duty twenty-four hours a day. We had to leave the car keys with the attendant.
I was flabbergasted the next morning when I went down to the car. It was completely cleaned out. They took Greg’s six hundred dollar saxophone and my cameras. They took all our clothes. They even took a partial bag of dates we bought in Monterey. It looked like they ran a vacuum cleaner to pick up any loose change. All we had were the few things we took to our rooms the night before.
The car had sixty miles more on the odometer than when it was released to the parking lot attendant. I don’t understand why they bothered to bring it back. Obviously, it was an inside job.
The hotel disclaimed any liability. They pointed to a small inconspicuous sign that read “The Hotel is not Responsible for Vehicles or Contents on These Premises.” I had to call the cops. The hotel would not even do that. The cops were nonchalant about it. All they did was fill out a report and said, “Your insurance will take care of it.” They had no interest in catching the thieves or concern that it totally ruined our vacation.
We’ve disliked San Francisco ever since. We’ve never been back since and never will. Time has proved those people are idiots.
We left and drove to Reno. We stopped along the way and bought a few clothes. We spent part of a day in Reno. Pat’s dad won about fifty dollars gambling.
We drove home the most direct route and began the long tedious job of filing a claim with our insurance company and fighting them for every nickel we were able to recover.
Pat and Don went to Marietta as often as possible to help her aging parents. They usually were so busy there was little opportunity for diversion and or relaxation.
Don traveled a lot in his work at ARCO but was headquartered in Dallas. He and Pat didn’t have to move around. He always came home though he often was gone anywhere from a few days to several months at a time. Don liked his job at ARCO and liked the work. He didn’t like his immediate boss that much.460 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 461 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
He was a jerk. He was smart about a few things, but dumb as a rock about most things. He was a Yankee though he had been in Texas a long time. He was not perceptive and did not understand colloquialisms. He had no idea what a metaphor was. He was totally lacking in what we in Texas call ‘horse sense.’
One day he asked me to take one of his ‘screw-ball’ ideas to his boss, the department manager. I had a better relationship with his boss than he did. I told him, “No way, Jose. I’m not going to pluck a feather from the chief’s war bonnet. That’s a fast way to get tomahawked.” He had no idea what I meant. He accused me of “babbling.” I soon learned to talk to him like he was a semi-bright eighth grade student.
I had an excellent relationship with the department manager. He had worked in the oil fields early in his career as I did. We knew the basic business of exploring for and producing oil and gas. We understood each other though we were working with large-scale computers and data communications. He often circumvented my immediate boss, the jerk, to discuss issues with me and bounce ideas off of me. He gave me special assignments without consulting my immediate boss and that irritated him. Consequently, he didn’t like me. I was at odds with him a lot of the time, but I still got promotions and regular pay raises to the chagrin of my immediate boss.
I was kind of a point man for the department manager on leading special state-of-the-art projects. I went to computer shows looking for leading technical innovations in computers and related equipment. I covertly brought in state of the art equipment to evaluate and determine their viability. I then designed the system and implemented it. This often necessitated that I travel to the various district offices to implement the systems and train the operators. A couple of times Pat accompanied me.
It was only an hour and a half drive from the house in Dallas to Pat’s parents’ place at Lake Murray near Marietta. Don and Pat had an arrangement with Pat’s dad to transfer title to the 120-acre property they bought in his name but on which Don and Pat made the annual payments.
When they could Don and Greg went quail hunting on the 120-acre farm and on the farms owned by Pat’s dad and his two brothers. They also went fishing in the small but deep pond located on the far backside adjacent to the Lake Texoma Game Reserve.
When Greg was ten he learned to drive using an old Chevy pickup that belonged to his grandfather. It had a gearshift on the steering column and he had to learn to use the clutch and gearshift. He drove in a pasture with several plum thickets. Don’s instructions were that if anything went wrong just steer into one of the thickets.
Pat’s folks were both in failing health. Her mother was in and out of hospitals a number of times with congestive heart failure. Don and Pat spent many weekends and some vacation time the next two years staying with Pat’s mother in and out of hospitals and helping her dad.
Pat’s mother died in February 1975. Two years later in February 1977 her father died. They are buried side by side in the Marietta City Cemetery. When Pat’s mother died Don and Pat bought two adjacent eight-site burial lots. They also bought a nice headstone which they had placed at the grave site for Pat’s parents.
Pat’s dad did not get the title to the 120-acre farm transferred to Don and Pat before he died. It became a major item of contention in the settlement of the estate. There was no will. To settle the matter Pat finally conceded everything else, including ninety-three head of cattle, to her sister, Connie, if she would concede the 120-ace farm to Don and Pat, even though she knew Don and Pat not only paid for the farm in full but also made several annual payments on the loan for the cattle. The hard feelings were never reconciled.
ARCO was a major developer on the North Slope of Alaska and the TransAlaska Pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the tanker terminal at Valdez on the south coast of Alaska. Over a five-year period Don made twenty-six trips to Alaska mostly to the North Slope. 462 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 463 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
These assignments usually were from a few days to a few weeks to a few months depending on the size, scope and nature of the work.
