May, 1954. Graduation day!
I earned my B.S. degree in Industrial Management with a minor in Economics plus six graduate hours in economics. Pat worked to help put me through college. She earned her PHT (Put Hubby Through) degree.
Don’s mother and father came to Oklahoma A&M at Stillwater to attend his graduation. His mother previously gave him fifty-dollars to help buy a new suit for graduation. After graduation his parents and grandmother returned to Oklahoma City.
The next few days Don and Pat set about finalizing their affairs in Stillwater and prepared to move to Fort Worth. They rented a trailer and were loading it with their household goods when the postman came. Pat went to the mailbox. There was a letter from Signal Oil and Gas Company. It was not good news. They withdrew their offer to Don citing budget cuts. What to do?
They decided that since they had already rented a place in Fort Worth they would go ahead and move there. Surely Don could find a suitable job in the Fort Worth area.
Once settled in Fort Worth Don spent the next several weeks interviewing various companies. He interviewed with General 396 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 397 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
Motors at their Arlington assembly plant. Don and Pat went through the assembly plant and watched Buicks and Oldsmobiles being assembled.
Stanolind Oil and Gas Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Oil of Indiana, offered Don a job in their management training program. Don accepted. The only problem was he was required to report to work in Pampa, Texas. Where?
Pampa was a town of about 12,000 people. It was on the Caprock in the northern part of the Texas Panhandle northeast of Amarillo. The main economic mainstay was oil and cattle. Like all small Texas towns the Friday night high school football games were the social event of the week. It was not uncommon for 5,000 people to attend the games. Most businesses closed with a sign “Gone to the Game” hanging in the front door.
The job in Pampa necessitated yet another move. Since Don and Pat did not have a place in Pampa they moved their belongings to Marietta and stored them at Pat’s parents’ place. Don went on to Pampa alone. He rented a room from a widow woman.
I was to report to work on a Monday morning at the Ware Field Office somewhere northwest of Pampa. I had no idea what to look for. It took me a while to find it. I was late to work the first day.
The office was a non-descript looking white frame building in an isolated area. They told me to go to the tool shed.
There was no one at the tool shed. I had no idea what to do so I just waited. After a while a middle-age tall gruff looking guy in greasy coveralls and a silver metal safety hat drove up in a crew-cab pickup. He got out and asked, “You Don Davidson?”
“Yes, sir.”
He studied me a minute looking me up and down. I was wearing a short-sleeve shirt, a pair of slacks and low-cut shoes. I was getting a little anxious. He finally grunted, “That’ll never do.”
I thought, “Good grief. Am I fired already?”
He reached for a broom, poked it at me and said, “Take this and clean up around here. Come back tomorrow morning in work clothes and a pair of safety toe work boots.” He got in the pickup and drove away without saying another word.
The next morning I showed up in new coveralls and a new pair of safety toe boots. The ‘gang-pusher,’ the tall guy from the day before, tossed a silver metal safety hat at me. Three other guys and I got in the crew-cab pickup and we drove away to a job. Little did I know what was in store for me.
I quickly learned the “management training program” meant you started as a roustabout in the oil fields doing all kinds and manner of hard physical labor.
Don worked the first two months digging ditches, cleaning and painting tanks, building fences, cleaning out heater-treaters, cutting and threading pipe, laying oil field pipe, etc., all hard physical labor to get a couple of paychecks so he could go get Pat and bring her to Pampa.
They first rented a one-car garage that had been converted to a very small apartment. Pat dutifully prepared Don’s lunch pail each day and saw him off to work with a kiss. For years she had said, “I’ll be so glad when you get out of school and get a job so I don’t have to work anymore.”
Well, Don had a good paying job, albeit hard labor, and Pat did not have to work. That lasted three weeks. Don came home from work one day.
Pat said, “They need a part time worker at the newspaper to run a machine punching tape for setting type. Do you think it would be okay for me to apply?”
“I thought you didn’t want to work.”
“I’m bored to death sitting around here all day waiting for you to come home.”
“I don’t care if you want to. Just don’t complain to me about having to work.”398 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 399 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
“Okay.”
Pat applied and went to work that day. Several weeks went by and the first thing I knew she was Assistant Society Editor. She was spending more time at the newspaper than at home.
I had to hang around the newspaper evenings just to be with my wife. It was a morning daily and they often worked late to put it to bed.
Next thing I knew one evening when I was hanging around someone pushed a press camera into my hands and said, “Would you mind running over to the football game and getting some shots for the morning edition?” How could I say no?
Pat was working afternoons and evenings and I was working evenings at the newspaper. Next thing I knew I not only was taking football game photos but doing special feature photos. I even did a complete full-page photo layout including the art work for a special edition on the “Top ’O Texas.”
In the meantime Pat and Don moved to yet another converted garage. It however was a two-car garage that had been added on. They had much more space.
Pat became well acquainted around Pampa. She traded at a local meat market. World Series time and the guys at the market hooked her into playing in their baseball pools. She won most of them. She also began to play in their football pools. She won most of them and the guys began to refuse to let her play in their pools. She has always been tenaciously lucky.
Don soon learned that the Stanolind “management trainee” program was for all college new hires regardless of educational discipline. The idea was to give them a good basic knowledge of the oil business under the watchful eyes of seasoned old hands that knew it from bottom-hole to pipeline. They made sure trainees got the “opportunity” to work in all phases of the operation.
Don not only worked as a roustabout, but also as a relief pumper, a well service derrick crewman, a well completion crewman, a roughneck and derrickman on a drilling rig.
I was working on a drill rig as derrickman on the ‘monkey board’ up in the rig. We were about twelve miles west and north of Spearman, Texas. I was sixty feet up. I could see all the way across the Oklahoma Panhandle into Western Kansas. There was nothing between us and the North Pole except five strand barbed-wire fences.
It was February. The temperature was in the mid-twenties. The wind was howling out of the north. I was never so cold in all my life. I thought I would freeze to death. At the end of the tour I was almost afraid to get on the elevator to ride down to the rig floor. My fingers, hands and feet were so numb from cold I was afraid I could not hold on.