The first time Don went to the North Slope it was fairly primitive. Living conditions were much like the military. They lived in Quonset huts and kept survival gear nearby at all times just in case. In the winter it was dark all the time except for the electric lights. The temperatures were often minus 50 degrees F or colder. Don quickly learned to take short shallow breaths. Inhale deeply and his lungs ached. He had an incentive to get done what he was there for and get home as soon as he could.
The runway at the airport was ice during the winter that was from early September to late April. It took a skilled pilot to bring an airplane to a halt and not skid out of control. Also, the roads were all ice roads. One had to know or learn quickly how to drive on ice.
Each time Don returned to the North Slope things were a little better. Very little was actually built on the North Slope. Everything was fabricated at Tacoma, Washington, as modules. They were loaded on barges and towed by tugboats to the North Slope during the summer months. They were off loaded, moved to location and set in place. The several modules were fit together to make an entire building. This process was repeated over and over until all the modules were fit together and connected by corridors.
The extreme weather on the North Slope was a challenge for all manner of construction. The unions were a major obstacle to progress. They were constantly making unreasonable demands. When their demands were not met in a timely fashion they resorted to all kinds of mean tricks. They would have sit-downs in the mess halls. They would take the lens from the only 16mm movie projector and hide it for days denying them the recreation of watching movies. They would crash a crane boom through one of the connecting corridors. They would set oily rags on fire in empty trash barrels causing a lot of smoke and fire alarms to go off in the middle of the night. And, in one instance two union goons yanked the General Contractor Manager out of bed in the middle of the night and beat him up.
A favorite trick was to “time card” a non-union worker. If a non-union worker did something they perceived as a job for a union worker they could turn in a time card for four hours of work because the non-union worker had done something they were supposed to do. It was nothing but a scam in their contract.
One day I was expecting a shipment of computer parts from the lower forty-eight. Everything was shipped to Receiving at the warehouse that was manned by union workers. I called to see if the shipment had arrived. I was told it was sitting on the back dock. I drove over to the warehouse. Sure enough it was sitting on the back dock with the paperwork. Some union guys were sitting on their butts back in the warehouse. They hollered, “Just sign the paperwork,” which I did. Then I loaded it into the pickup and drove away. They filed a ‘time-card’ on me because a union worker was supposed to load the box onto the pickup. A union guy got four hours pay for doing nothing but hollering at me to: “Just sign the paperwork.”
I learned to do all my work behind closed and locked doors so union snoops couldn’t see what I was doing. Some of them did nothing but walk around looking for non-union workers working at tasks they could ‘time card.’ Even the simple task of plugging the power cord of a piece of computer equipment into a wall receptacle could result in a ‘time card’ incident. I didn’t want any of those nit-wits anywhere close to my computers and peripherals.
After a time the living quarters were greatly improved, especially for the ARCO and EXXON employees. They had completely separate quarters from the contractors and the union workers. It was almost like living in a college dorm. Almost everything was connected by long corridors. They didn’t have to go outside to go from one building to another.
They also built a small but nice theater with 35mm projectors with continuous projection. They showed first run movies. Later 464 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 465 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
they got satellite antennas for live television. The mess hall and kitchens were first class and the food was the best. So good in fact that overeating soon became a health problem. The company built a nice gym with a one-eighth mile jogging track and employed two full time physical trainers.
Once living conditions greatly improved we began to have women workers. They mostly did clerical work though a few were in the trades. The first one was a carpenter’s helper. I think she may have been a ‘comfort girl’ for the carpenters. I never saw her do anything other than occasionally sweep floors and do minor clean up behind the carpenters.
The next two worked in the pipe shop. The guys called one Flat-Top and the other Pipe-Bender, behind their backs of course. Flat-Top had a large bosom that was flat on top. Honestly. Pipe-Bender worked in the pipe bending shop. She had large muscular arms and a no nonsense disposition.
Pipe-Bender was quartered on the same corridor I was. I was temporarily quartered in the contractor quarters due to lack of space in the ARCO quarters. She was two units away. One night in the middle of the night I heard a loud ruckus. Someone rang the emergency bell. Security guys came running down the corridor. I opened the door and looked out to see what was going on.
A guy was in the hallway near Pipe-Bender’s door. He had a severely cut upper lip and a bloody nose bleeding all over the place. Security asked, “What’s going on here?” A bystander said, “There was a fight in there,” indicating Pipe-Bender’s door. They knocked on her door. She answered in her ‘nighty.’
“Yes?”
“What do you know about a fight in there?”
“Fight? What fight? There was no fight here,” and she slammed the door shut.
Turns out the guy had been drinking. There was supposed to be no alcohol beverages, but some guys sometimes smuggled it in. This guy paid an uninvited middle of the night social call to Pipe-Bender’s quarters with romantic overtures. She punched him out and threw him out the door. I don’t think anyone else ever tried to get ‘frisky’ with Pipe-Bender.
What to do during free time was always a challenge. We could work, we could sleep, we could eat, we could go to the movie, we could read, or we could work out in the gym. That was about it.
One evening I heard one of the clerical ladies tell another that she wished she knew how to do macrame. I told her that my wife and I had taken classes in macrame. After some discussion about it I told them the next time I came back to The Slope I would bring supplies and teach them to do macrame.