March in the Panhandle brought howling winds and devastating dust storms. Man and creatures alike suffered immensely. Several times the dust was so thick and heavy it was so dark the streetlights came on in town. Everything was covered in a pall of dust. Migrating ducks became disoriented and lost in the swirling dust storms. The glaze of dust on the streets reflected the streetlights. The flights of ducks mistook the reflections for water and hundreds tried to land on the streets of Pampa crashing onto the hard asphalt. Many were killed, others so badly injured they died.
April came and Don finished his tour of field “management trainee” training in North Texas. He was transferred from Pampa, the Top of Texas, to Brownsville, the Tip of Texas, to work with AMOCO Chemical Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Oil of Indiana, at a chemical plant located on the ship channel at the Port of Brownsville
Don and Pat packed their belongings in the old ’47 Dodge and drove to Marietta to visit Pat’s folks. From there they drove to Brownsville. They rented a four-room wood frame house across the road from a large tomato field. Gobs of free tomatoes at harvest time. The ripe ones were culls and left in the field for gleaners.400 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 401 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
Don worked in the Accounting Department. The “trainees” all had to work at least six months in some phase of accounting. It was here that Don became acquainted with Leonard Holland and Tom Hill. Pat got a job with the Brownsville Credit Bureau. Life settled into a daily routine.
Soon after we moved to Brownsville my brothers, Sam and Bob, came to visit. They were driving a convertible with the top down. Pat and I took them to Matamoros, Mexico, for dinner at the La Cucaracha, a quaint but very good little patio restaurant in the shadows of the tall twin cathedral towers next door.
The restaurant served seven-course meals. The waiters were very attentive and served each course with a flair of showmanship. All during the meal Pat and I bragged about their Angel’s Kiss, a wonderful dainty after dinner drink of creme de cocoa with cream.
The waiter cleared the table and returned with four little bowls which he set at each place. Sam picked up his little bowl, took a sip, thoughtfully smacked his lips and said, “That’s not such a good drink!”
“Sam”, Pat and I said in unison, “that’s a finger bowl.” The Angel’s Kisses came later and were delightful.
A few months later Pat got a very good job at the Texas Southmost College in the administrative office. When old Fort Brown was deactivated Texas Southmost College was formed to utilize the buildings for a junior college to serve the Lower Rio Grande Valley Area. The old hospital building was converted to the college administrative offices. Some of the barracks buildings were used as classrooms. Others were available for student and faculty housing.
The campus was located at the east end of Elizabeth Street, the main street through downtown Brownsville, which also terminated at the International Bridge that crossed the Rio Grande River to Mexico. The campus was situated around a large resaca or oxbow lake that was originally a part of the Rio Grande riverbed. The campus was well kept with green lawns, tall swaying palm trees, date palms, various citrus trees, bougainvilleas, banana trees, etc.
An option for on campus housing was part of the arrangement when Pat went to work at the college, so they moved to one of the barracks buildings that had been converted to apartments. She was close enough to walk to work. It was only about a hundred yards.
While Don and Pat lived in the barracks apartment Don’s parents and his grandmother Davidson came to visit. His parents took a short airplane trip on Mexicana Air Lines from Brownsville to Monterrey where they went sightseeing for a few days and returned to Brownsville. After they returned Don and Pat took them and Grandma Davidson sightseeing and deep sea fishing.
We went to all the tourist points of interest and a visit across the Rio Grande to Matamoros. Grandma enjoyed it all very much. She always had a keen inquisitive mind.
I made arrangements for us to spend the day deep sea fishing with our friends Leonard and Doris Holland and Tom and Janice Hill. We chartered a forty-two foot cabin cruiser with Captain Williams and a deckhand. He took us thirty miles offshore.
We trolled with three lines from the back of the boat. We caught twenty-two king mackerel, ling, and bonita, a kind of tuna. They each weighed between fifteen and twenty-five pounds. It took a lot of effort to land one. Each of us caught several and had a great time.
Grandma wanted in the worst way to land one of those fish. We finally convinced her an eighty-three-year old lady couldn’t reel one in. She had a great time and often talked about her deep seafishing trip with us. She loved to fish and I remember many a time in Arkansas when she would take her line and pole, go down to South Fork and catch a mess of fish for supper.
Don completed his tenure in the Accounting Department and went to work in Chemical Plant Operations. His primary job each 402 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 403 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
morning was to run a complete chemical balance on the entire plant based on chemical samples taken at specific points and times. He hand cranked it all through a Marchant calculator. Today a desktop computer could probably do in a few minutes what then took Don several hours. He also made work schedules for seven-day twenty-four hour operations. He monitored samples and made sure they were taken on schedule. He handled the paperwork for railroad tank car and ocean barge shipments.
Pat received a promotion to the college president’s office. As a select faculty member she had the privilege to rent one of the campus houses that were officers’ houses when old Fort Brown was active.
Don and Pat moved into a house that faced the large resaca. It had three bedrooms, a large living-dining room, a sunroom, a large kitchen, and a utility room. More room than they had ever had. The house also had a large screened front porch across most of the front. It had high ceilings and lots of large windows which made it airy and cool.
There were two grapefruit trees in the backyard, a fig tree at the back porch, and a poinsettia plant that reached to the eaves of the house. It had bougainvillea and mock bird of paradise plants. Tall coconut palm trees lined the bank of the resaca.
It was a great place. We enjoyed it very much. Pat could walk to and from work. She lost weight and looked real nice.
Pat found a Mexican woman, Sarah, who came one day a week to do housework. Pat also found Prisca, an excellent seamstress who made some very nice clothes for her. Pat needed only to take a picture of a garment to Prisca. She told Pat how much material to buy, and in a few days Pat had a nice new dress that fit.
The house was situated such that a professional golfer could tee up a golf ball in the front yard and drive it into the Rio Grande River. At night when Don laid just right in bed he could see a neon Dos XX’s beer sign flashing over in Mexico.
In April 2007 Pat and Don with their son, Greg, his wife, Donna, and granddaughter, Mary Grace, visited Brownsville. They visited the college campus. It now is The University of Texas Southmost College Campus and is greatly and beautifully expanded with all the new buildings preserving the original architectural style of the old original buildings. The old hospital building is still used as the administrative offices. Much to Dons and Pat’s surprise the house they lived in is the only one still standing. It has not been changed. It is used as an information center and a kind of museum piece to show how the original officers’ houses looked. Greg took a photo of Don and Pat in front of the house where he was conceived.
Pat and I often went across the river to Matamoros for dining and shopping. We became well acquainted with many of the merchants and restaurateurs. Pat loved to haggle with the merchants in the bazaar. They called her “the Jew from Monterrey.”
We often went dining and then to one of the several good night spots for drinking and dancing. We often met friends and would make an evening of it. We were so well known at some places that the musicians would strike up certain tunes when we came in.
I could take a dollar bill, pay a nickel to walk across the bridge, pay thirty cents for a haircut, twenty-five cents for a manicure, a dime for a shoe shine, buy a sloe gin fizz for twenty cents, pay a nickel to walk back across the bridge, and have a nickel left.
Sometimes at the shrimp basin Pat would take a ten-quart bucket and go ‘tripping’ down the pier among the shrimp boats. The guys would always give her a bucket full of fresh caught shrimp which we took home, cleaned and cooked.
Pat’s grandparents, Edward and Susie Patrick, came to visit while Don and Pat lived in the house on the resaca. Her grandmother loved to sit on the big screened-porch looking out over the resaca while she ate papayas. She had never before eaten any and she loved them. Pat’s grandfather had never seen tall coconut 404 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 405 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
palms. He marveled that they could stand so straight and tall in the wind and not bend.
Pat’s mother and father, Bert and Mable Paschall, came with their friends, the Warrs from Oklahoma City, to visit Don and Pat in Brownsville. Mr. Warr was an avid duck hunter and brought Bert hunting with him. Mable and Mrs. Warr were good friends and they mostly went shopping. One evening Mr. and Mrs. Warr had a wild duck dinner for about a dozen guests. The ducks were prepared by a local restaurant from the ones they bagged while hunting.
Things were going great for Don and Pat. They had good jobs, a good place to live. They were having the time of their lives going to the beach, fishing, and going to Matamoros shopping, dining and dancing. The Charro Days Celebration was a big annual event in Brownsville with parades and all kinds of fun activities. They enjoyed Brownsville, so much they purchased a small acreage near Boca Chica Boulevard east of town.
This acreage was like a small jungle. We bought hoes, shovels, rakes, and a machete and set about clearing it out. We had a set of house plans drawn by a local builder. We went out evenings and on weekends to work on it.
One day while clearing the land we saw a large rattlesnake slithering across the trail where we drove in. I grabbed the machete and ran toward the snake to kill it. The closer I got to that snake the bigger it got and the smaller that machete got. By the time I was in striking range that machete was the size of a dagger.
That rattlesnake was every bit of eight feet long and very mean looking. I decided I did not want to chance a face-to-face confrontation. I left him to slither away into the brush.
Don and Pat felt very comfortable in their situation. They had gone in debt to buy a new car, new furniture, and a new kitchen stove. They had a circle of friends from Don’s place of employment and Pat’s position with the college.
Don played catcher on the company softball team in a fast-pitch league. Dale Hartz was the pitcher. Don also bowled in a company league. He went fishing in the bay and ship channel with his friend, Leonard Holland. They also went duck hunting along the Rio Grande. Doris Holland and Pat were good friends. They enjoyed shopping together and going to the beach.
Pat and Don attended various college functions and social events at the homes of the different faculty members. They socialized with the people Don worked with. They played bridge at the home of Dale and Maxine Hartz. They were instrumental in the organization of the Charro Camera Club in Brownsville. Don worked with the local Civil Air Patrol to organize, publicize and present the beauty queen contests at two of their annual air shows.
Then, Pat became pregnant. What a surprise! Don was not supposed to be able to father children. He had the mumps the worst sort of way when he was sixteen.
After eight years of marriage and no precautions we thought we could not have children. We had kind of planned our life together that way. In fact, I was a little skeptical.
A handsome bachelor friend, Hector Solis, was a co-worker. He was the ‘darling’ of all the ladies in our social circle. He was so polite and thoughtful. He had been coming by the house to sit on the porch and sip coffee with Pat while I went hunting or fishing.
A few days after we confirmed Pat’s pregnancy I kind of hinted at Pat that maybe she had been a little too friendly with Hector. Wow! Did that ever elicit a response.
“Listen, Buster”, she said, “If you’re not the father of this child you better get ready for the Second Coming of Christ!”
I never broached that topic again.
Oh, and the baby looked just like me.
No problem with Pat’s pregnancy. The college agreed to let her have a few weeks of maternity leave to have the baby. Pat arranged 406 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 407 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
for a Mexican lady to stay with the baby during the day. And, since it was only a three-minute walk from the college office to the house Pat could check on things during breaks and be there for lunch. The perfect situation until Friday, September 13th.
Management at the chemical plant announced the closing of the plant. There had been rumors flying for several months, but management always squelched them.
Suddenly we went from a perfect situation to the worst possible situation—no job at the chemical plant, Pat pregnant and due in December, and up to our eyebrows in debt for the car and furniture.
There were 1,250 employees at the plant. The company said they would place those they could in other company locations. The others would be discharged.
I knew it would be impossible to find comparable employment in the Brownsville area. The economy was primarily based on agriculture, the Port of Brownsville, shrimping. trade with Mexico, and the chemical plant.
The company eventually placed about 350 of the employees in other company locations. Fortunately, I was one. I was transferred to the West Edmond Field Office northwest of Oklahoma City on the west side of Lake Hefner.
Pat was seven months pregnant when she and Don moved to Oklahoma City. They lived in a motel in Putman City a couple of weeks. Don worked as a clerk processing invoices, material transfers and production run tickets. They rented a house at 5704 NW 47th Street from Tom and Marilee Ohm. Pat had to change doctors. Her new doctor was Dr. Deihl.
At six o’clock the morning of December 27, 1957, Don took Pat to the Deaconess Hospital with labor pains. About eight fifty-five o’clock that same morning their son, Gregory Scott, was born. When Pat and Greg came home Don surprised her with a new washer and dryer in the garage. Don also bought a Bolex 8mm movie camera, and thus began a long period of movie making over the next many years.
A short time later Pat’s parents, Bert and Mable Paschall, came to visit and see the new grandbaby. Don’s grandparents, Dill and Arlie Roller, also came to visit and see the new great grandbaby. He was a precious and much adored child by all.
Soon Don was working as a Field Material Supervisor responsible for the purchase, classification, storage, and allocation of various kinds of oil field material, equipment, and pipe. Pat worked as the dutiful wife and mother caring for Greg.