It wasn’t long before I was back to The Slope. I brought macrame supplies with me. That evening five ladies and I gathered in the lounge. I was teaching them to do macrame.
Two ‘smart-aleck’ guys were sitting nearby. They made fun of us, especially me. They said what a “sissy” I was and other uncomplimentary comments. Finally, one of the ladies had all of it she could take. She said to them, “Yeah, and when was the last time you guys got to spend the entire evening with five women?”
That shut them up. She later apologized to me. She said she had heard all their wisecracks she wanted to hear and she said what she said to put them down. I told her, “Not to worry. I actually enjoyed it.”
Greg went to North Junior High School in the Richardson Independent School District. He was a good student. He made straight ‘A’ grades until his senior year when he made his first ‘B.’ He participated in many school activities.
He began to play the saxophone in the seventh grade. He played football and also played in the band in junior high school. It was difficult to do both. The band director was very accommodating for Greg to miss band functions to play football.
After junior high school Greg attended J. J. Pearce High School in Richardson. He played in the band and football until his senior year. He played second team guard, and center to snap the ball on point-after situations which were few and far between. The team was not the best and lost most of their games.466 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 467 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
The football coaches were not very lenient about the players participating in other activities. The start of his senior year Greg decided he would rather concentrate on band instead of football.
I was disappointed that Greg wanted to quit football. I played football and I thought he would play and enjoy it as much as I did. Not so. He enjoyed music and the band more. I encouraged him to stay out for football. He made the valiant attempt to please me.
He came home one day from practice and told me he quit football to concentrate on band. I was disappointed. I wanted him to play football. I told him to talk it over with his coach.
Greg played another week. He came home and told me, “I quit football. Period. End of discussion.” I had to respect his decision. He said the coach was always in a foul mood because they lost and the band was a lot more fun.
After Greg’s junior year Don and Pat bought him a 1975 Chevelle sports coupe. When he was in the seventh grade they told him that if he went all the way through junior high and high school and did not cause any problems for the teachers, for them or for the police that they would buy him a new car after his senior year. He did so well through his junior year they decided to buy the car so he would have it his senior year, and to take to college.
Greg was friends with Bobby Fackler and dated his sister, Katy. She was his date to the Senior Prom. The weekend before the prom Greg went on a weekend outing with the Fackler family to their place on the lake. Monday he came down with the chicken pox.
His mother and I told him there was no way he could attend the prom with the pox. He was devastated. He and Katy had already coordinated their outfits and ordered corsages. All for naught. Wednesday Greg said he was well enough to attend the prom. He had bumps all over his face. We tried to discourage him but he insisted. I finally told him to call Dr. Fackler and ask if it was okay for him to take Katy to the prom. I thought surely Dr. Fackler would certainly tell him, “No way.”
Not so. Dr. Fackler said that if Katy didn’t mind he sure didn’t care. He said Greg was past the contagious stage.
Saturday was prom day. Pat used makeup to cover up the pox as much as possible. He actually didn’t look too bad. He and Katy got dressed up in their formal outfits and I took a very nice photo of them in the backyard next to the weeping willow tree. Greg and Katy went to the prom and had a wonderful time.
Greg graduated the spring of 1976. I flew home from Alaska just to attend his graduation. I went back after a few days. Greg enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin that fall.
Don traveled a lot in the course of his employment with ARCO. The nature of his work usually involved investigating and developing new computer and data communications systems to handle and process data. He traveled to all the district offices and frequently went to the corporate offices in Los Angeles. He often went to computer expositions and shows.
Wes Prince who worked in my group and I went to a computer show in Chicago. We checked into a downtown hotel and spent the next several days looking at all manner of new computers and related items. Our eyes were glazed over.
The final day we went onto Michigan Avenue to walk the several blocks to the Chicago Exposition Center. We had gone about two blocks when I saw the Chicago Museum of Art. I asked Wes, “Have you ever been to an art museum?”
“No.”
“There’s one right across the street. Let’s go over there for a couple of hours just to see what’s there.”
“Okay.”
We spent the entire day touring the art museum. We had never seen so many works of art. Some were huge Old Masters. Others were strange modern expressionisms. Many in between.
There was a special display of Piccaso artworks. I thought I would take a look and count the number I looked at just so I could brag, “I’ve seen a hundred original Piccasos.” I quit 468 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 469 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
counting at one hundred. I hadn’t seen one-tenth of all the art works by Piccaso. His early works were very good and realistic. As he got older his works became more and more weird. I think he must have been on something.
Don traveled so much that Pat got a little miniature Dachshund puppy for companionship. She named her Gretchen. She was so tiny she fit comfortably into one of Don’s shoes. She was a sweet delightful little dog. They had her eighteen years. It was a sad day when she died.
Ever since Don, Pat and Greg moved to Dallas Don wanted to live on an acreage as opposed to living in town. However, when they moved to Dallas from Huntsville the time to find a house was critical. They looked at a couple of rural properties near Dallas, but nothing Don was interested enough to buy. They settled on a house at 7749 La Verdura Street in Far North Dallas.
All the time they lived in Dallas it was not unusual to spend part of a weekend searching the want ads and looking at rural property when Don was not traveling in his work. They looked at one property west of Lewisville and were very tempted to buy it. However, Greg was in the eighth grade and they decided that to move at that time in his life would be too unsettling. So, they continued to look while waiting for Greg to graduate from high school and leave for college.