It was February 1958. Greg was a tiny baby. I got a phone call late on a Saturday. There had been a blowout at the T.H. Williams northeast of Cement, Oklahoma. They needed a Field Material Supervisor. Now!
The next morning I was on site. I was there the next six weeks. Gas was spewing everywhere. Everything for a mile around was blocked off to everyone except workers.
The T.H. Williams was a deep (14,000 ft.) gas wildcat drilled in an old Skelly field among several shallow (2,500 ft.) stripper oil wells. The several stripper wells were spewing oil and gas into the air. Those old wells hadn’t made gas in twenty years.
The pressure gauge on the T.H. Williams ‘christmas tree’ was very low (300 psi) whereas the day before it was 3,000 psi. That told us right away that gas was streaming into the shallow production zone and escaping out the casings of the several nearby old wells. The pressure was so great it blew the pumps, rods and tubing out of the well casings and spewed oil and gas a hundred feet into the air. What a mess!
There were tons of material and equipment to be ordered, transferred and transported to the site. Fortunately the drill rig was still on location and we didn’t have to move one in. We moved a house trailer on site about a hundred yards from the wellhead. The phone company strung three private phone lines from Cement (six miles) to the trailer.
I was busier than a one-arm paperhanger. Everyone wanted his “stuff” now. I sometimes was on all three phone lines at the same time. They needed tools, piping, valves, gauges, mud, cement, you name it, and they needed it now. I couldn’t work fast enough.408 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 409 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
Though we all had motel rooms in Chickasha most of us spent the first three or four nights on site working sixteen or more hours and grabbing sleep when we could.
Halliburton brought in several large mud pumps and tried for several days to kill it with mud. Not a chance. It just blew mud out the old wells all over the countryide.
The engineers did a lot of head scratching and trying different things without success. Creeks were getting contaminated and ranchers were filing claims. It was always their “best” cow that drank from the creek and died.
After three weeks things settled into a routine and I had to work only ten or so hours a day. I went home on a Sunday and brought Pat and Greg back to the motel in Chickasha. They stayed a week and I took them home.
The rig workers finally ‘snubbed’ (ran in reverse) a string of special tubing with a packer past the split in the main tubing and sealed off the leak. Everything suddenly became quiet to our great relief.
Twelve years later when I worked for Atlantic Richfield by chance I met the Stanolind superintendent on the T.H. Williams Well in the Petroleum Club in Denver. He told me they had just settled the last lawsuit on the T.H Williams that month.
Soon after the T.H. Williams episode Don had to make a decision about his officer reserve status with the army. He had to make a choice between either being more active in the army reserve program or his civilian job. The nature of his civilian job was such that he was often absent from army reserve drills. This did not set well with the commanding officer. Don elected to take an honorable discharge and devote his time to his civilian job.
Things pretty much returned to normal in the household. Pat was busy being the dutiful mother. After awhile she needed a free day to go shopping and do whatever she wanted to do just to be away for a few hours. Don was left to baby sit.
Greg was about seven months old. He was crawling very well and starting to pull himself up on various pieces of furniture.
We had a parakeet. His name was Tweetybird. He was in a tall cylinder shaped wire cage with all kinds of little bells, swings, etc. to keep him busy. He chirped a lot.
I was left to baby sit while Pat went shopping. Curiosity got the best of Greg. He crawled over to the cage, reached up and grabbed hold, but as he attempted to pull himself up he pulled the cage over on top of him.
I was sitting on the sofa reading. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. You can’t imagine the noise and commotion. The cage crashed, Tweetybird went berserk fluttering all around and screeching. Greg screamed and cried. I about jumped out of my skin. It took several minutes to upright the cage, quiet Tweetybird and soothe Greg’s hurt. He took his first steps at eight months and was walking very good at twelve months.
Don and Pat bought a new house at 5748 NW 48th Street several blocks west of the rent house. They paid extra to have the breezeway between the house and the garage enclosed to make a nice family room. Pat’s grandfather helped Don frame, pour and finish a concrete patio outside the family room. They had a four-foot high chain link fence built around the backyard where Greg could play. He was a little over a year old and walking fairly good.
I was working in the backyard. Greg was playing nearby. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on him. For some reason I went into the house for just a moment to get something.
I suddenly heard a loud scream coming from the backyard. I rushed outside. Greg was dangling upside down by one foot caught in one of the links near the top of the fence.
I think he must have decided to climb over the fence. When he got to the top he must have teetered and fell backwards catching his foot in the link. This was probably fortunate because otherwise he might have hit head first causing serious injury.410 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 411 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
The house was only a six or seven minute drive from Don’s place of employment. Most days he came home for lunch. Pat always had lunch ready and Greg in his crib. After lunch Don would catch a few winks before Pat woke him and he went back to work. Don and Pat had been in their new home only a few months when Grandma Davidson came to visit.
Grandpa Davidson died in 1953. Grandma lived until age ninety-three. She lived with her daughter, Mary, and her husband, Jim Dunahoo, in Kansas City, Kansas.
When Grandma was in her eighties she decided to pack her little ditty bag and spend the next few years going around and living a few days, weeks, or months with various close relatives. Kind of her farewell tour. In the summer of 1958 she lived with Pat, Greg and I most of the summer. Greg was just a baby.
Grandma always loved to work crossword puzzles. She was very good at it. Just a few days after her arrival she dug into her little coin purse and handed me some money with instructions to buy her a crossword puzzle book. I told her to put her money away. I would buy her a book. I stopped at a drugstore with a large magazine rack and picked up a book with about a hundred puzzles in it. Two days later she was again digging into her little coin purse. I said, “Grandma, I just bought you a book.” She replied, “Yes, they were all easy.” She had worked every puzzle in the book.
I went to the drugstore magazine rack and spent about an hour finding what I determined to be a book of very difficult puzzles and brought it home to her. It took only about five days for her to work all the puzzles. And, she didn’t cheat and peek at the answers in the back. She considered that very unethical. I couldn’t have worked that book in three months.
The rest of the time she lived with us I stopped once a week and bought her a difficult book of puzzles. She was a smart and testy little old lady, yet very gentle and kind.
That same summer there was a lot of talk in the news media about the Russians being ahead of the United States in space technology. They had successfully launched Sputnik, the world’s first space age satellite, in November 1957. It was only about the size of a large grapefruit.
Our good friends, Leonard and Doris Holland, also lived in Oklahoma City. They knew Grandma from the deep sea fishing adventure when we lived in Brownsville.
One evening in the summer of 1958 Leonard and Doris were visiting. We sat around the kitchen table late that night talking about the space age and discussing the possibility of sending a manned space mission to the moon and back. There had been considerable news media coverage of just such a prospect.
Doris said, “Impossible! There is no way they can send a man to the moon, much less send him there and bring him back alive.” Grandma pondered that statement a few moments. Then she piped up and said, “Yes, I believe they will do it. I’ve seen too many impossible things come true in my lifetime to believe otherwise.” Too bad she didn’t live to see it come true.
One day Grandma said, “Time is getting shorter.” I said, “Grandma, what do you mean? A second is a second, a minute is a minute, an hour is an hour, a day is a day, a month is a month, and a year is a year. They never change.”
“Oh, yes they do. They get shorter. You just don’t understand.”
“So, okay please explain to me how that is.”
“I will. Time is only as it relates to your existence. Remember when you were ten years old. A year seemed like forever. And, now that you are thirty a year doesn’t seem to be so long. That is because a year is one-tenth of your total experience at age ten, and it is one-thirtieth at age thirty, and it is one-eightieth when you are eighty like me. And, one-eightieth is a whole lot less than one-thirtieth, or one-tenth, therefore time is getting shorter.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic. Now that I am eighty years old I darn well understand exactly what Grandma meant. Long after Grandma had passed on I read an account of how Einstein once described his Theory of Relativity. He said, “A young man sitting in a chair over a hot stove five minutes seems like an hour. That same young man sitting on a park bench with his 412 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 413 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
sweetheart an hour seems like five minutes.” I think Grandma knew something about relativity.
Don’s job settled into a routine for the next several months until one day his boss asked if he would be interested in a job in New York City working in the corporate offices of Pan American International Oil Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent company. It would be a promotion with a thirty-percent increase in salary. Don would be a Procedures Analyst in the Management Procedures Group.
What excitement! A new job. A big pay raise. An office on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Who could turn down such an opportunity? Don accepted.
The next several weeks were hectic. Sell the house. Prepare to move. Get ready for the movers. See everything loaded on the moving van and on its way. Close on the sale of the house. Pack the car and get on the road to New York. Don and Pat had never been to New York. They had no idea what was in store for them. They arrived a week or so later with their two-year old son, Greg.
I received instructions from the office in New York City suggesting we temporarily stay in New Jersey until such time as we could find housing.
We checked into a motel in Fort Lee about a mile from the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River on the New Jersey side. I called the office and they gave me directions on how to get to the office. The motel employees told me I could catch a bus across the street that would take me across the bridge and into the Bronx near the 172nd Street A-Train Subway Station.
The next morning I got ready, kissed Pat and Greg good-bye, and left to walk across the street to catch the bus. Incredible! The traffic was so heavy and so fast I could not safely cross all six lanes of traffic. There was no traffic control light or crossover bridge anywhere in sight.
Twenty minutes later I was pounding on the motel door. Pat was surprised to see me. I told her to get ready and drive me across the street to the bus stop. She thought I was out of my mind, but did as I asked.
She drove me about a mile west to a crossover. Then a mile back to the other side of the street to the bus stop. Let me out. Then drove about a half-mile east to another crossover and then back to the motel. She did this every morning for the next several days.
I caught the Red and Tan bus, went across the bridge, and got off two blocks from the 172nd Street Station. As I stepped off the bus people were swarming everywhere. I was like a tourist–looking all around at everything except where I was stepping. I took several steps and suddenly realized I had stepped on something squishy that felt like a pig ‘turd.’ I looked down. I had stepped in a dog pile. I looked around and there were dog piles scattered all around on the sidewalk.
I learned first hand that people lived in those tall buildings and many of them had dogs they took out early each morning. There was only the street or sidewalk for them to do their daily duty. The street was out of the question because the traffic would run over them. That left only the sidewalk. Yuk!
I had never been so close to so many people all at once as when I went down into the tubes to catch the Eighth Avenue A-Train to mid-town Manhattan. People were crammed into the railroad cars so tight it was impossible to move.
The A-Train was an express. It stopped only at 168th Street in the Bronx, again at 125th Street in Harlem and then 50th Street at Columbus Circle. I was supposed to get off at Columbus Circle and catch the BB Local into Rockefeller Center Plaza.
I didn’t get off at Columbus Circle. There was a rush to the door and then the push of a mob getting on. I was unable to get to the door before it closed and the train pulled away from the platform.
I stood next to the door determined to be one of the first off at the next stop. It was 42nd Street under the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I made my way to street level. I had no idea where I was. I walked a short distance. I asked the first police officer 414 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 415 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
I saw for directions to Rockefeller Center. He told me how to get there. As an after thought I asked him where Times Square was. I had seen so many photos and movies of Times Square I knew that was the one place in New York City I would surely recognize. He looked at me kind of quizzically and matter of factly said, “You’re in Times Square.”
After several days at the motel Pat said she wanted to change motels. I asked, “Whatever for?”
“There is a constant stream of people in and out all day long. The maids clean the rooms on both sides of us every hour or so all day long. I don’t want to stay here.”
The next day Pat located a Howard Johnson motel about eight miles further from the George Washington Bridge. The first motel people were probably glad to see us go because they were getting only one day’s rent on the room from us whereas they could be renting it ten times a day for ‘temporary’ illicit use.
Don and Pat rented a house in Closter, Bergen County, New Jersey. It was only two blocks to the corner where Don caught the Red and Tan bus that went across the George Washington Bridge to the 172nd Street Station for the Eighth Avenue A-Train. This became a daily routine.
My office was in the International Building in Rockefeller Center across Fifth Avenue from Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Across the Plaza was the Sinclair Building. Every time I went by there I thought about Buford and his folks. Finally, one day I went to the Sinclair personnel office. I explained to the lady I was trying to locate a long lost friend. I told her his father, Charles F. Young, worked for years with Sinclair and was possibly a retiree. She checked her retiree records. She found a Charles F. Young living at Box 303, Eldorado, Texas.