When Greg graduated Don and Pat began to look seriously. They looked southeast, east and northeast of Dallas because rural land was not as expensive as land north and northwest of Dallas.
We found several places we came close to buying, but in the final analysis discovered some undesirable feature. As a last resort we contacted a real estate sales lady. She insisted on taking us northwest of Dallas to look at property. We spent the better part of two days with her. We saw several nice pieces of property but nothing that really impressed us. Finally, in desperation she asked, “Mr. Davidson, just what is it you want?” I said, “Fifty acres with a house sitting right in the middle.”
“Would you object to an older two bedroom house?”
“I don’t know. Where is it?”
“About a mile over here.”
“Okay. Let’s go see it.”
She took us to a gravel road. We turned in at a large gate that said Landfall Ranch on an overhead arch. We wound around through some trees and came to a clearing with a low profile, hip-roof, white brick house inside a fenced yard. The house had four foot overhang eaves. It sat on the edge of a slight precipice that gently sloped about two hundred yards to the edge of a small lake.
My heart leaped into my throat as I swallowed hard and tried to remain nonplused. The grass was high, the shrubs scraggly, and weeds were prolific. Obviously it had not been lived in for a couple of years, or more. But, it was exactly what I had envisioned. It was about fifteen hundred feet from the road and totally secluded from view by a dense band of oak trees. There were several open meadows with a lot of trees and a small lake of about four acres.
Inside it was basically a three-room house. It had a large 32×40 living-dining room with a stone fireplace in one end. The large picture windows overlooked the lake. The kitchen was open to the dining room with an indoor barbecue oven. There were two spacious bedrooms at opposite ends with a full bath for each. There was a full-screened porch for each bedroom facing the lake. It had a full bar with sink and ice maker. It had a utility room and a large carport. There was a water well, 3,300-gallon water storage tank, and a 300-gallon pressure tank. I knew it was just what I wanted.
As it turned out it was the main house for the 256-acre Landfall Ranch that was originally owned by Fred Agnich, CEO of Texas Instruments. Later Fred told me Texas Instruments was organized in the living room of the house.
Fred Agnich sold it to a Dallas banker. He later had financial difficulties and had to divest some of his properties. He defaulted the loan and the bank repossessed it. They turned it over to a real estate man to subdivide and sell off in smaller units.470 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 471 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
We initially bought the house and ten acres. In the next few weeks we sold the 120-acre farm in Oklahoma and our house in Dallas. We then incrementally bought adjacent acreage amounting to an additional forty-one acres for a total of fifty-one acres.
We moved from the city to the country west of Lewisville in the community of Bartonville. A few months later we sold eleven acres from the east side to Danny and Barbie Mims and the Fogels. We applied this money to the Farm Home Loan we had on the property. This reduced our loan considerably and left us with forty acres.
Don helped Danny Mims build a barn with an apartment overhead. Barbie was into horses. She stalled the horses in the lower part of the barn. She and Danny lived in the apartment over the stalls.
Danny helped Don build a 24’x48’ storage shed. Don bought a 12’x32’ portable barn on skids. Danny helped build a shed on the side of the barn. Over the next several months Don built over two thousand feet of field wire fence topped with double strands of barbed wire to make pastures. He bought several head of Brangus cows. He built a double corral with a shed and a chute for working the cows. Don was in his element. He had a small ranch with a few cows. Things were great.
The first year Don and Pat lived on the ranch at Bartonville they went to Fort Worth and got two puppies that were littermates. They were half Doberman, a quarter Border Collie, and a quarter Black Labrador. They were black and tan like a Doberman. Their tails were bobbed but their ears were floppy. Greg was home from the University at Austin and he went with Don and Pat to get the pups. Greg named them Ezekiel and Zechariah. Don shortened their names to Zeke and Zeb.
When we brought Zeke and Zeb home they were puppies only six weeks old. Gretchen, the little female miniature Dachshund, was several years old. She had been queen of the place and looked on the two pups as intruders. She bossed them around at will. As Zeke and Zeb grew they were soon larger than Gretchen. She still bossed them around.
I began to train Zeke and Zeb when they were about three months old. They were the smartest dogs I was ever around. I had no experience training dogs except to help Pat’s Dad a little when he was training bird dogs.
When Zeke and Zeb were about four months old I saw Zeke take a run at the fence around the yard and try to jump over. He almost made it. The fence enclosed about an acre of yard. I strung an electric wire around the top. In a day or two Zeke tried again. This time the electric wire got him. He yelped and ran for the doghouse. He never tried again.
A few days later Zeb tried to jump the fence. The electric wire got him as he went over the top. He jumped back into the yard and it hit him again. He yelped and ran for the doghouse. He never tried again.
Within a year I had trained them to obey twelve voice commands and several hand signals. They would sit, stay, come, stop, heel, go, close, lay, okay, down, quiet, and fetch. They would not go through an open gate unless given the command “okay.” They would not go through a barbed wire fence unless told to. The command “go” meant go to the house. The command “close” meant stay within ten yards of me. They had more trouble with that command than the others. They soon were fifteen or more yards from me if I did not call them back.