I wrote a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Charles F. Young and explained who I was. I asked if they had a son, Buford. I got a letter back in a few days from Mrs. Young. Yes, Buford was their son. She gave me his address, 262 North Day Street, Powell, Wyoming. I wrote a letter to Buford, and after many long years we were reunited. We kept in touch from then on until the day he died.
Don liked his new job. It was different. He interfaced with many different people in the company, including the various levels of management. He had a good secretary, Pat Falco. She was very slim and ate all kinds of fattening foods trying to gain weight. Don was a little overweight. He kidded her a lot about trading some of his “fat” for some of her “slim.”
Don was in the new job only a few months when his boss came to him and told he they needed someone with field experience to go to Iran. The company had started a new crash exploration program in the Persian Gulf. The people in Iran needed someone temporarily with oil field material and equipment experience to bring order out of chaos. He asked Don if he would go. Don said he would.
The next several days were hectic. Don and Pat had been looking to buy a new house. They quickly looked at a builder’s model in a large development called Lawrence Brook in East Brunswick, New Jersey. They signed a contract. The house was to be finished when Don returned from Iran.
Their household goods were moved to storage. Pat’s mother flew to New Jersey to drive back to Marietta, Oklahoma, with Pat and Greg. They were to live with Pat’s folks until Don returned. One afternoon they stood on the Jersey shore and watched the Queen Mary ease out into the Hudson River and sail for Europe.
Pat, her mother, and Greg took me to Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy) on Long Island. We said our farewells. I boarded a TWA Boeing 707 flight for Rome via Paris. I felt somewhat lonely and guilty to be leaving my dear family behind while I went off to be half a world away.
The company flew its employees first class on international flights. This was 1960 when the airlines treated their passengers like someone special. The attendant brought a menu. I saw 416 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 417 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
caviar and cognac on it along with some very choice entrees. I had never eaten caviar or drank cognac. I ordered each. Yuk! The caviar tasted like fish eggs and the cognac tasted like burnt rubber.
An hour or so into the flight I knew someone important occupied the front two seats on both sides of the aisle in front of me. They made a lot of demands on the attendants and got a lot of attention. I soon learned it was Jayne Mansfield, her then husband, Mickey Hagarity, a child with a nanny, and a Chihuahua dog in a small hand basket.
We landed in Paris at six o’clock in the morning. Most of us got off the airplane to stretch our legs in the transit lounge. Jane looked very much like an ordinary person. She had a perky nose and was slightly freckled. Her hair was swept back in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She was wearing a long sleeve blouse with a Peter Pan collar under a sleeveless low cut jumper dress. For all intents and purposes she looked very normal and nondescript.
We were in Paris only about an hour and reboarded for Rome. About fifteen minutes out of Rome Jane went forward to the rest room. She came back without the Peter Pan blouse and her hair was long and flowing down around her shoulders. Her sleeveless low-cut jumper dress was overly revealing. Her makeup hid the freckles and showed deep red pouting lips. What a transformation!
She was determined to be the last person to deplane. I waited until I was almost the last person to deplane ahead of her. I stepped out the door onto the stairs leading down to the tarmac. I thought I was a celebrity. I paused and looked around. I saw no less than fifty photographers and three newsreel cameras all looking up pointing at me.
I hurried down the stairs. I wanted to see Miss Mansfield get off. I was not disappointed. She stepped into the door of the airplane and struck a pose. The camera flashbulbs popped and the news reel cameras whirled. She took a full ten minutes to strut down the twenty or so steps. What a show!
It was about ten o’clock in the morning when Don arrived in Rome. He checked into the Hotel Eden. His Alatalia flight to Teheran would not depart until eight o’clock the evening of the next day. This gave him a chance to look around a little while in Rome.
Rome was interesting. I had never been to Europe. I walked around near the hotel looking in the shops, looking at the people, and looking at the sights. The streets and narrow sidewalks were a beehive of activity.
I went into several shops. I bought a few gifts for Pat and Greg. The shopkeepers boxed and shipped them to Pat’s folks in Marietta. One of the lady shopkeepers was curious to know about Marietta, Oklahoma. Her name was Marietta.
I went into a restaurant for a late lunch. I sat alone at a small table. I saw a woman obviously American sitting alone at a small table. I thought how sad to travel alone and not have someone to share the experience with. I wished Pat was with me.
I left the restaurant and went out onto the sidewalk. It was siesta time. Many shops were closed. The sidewalks were crowded with people coming and going, or sitting at small round tables sipping a drink or smoking.
I passed by a group of crowded sidewalk tables under an awning. A lady daintily waving a small white kerchief caught my eye. It appeared she was looking directly at me as she smiled friendly and knowingly. I thought she saw someone directly behind me she knew and was waving to get his or her attention. Not me. I didn’t know anyone in Rome.
I walked a few steps farther to the curb and stopped for a red light. I was standing on the edge of the curb with half my feet hanging over the curb. I suddenly felt someone press against my left shoulder and whisper in my ear, “You wanna make love?”
I fell off the curb into the street. I quickly stepped back onto the curb face to face with the lady that waved the white kerchief. I muttered, “What? In the middle of the afternoon?” She got a real hurt expression on her face and said, “Zee time, eet makes a deefference?”
The light turned green. I started across the street. She followed jingling keys at me saying, “I have car. I have partment. Come weeth me?” I thought, “Yeah, and you have a big brute 418 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 419 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
boy friend who will club me when I walk through the door,” and kept walking. She quickly gave up and went to look for another ‘John.’
The Alatalia flight departed Rome for Teheran the next evening. It was a DC-6 overnight flight. Don was the only person in first-class. He spent most of the night playing cards with the flight attendants, a man and a woman. They landed at Damascus early in the morning before daylight. Don deplaned and went to immigration to get his passport stamped with a Syrian visa. When he saw the two immigration officials with a grim no nonsense look and guns he decided against it and reboarded the airplane.
It was early morning when he arrived in Teheran. He spent one night at the company headquarters. The next morning he boarded an Iranair Viscount turbo-prop and left for Abadan, a four-hour flight. He was met at the airport by a company car driven by an Iranian chauffeur.
It was twenty miles to Kosrovabad and another five miles to the company base of operations on the Shat-al-Arab River, the Euphrates River of biblical times, a few miles upstream from the Persian Gulf. It was desolate and the middle of nowhere. Iraq was a scant hundred and fifty yards across the river.