When they were full grown they were twenty-six inches tall at the shoulder and weighed seventy-five pounds. They were often mistaken for Rottweillers. I built a large eight by ten foot room on the carport with a swinging door which was their doghouse.
When a car came driving up the driveway from the road Zeke and Zeb would not run around and bark. They would sit near the gate and stare at whoever was driving in. People would not get out of their car until I sent the dogs to their doghouse. Everyone told me those two big dogs sitting out there staring at them was more intimidating than a barking dog running around.472 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 473 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
What was very funny is Zeke and Zeb were always intimidated by little Gretchen. They could have snapped her in two with one bite, but they always cowered down when she jumped on them. She would get in their face and fuss at them. If they did not cower down she jumped up and grabbed them by the ear and pulled them down to where they laid down. Then she got in their face and fussed at them.
One year I bought a dozen guinea keets that I raised and kept outside the fenced yard. But the guineas soon were grown and flying. One day they flew into the yard. Zeke and Zeb delightfully chased them and caught one that they killed. I made them “go” to the doghouse. I locked the door so they couldn’t get out. I took the dead guinea and beat them in the face with it until their heads hurt. They never chased another guinea.
I loved to walk over the property with them to see them run through the woods, chase rabbits, and run splashing through the shallow waters at the edge of the lake. It was a sad day when they died.
I had Zeke ten years. He took sick with stomach cancer and died suddenly. I had Zeb another ten months. He too died with stomach cancer despite our efforts to save him. We had little Gretchen eighteen years. She died shortly after Zeb did. I took it very hard. I dearly loved those dogs.
Don commuted one entire summer from May to September to work in Pasadena, California. He took an early Monday morning Delta flight from DFW to LAX. He then took a rent car to Pasadena. He worked all week staying at the Pasadena Hilton Hotel. He took a late Friday afternoon American flight from LAX to DFW arriving late Friday night. Pat met him at the airport. He spent the weekend at home and then did it all over again the next Monday morning.
Parsons was the General contractor for the North Slope facility development. They contracted with all manner of subcontractors both in Alaska and the lower forty-eight. Their administrative controls and accounting procedures were lax and not up to standards. It was evident that tons of money was being expended for all manner of things with little or no controls. Property was not being properly classified for accounting and tax purposes. (Remember the same problem at Pan American in Argentina?)
Since I had oil field experience and could properly identify and classify oil field property I was sent to work in the Parsons’ general offices where all the accounting records were kept. My job was to supervise a small group of guys to review all the paid invoices and determine the proper classification of the items on the invoices. Once that was accomplished we were to go to the North Slope to take an inventory and account for all the controlled property.
You can’t believe the chaos. Welding supplies were capitalized and Lincoln Arc Welding machines were expensed. As I went through monthly invoice after invoice I kept thinking I had seen some of the invoices in previous months. I finally decided there was a pattern to some of them. I went back and double-checked.
Sure enough, in a number of instances the same invoices were submitted and paid over and over each month. The sub-contractors month after month were simply copying previous invoices worth thousands of dollars and submitting them for payment. Parsons paid them without question and submitted their inclusive invoices plus their percentage management fee to ARCO.
When I showed this to the ARCO administrative manager in charge at the Parsons’ location it hit the fan. I told him that wasn’t what I was there for, but thought he should know about it. I don’t know exactly what ARCO did about it, but I heard they came down on Parsons real hard with significant penalties.
Later we went to the North Slope to identify and account for all the classified equipment and property. There were a large number of items for which we could not account–such as twelve portable Lincoln Arc Welders worth about $4,800 each. The biggest item we could not find was a 65-ton Pettibone crane. How could such items just simply disappear into thin 474 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 475 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
air? Ever hear the song by Johnny Cash about the automobile worker who built his Cadillac by carrying a part a day home in his lunch bucket? Only these union guys used huge trucks driven by union Teamsters.
The company built a road alongside the pipeline during construction and there was one road in and one road out to the North Slope. Big Kenworth and Peterbuilt trucks hauled lots of freight to the North Slope. They all went back empty. Or, did they?
I suggested to management that they put a checkpoint twenty-five miles down the one road to stop and check the contents of each southbound truck. They wouldn’t do it. Why? They didn’t want to upset the unions. Made me half-sick.
One week I stayed in California and Pat flew on my ticket from DFW to LAX. She spent the week with me and then used my ticket to fly back to DFW.
The company allowed me a rental car when I worked in Pasadena. The week before Pat came to Los Angeles I rented a car at Hertz. I couldn’t find it in the Hertz parking lot. The Hertz workers were no help. The license number on the keys didn’t match any car tag on the lot. Finally, one of the workers said, “Try that car over there.” It was a Chevrolet Caprice. It had an Arizona tag. The keys worked. I took the car and kept it all that week, the week Pat was there, and the following week.
The car was a running ‘jessy.’ It seemed to be ‘souped up.’ It had a lot of get up and go. Pat and I did a lot of sightseeing around the Los Angeles and Pasadena Area. We visited Pat’s cousin, Bert Paschall, and his family at San Diego. He was in the Navy. I took Pat to the airport late Sunday evening for a flight back to Dallas. I stayed around and watched her flight take off. I felt a deep pang of loneliness as the airplane lifted off. I turned and walked away. I have always heard it was bad luck to watch a departing person out of sight.