The Iranians and Iraqis were in constant conflict over the precise location of the boundary. The Iranians claimed it extended to the western shoreline across the river. The Iraqis claimed it extended to the eastern shoreline across the river. This dispute occasionally resulted in sporadic gunfire across the river.
The company had living quarters for employees and contract people. There was a separate building for the kitchen and dining hall. Rooms were small and everyone shared a room. Don had a small room and a roommate. He was about sixty years old and worked for a contractor. After a few days Don learned the man knew his father when he was Ticket Agent for the Oklahoma Railway Company.
It was March. The weather was mild though a little warm. Don got settled in that afternoon. Later he decided to go to the shorebase about half a mile from the living quarters.
I decided to stroll down to the shorebase that evening and just look around and check things out. Did I ever get a surprise! I found out real quick that Iran and Iraq did not like each other. In fact, they shoot at each other across the river. The Iranians had a small military detachment and several patrol boats based on their side of the river.
I had gone only about a quarter of mile on the road along the river bank when suddenly I was confronted by two serious looking guys in military uniforms pointing rifles straight at me. I came to a screeching halt with hands held high. They said something, but I couldn’t understand. It sounded serious. I said, “American. Pan American Oil company.”
They didn’t move. I looked at the rifles. 1906 Springfields. Bolt action. My God!! Fingers on the triggers! Do they have a safety? Where? Please God, don’t let them pull the trigger. What do they want? This standoff lasted a full three minutes, but seemed an eternity. I had no idea what to do.
Thankfully, a more intelligent looking man in what was very obviously an officer’s uniform came strolling from a small building near where the patrol boats were docked. He said something to the two soldiers. They dropped the rifles down. Whew!
“Where you go?” he asked.
“To the Pan American shorebase,” I replied.
“No go. Go next day.”
“Yes, Sir.” I turned around and went back toward the living quarters not looking back praying they didn’t have those rifles trained on me.
The next day I went to the shorebase in a company vehicle with an Iranian chauffeur. No problem at the checkpoint. They waved us through without stopping.
I learned an important lesson. If you are white you just don’t go walking around in Iran unless accompanied by an Iranian that is on the company payroll. That was my first 420 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 421 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
inkling that those people flat out do not like us, the greedy arrogant Americans.
We drove through the gate to the shorebase past company paid security guards. It looked like a beachhead landing in World War II. Crates of material and all kinds of equipmet were scattered all over the place with no rhyme or reason. I saw right away I had my work cut out for me.
Don reported to the superintendent and head administrative official for the company. They were glad to see him and wasted no time giving him a brief orientation and telling him to go to work. That he did.
My offiice was at the main warehouse. There I met Hakeem, my interpreter. His English was heavily accented but reasonably acceptable, at least for the moment.
I set about getting organized. They had hired two Pakistani men for clerks. They spoke a little English. Communication was going to be a major task. I had any number of contract laborers at my disposal to do the material handling, moving, and stacking. I soon learned the contract laborers weren’t really that, they actually were conscripts. The local sheik was the contractor. The laborers were working off fines and various degrees of demerits imposed by the sheik for some offense. They were not the most willing workers, especially since they didn’t get paid very much or very often. The company paid the sheik and he kept most of the money doling out a little here and there to keep the “natives from getting restless.”
The sheik had his several henchmen ‘enforcers’ or ‘pushers’ to make the laborers work and keep them in line. They were better fed and larger than the average laborer. They obviously curried the sheik’s favor else they too would quickly become a laborer. Not desirable.
The shorebase consisted of an administrative building with a communications center that communicated via radio with the offshore drill rigs, the aircraft, the helicopters, and the main office in Teheran. There were three large warehouses, a heliport and hanger, a landing strip for a DC-3 airplane, pipe racks, and a dock on the river for the cargo tenders.
Don soon learned they actually had their own little United Nations conclave. The cooks at the mess hall were Turks assisted by Iranian mess helpers. The houseboys that did the cleaning, laundry, etc. were Iranians. The boat crews for the cargo tenders were Greeks. The boat engineers were Germans. The helicopter pilots and maintenance crews were British. The well wire-line service crews were French. The clerks were Pakistanis. The warehousemen were Armenians. Communicating was definitely a challenge.
Don set about the task of bringing order out of chaos. He worked twelve to fourteen hour days.
I could hardly believe my eyes. What a daunting task! Tons of material, equipment, and piping scattered and stacked all over the place. All kinds of items had been purchased but no records of having been received. The company was paying large dollar invoices not knowing whether they actually had the items or not. Engineers and drillers were making emergency orders for expensive items to be shipped air freight, knowing full well they had the identical items somewhere in a crate, but unable to find it.
Not having a regular aviation servicing facility fuel was stored in 55-gallon drums stacked on their sides eight high in pyramid shaped stacks in a special area call the ‘fuel dump.’
I had been there only three days when I looked out the warehouse door and saw an Iranian laborer hunched down in the shade of the fuel dump puffing on the butt of a cigarette. The Americans and Europeans knew not to smoke anywhere near the fuel dump, but the Iranians apparently didn’t. The Americans would throw a partially smoked cigarette on the ground and step on it long before they got near the fuel dump. One of the Iranian laborers would pounce on the butt and 422 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 423 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
start puffing on it to get it going again. Then looked for the closest shade to squat down and smoke the butt.
“Good grief”, I thought. “That guy will blow us sky high.”
“Hakeem,” I shouted at my interpreter, “Get that man out of there.”
“Me, no. Maybe go boom.”
“Then get a pusher to get him out of there!”
I don’t know what Hakeem said to the pusher, but he went over to the guy and hit him two times with a small ‘billy club’, grabbed him by the nape of the neck, drug him over to me and shoved him onto the ground where he cowered.
I told Hakeem to tell him not to smoke over there and to get back to work with his crew. I don’t know what Hakeem said to him but it took three or four minutes of conversation between him, the pusher and the laborer.
Hakeem and I went back into the warehouse. I gave him a piece of paper and a pencil and said, “Write as clearly as possible in the local language the words No Smoking,” which he did. I painted several small boards white and set them to dry. I stayed later than usual after work. I took red paint and carefully copied what Hakeem wrote on the scrap of paper. I also added in smaller words “No Smoking” in English.