When I turned the car in the following weekend at Hertz they refused to take it. It didn’t have a Hertz sticker. They waved me through and I had to come back through again. They waved me through again. I came through the Hertz lot again only this time I jumped out of the car with my suitcase. I left the keys in the ignition. The attendants yelled at me, but I kept going. I had a flight to catch for Dallas.
I have often wondered what the situation was on that car. I thought maybe it may have been used to run drugs or something. It had such rapid acceleration power it was almost frightful to drive.
Neighbors, friends and others often fished in Dons and Pat’s little lake. Usually they would toss back the ones they caught. However, a neighbor caught a seven pound large-mouth bass. He kept it and had it mounted. He said it was the largest fresh water fish he ever expected to catch. Two months later he caught a nine pound large-mouth bass. He had it mounted, too. Don often kidded that he had to go to his friend’s house to see his fish.
One time Don’s parents came to visit. Don and his Dad spent part of a day fishing. They caught a nice string of crappie and catfish.
Danny Mims liked to fish in the lake, too. It was not an unusual sight to wake up early some mornings and see him down there fishing. Friends from ARCO also came to fish. The top manager for the Dallas operation came several times to fish. He sometimes brought his teenage son.
One morning two fellow employees from ARCO and the vice-president of the Dallas operation with his teenage son came to fish. They were there about an hour and I hadn’t seen them catch a fish. I went down to give them a little advice on the best places to cast. The teenager was fishing from the dirt pier that extended out into the lake from the south bank.
Pat came leisurely strolling down to the lake. She went out onto the pier and asked the boy if he had caught any fish. He said he hadn’t. Pat told him to bring in his line. Then she told him to stand at the point of the pier and cast about fifteen yards toward the dam. He cast once. He cast a second time. Zap. He got a hit. He reeled in a three pound large-mouth bass. His father stood on the dam and saw it all. He shouted, “Hey, 476 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 477 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
woman. Come talk to me!” They all caught fish following Pat’s advice on where to cast. Pat has always been good at catching fish, yet she herself has never been much of one to fish.
Working at a full time job and taking care of a small ranch and cattle operation was time consuming. After a particularly difficult night of helping a cow have a calf in a rainstorm, Don casually commented to a cattleman friend, “I wish there was such a thing as a maintenance free cow.” The friend replied, “There is. Longhorns.” Thus, began Dons and Pat’s love for the Texas Longhorns.
I was doubtful, but he convinced me. I began to read about the Longhorns. I made inquiries to the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association and the local Agricultural Extension County Agent. He ‘pooh-poohed’ the idea that Longhorns were anything but maverick cows. I talked to a few Longhorn ranchers.
I decided to give the Longhorns a try. Pat and I went to a Longhorn sale west of Ardmore. The cow I planned to bid on sold for $24,000–too rich for my blood. We went to another sale north of McKinney. These cows sold more reasonably. We went to a sale west of Fort Worth. I bought five cows: Safari, Lady, Marquis, Victoria and Plains Classic. All had a calf at side and were bred. I bought a bull, Classic Ranger, from a local rancher, J.B. Hunn. This was my foundation herd. I had five cows, five heifer calves, and a bull.
I kept the Brangus about a year, then sold them and kept only the Longhorns. Pat and I came to love the Longhorns. Their color genes are really mixed up and you never know what color or color combinations you will get. They each have a unique personality.
My friend was right. The Longhorns are close to maintenance free. The only things I had to do were give them their vaccinations, and worm and brand them. They are great browsers and will eat things, including acorns, other cows will not. The twenty years we had Longhorns I never had to assist a calf birth. Of the over two hundred calves born I lost only one. He was never quite right and in spite of my best efforts to save him he died after three days.
I had the mother cow, Plains Classic, and the calf in the inner corral. I penned her in the outer corral when I worked with the calf, but she kept a watchful eye on my every move. After the little guy died I carried him out to the woods and buried him. I let the mother cow out of the corral. She followed me and watched as I buried him. She hung around the grave several days before she finally joined the other cows.
She was convinced I killed her baby. She never forgot. Though she subsequently had a number of healthy calves I could never get within twenty yards of her but what she lowered her head, shook her horns, and made threatening moves at me. I had to respect her sentiments toward me.
When in Dallas Don often went browsing in the several art stores in the downtown area during his lunch hour. He always appreciated good art. One day he saw a painting in one of the galleries. It was a beautifully done scene of an old cowboy riding his horse with supplies out of an early 1920’s oil boom town in the rain wearing a yellow slicker. It was by G. Harvey and titled “With No Intention of Changing” which tugged at Don’s heart strings because it represented exactly how he felt. He thought, “If that painting doesn’t cost more than fifteen hundred dollars I’m going to buy it.” The price tag was $30,000. Don gulped, but the image stuck with him.
A few years later one of Pat’s Mail Courier Express clients was going out of business. They were selling several of their nicely framed prints of paintings. One was “With No Intention of Changing.” Pat bought it for a nice price. Don was thrilled. Thus, began their collection of G. Harvey prints of his paintings. They ultimately bought twelve of his prints and had them nicely framed.
Don was promoted to Manager, Computer Systems Development for Exploration and Engineering. He managed a group of forty to fifty computer systems analysts and computer programmers 478 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 479 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
developing programs for the geologists, geophysicists, and petroleum engineers to aid them in the search for and finding of oil and gas deposits.
Don’s group developed interactive programs that utilized well logs and seismic data to portray subsurface strata that could be rotated and selectively saturated with different colors to display various characteristics of the subsurface. His group was mostly young bright people with a lot of computer savvy and a lot of extraneous energy and vitality.
A few of the people in my group had been out to our place to fish, picnic, tromp through the woods, or bring a group of Boy Scouts on a camp out.
Most of them had been getting together on Saturdays a few times during the year at Lee Park near downtown Dallas. But it was so congested they approached me about having their picnic get togethers at our place. I said, “Fine if you guys do all the organizing, help get the place ready and clean up afterwards.” They agreed.
The outings were so successful that the next several years we had one or two outings a year at our place for the entire department. The gals and guys brought their boyfriends and girl friends, or spouses and kids. The guys brought all the food and drink. Pat and I made huge pots of chili. We hired professional lifeguards to be at the lake. We hired a team of horses and wagon to go on hayrides. One of guys brought several saddle horses for people to ride. We had swimming and swimming races, horseshoe pitching, washer toss, softball games, volley ball, soccer, and dancing after dark on the patio.
It was great fun and the gals and guys were very good about cleaning up afterwards. We sometimes had as many as three hundred and fifty people at an outing.
Over the years when Don and Pat went to visit relatives in Oklahoma they always made it a point to stop and see Uncle Tom and Aunt Jewel at their house in the country north of Elmore City in Garvin County.
This house became a place of warm hospitality where Pat and I always stopped and visited when we could. Pat loved my Aunt Jewel and Uncle Tom just as much as I did. We had many, many pleasurable hours with them.
Shortly after we bought the small ranch at Bartonville northwest of Dallas and west of Lewisville Aunt Jewel and Norma came to visit. One of the highlights of their visit was an evening dinner at a Japanese restaurant, Beni-Hana, in Dallas. We had a mixed drink before dinner, and then we were seated at a large table where the cook prepared the meal at the table. There was a group of young women also seated at our table. I was the only male in the group. We had a rousing good time.
Since Pat and I raised Texas Longhorn cattle Aunt Jewel decided she wanted to get into the Texas Longhorn cattle business. She, Uncle Tom, Robert and Norma came to buy some of my Longhorns. We got them all loaded except for the young bull that I gave to them. I think his name was Grand Prince.
We chased him all over the place trying to get him corralled. Aunt Jewel and Norma were getting concerned about Uncle Tom over exerting himself. We finally cornered the bull in a lane near the lake and got him loaded in the trailer.
I think Aunt Jewel enjoyed her Longhorns over the next few years. We always looked at them and talked about them when Pat and I came to visit. She and I had a nostalgic family connection with the Longhorns. Aunt Jewel’s grandfather, my great-grandfather, C. C. “Trick” Jones, was a drover and guard on several Longhorn cattle drives from Texas to Kansas after the Civil War.
Aunt Jewel and I often talked about the various family members and the history of the family. So much like the Roller girls, especially the older ones, she was opinionated about many things and was an engaging conversationalist.
In 1991 we had a 90th birthday celebration for Dad at the United Methodist Church in Brenham, Texas. Aunt Jewel, Norma, Robert and Jimmie came to help celebrate. I was so glad to see her. She is in some of the videos I made that day.
I thought it would be great if I could get Aunt Jewel to talk about her family, her brothers and sisters, and their life 480 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 481 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
when they were growing up while I made a video tape. I had already spent a week with Aunt Marge, Aunt Jewel’s older sister, in Phoenix and made some video tapes with her. Aunt Jewel agreed and I spent two different weekends with her making the videos. She was a great subject with a flair of showmanship. I got some videos that are priceless.
I also made video tapes at Aunt Jewel’s 80th birthday celebration at the old Antioch Schoolhouse and at the Antioch Cemetery with her. She always had something interesting to say. One occasion she sang a little song Uncle Claud Roller used to always sing which I captured on video tape. These are all precious moments with a wonderful woman full of life.
The last video I have of Aunt Jewel is when she and Norma came to the Jones Family Reunion on the banks of the Cimarron River near Crescent, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1994. She sat next to Homer Fry, her cousin, and sang some old favorite songs with him while he strummed his guitar.
The following November I learned Aunt Jewel was seriously ill and in the hospital. I called her and talked with her. I wrote her a short letter recalling some of our earlier times together.
That December I got the sad news. Greg and his wife, Donna, went with me to the funeral. I was one of the pallbearers. I was honored to do one last gesture of love for my Aunt Jewel.
Later that day some of the family gathered at the house. Uncle Tom came to me and tearfully said, “Gene, this is the worst day of my life,” and we embraced. It was a sad, sad, day of my life, too. I loved my Aunt Jewel very much. She was very special to me. A little of me died that day, too. I shall never forget her and will always cherish my fond memories of her.
Pat and I would always stop to see Uncle Tom when we traveled to and from Oklahoma and Texas. We always enjoyed visiting with him. He was a great guy and I have many fond memories of him, too. But, it never seemed the same without Aunt Jewel there. And, it was not too much longer when we also had to bid a final farewell to Uncle Tom.
My Aunt Jewel and Uncle Tom were two of the greatest people in my life. I shall be eternally grateful that they touched my life in so many wonderful and joyous ways. I truly miss them.
I started writing an account of my life with Aunt Jewel in May 1991 for her 80th birthday celebration, but I didn’t finish it in time to be a part of the celebration. I regret that I never finished it in time.
It was eight years later that I finally finished it, mostly for myself, but also for Norma and Robert and any other family members. I wanted them to know the love and affection I had for my Aunt Jewel. I guess it is a form of closure for me. I am now past seventy-nine years of age and my own mortality looms not too far in the distance.
I hope I conveyed to the reader the love and affection I had for my Aunt Jewel, and my eternal gratefulness to her for the many, many happy and precious moments she shared with me in my life. Thank you, Aunt Jewel. I love you.
For years Don and Pat kept in touch with Buford Young and his wife, Georgia. They exchanged Christmas cards, an occasional letter and phone calls. Bufords and Georgia’s son, Craig, and his family lived in Houston and some of Buford’s relatives lived in Sherman, Texas, and Oklahoma City. When Buford and Georgia came to Texas to visit Craig and Cindy and the grandchildren, they would come by and visit Don and Pat or they would meet somewhere for lunch.
Buford grew up to be a big tall guy. I stopped growing in my early teens and am noticeably shorter than Buford. I think I had a mild case of polio when I was fourteen. My left foot is a full size smaller than my right foot, and my left leg is smaller than my right leg. We have a picture taken of Buford and I standing in front of the fireplace at our house at Bartonville. We called it our “Mutt and Jeff” picture.
Buford took a picture of Pat and I standing in front of the same fireplace. He cut a nice piece of walnut wood and finished it very nicely with the bark intact. He decoupaged the photo onto the finished wood and sent it to us as a gift. I inscribed it “Made by my Good Friend, Buford Young – 1990” on the back. It hangs in a prominent place in our study where we spend a lot of our time. We treasure it greatly.482 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 483 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
One time when Buford and Georgia came to visit my Longhorn bull got out during the night. Buford went with me to get him back into the pasture where he belonged. A neighbor’s cow in the next pasture was in a romantic mood. My bull didn’t want to go back into his pasture. I told Buford to drive my pickup and, “Don’t let him get past you.” I got out on foot to herd him. It was a pretty wild experience chasing that bull in the dark with Buford driving like a cowboy to corral him. Buford and I had a few good laughs about that. Two old guys chasing a bull in the dark was crazy.
Don had a good job at ARCO. He liked the work and he liked the people he worked for and with. Then one day for whatever reason ARCO under went a major organizational change at the top which permeated all the way down through the organization. Don’s management was replaced by people from back East and from California who knew absolutely nothing about the basic business of oil exploration and production. Don’s new immediate manager not only knew nothing about the oil business, he knew nothing about the computer business.
It was a challenge to work for someone who knew so little about anything relating to our business. I constantly tried to inform him, but soon learned he resented my efforts and regarded them as an affront to his abilities.
My group had the responsibility for the operation of a major computer system, The 4300 System, that processed 3-D seismic data to display the various characteristics of the data using selective color saturation on computer monitors, and printing specialty maps of subsurface structures for geologists and geophysicists.
This was a very important part of the oil exploration process. It was frequently discussed at length in high level meetings with geophysicists and geologists. Top management illustrated the cover of the 1982 Annual Report with one of our color displays.
I tried several times to get my new manager to let me give him a tour of The 4300 System which was located on a different floor. He rebuffed each of my attempts and I gave up.
A few months later he had to attend a high level meeting with some computing geophysicist and geologists. He took me along to be his technical mouthpiece since he had no idea what these people would be talking about.
After the meeting I again suggested that since The 4300 System was just a few steps away and had been a major topic in the meeting that he let me give him a tour of the computer room. He reluctantly agreed.
Since it was only a few steps I took him through the back way instead of going around to the front entrance to the controlled area.
The controlled area consisted of two separate rooms with special air conditioned environments. The peripheral devices were in the back room. The 4300 System mainframe computer was in the front room.
Two of my best programmers were in the room. I asked them to explain the various specialized peripheral devices to him and the functions they performed. They had finished explaining every device except one that set against the wall and was obviously humming away. There was a pause and I asked if he had any questions. He pointed to the large device against the wall and asked, “And, is that The 4300 System computer?”
My two programmers almost gagged. I quickly said, “No, Sir. It is in the next room,” and hustled him in there. He had pointed to the air conditioner. Word of the incident spread rapidly among not only my people but throughout the entire department. He thought I had set him up to embarrass him.
I was soon transferred to another department and worked for a manager from New Jersey who knew even less than the first guy. Multiply that many times over and thus began the demise of ARCO culminating in the take over by British Petroleum.
The most important factor for the ARCO CEO in the takeover was his $43 million golden parachute. This is the same guy that came with his son to fish in our lake at Bartonville.