It was late but I took a flashlight and posted the signs around the fuel dump knowing they would be dry by morning. I hung one on the entrances to the three warehouses. I called and a driver came to get me and take me to the living quarters.
The next morning as usual I was at the warehouse early. Hakeem as usual came sauntering in about nine o’clock. I watched to see his reaction when he saw my sign on the warehouse door. He broke out laughing. He was laughing when he came into the office. I asked, “What’s the matter? Can’t you read it?”
“Yes, I can read it.”
“Then what’s so funny?”
“I’m the only one that can read it.”
I felt like a dunce. Hakeem, a few others and I were the only ones that knew what the signs meant. The Pakistanis could read a little English. The Armenians could read very little English and whatever Armenians speak. The Iranian laborers who the signs were meant for were all illiterates. They couldn’t read anything.
Don had been there only a week or so when an old Englishman who had over forty years of living among the Arabs said to him, “The way you have to deal with these people is hobble their camel, break their sword, cut out their tongue, and speak softly to them.” The longer Don was there the more he came to understand this.
Don worked long hours. He knew that as soon as he got things organized and operating he would get to go home. It was not easy. Some tasks were daunting to say the least.
Not only were the laborers illiterate but they had no concept of personal hygiene or sanitation. They went when and where they had the urge. With anywhere from twenty to fifty or more laborers on site at any given time sanitation was a problem.
The company rushed through a project to build a modern latrine for the laborers to use. It was a simple concrete block building with concrete floors, several high narrow casement windows, forced ventilation in the ceiling, three trough urinals, six flush toilets, and six lavatories. Nothing fancy, but adequate for the situation.
The day after final inspection and checkout I instructed Hakeem to call all the pushers and laborers together for a meeting outside next to the warehouse. I told Hakeem to emphatically tell them they were no longer to relieve themselves just anywhere on the ground. I would no longer tolerate it. They were now to go to the new latrine. I had about a minute of instructions for Hakeem to relay. He had over five minutes of conversation directed at the laborers, none of which I understood.
As an after thought I told Hakeem to tell them to be sure and wash their hands after using the latrine to wash the germs from their hands. Again, a long conversation. But, when I saw all the laborers turn their hands palm up and stare at them I knew he had just told them about the germs.424 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 425 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
I had no way to know what Hakeem told the pushers and the laborers. It wasn’t long before I saw a pusher grab one of the laborers and drag him to the latrine and push him through the door. In the course of the day I saw this happen several times. I decided to go take a look in the latrine. About ten laborers were cowering on the floor. Some had done their duty on the floor. Good grief!
“Hakeem,” I yelled out the door, “Get over here! Now!”
He came sauntering in.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“They don’t know how to use a toilet. They’ve never seen one.”
“Well, show them!”
“Not me. I’m just the interpreter.”
“Get the pushers in here! Now!”
Hakeem soon returned with the several pushers. They were just as wide-eyed as the laborers. They had never seen a modern latrine either.
I told Hakeem I would demonstrate and he would translate exactly as I did and instructed. I proceeded to slowly and exactingly go through the process of urinating in a urinal, sitting on a toilet, wiping my self, flushing the toilet and washing my hands.
I told Hakeem to tell the pushers it was their responsibility to make sure the laborers came to the latrine and they were to make sure the laborers were properly instructed on how to use the latrine facilities. Again Hakeem had a long conversation. I thought that would take care of it. Wrong.
The next day I noticed laborers going in the latrine but didn’t see any coming out. I decided to check it out. When I went into the latrine I saw several laborers huddled in a corner. One was sitting on a toilet. A pusher was shouting and beating him. They thought it was some kind of punishment.
It took about two weeks to finally get everyone and everything functioning properly at the latrine. In fact, the laborers were going more than normal. It was getting into summer time. Temperatures were over a hundred degrees. It was cool in the latrine.
I noticed three laborers that seemed a little more astute than the others. Since keeping the latrine clean was a problem I decided to make them permanent ‘latrine orderlies.’ Their job was to make sure the others used the facilities properly and to keep the latrine clean. I soon learned they also assumed the duty of ‘enforcers’ exerting their authority with vigor to make the laborers clean up after themselves.
After a couple more weeks the ‘orderlies’ sent one of their own as an emissary to Hakeem to approach me with a request. They wanted to keep a small hibachi in the latrine so they could make tea and heat their food. I thought that a little unusual, but since they were doing such a good job and since there was some extra space in one corner I agreed.
A few days later I was in the latrine. They had painted a yellow line around their corner. It was their private space. None of the other laborers encroached without repercussions. I smiled and let it be.
I also learned Hakeem did not speak the local dialect real well. That accounted for all the conversations and misunderstandings. In all fairness Hakeem had to do a lot of explaining to get the message understood.
Don worked long hours but occasionally he had a few diversions. One such time he went to Abadan with Hakeem and an Iranian driver. They visited a shop that dealt in antiques.
I saw a large copper tray covered with a greenish dust high up on a narrow shelf. It was about thirty-two inches in diameter. The merchant climbed a ladder and removed the tray. He dusted it with an old dusty cloth. Everything in Iran is covered in dust if it doesn’t move every few minutes.
He laid the tray on a bench and poured a solution over it. He took a dirty rag and scrubbed it. Then he applied another solution and used a clean cloth to polish it revealing a gleaming beautifully hand engraved copper tray with turned up fluted edges. The merchant said it was an antique about two hundred 426 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 427 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
and fifty years old. He said it had gone through three periods of artistic design. He said it first was flat with a very fine delicate floral engraving around the perimeter about two inches from the edge. It had a circle of braided rope design about twelve inches in diameter enclosing a circular grouping of floral designs in the center. He said the next design transition was the ornate engraving of people figures about two hundred years ago. There were eight pairs of figures encircling three figures in the center all portraying various cultural and social aspects of Old Persia. He said the final design transition was about fifty years ago when the edge was turned up and fluted.
Sounded like a good story to me. I had no way to ascertain if it was all true or not. Anyhow, I bought if for the equivalent of about fifty-five U.S. dollars. Today it sits on the mantle over our fireplace.
The helicopter pilots and maintenance personnel were British. They worked for Bermuda, Ltd. who contracted with the company. The helicopters were Westland S-55’s which were configured to haul personnel and cargo.
During off-hours Don got well acquainted with the Brits. They liked his Oklahoma drawl and asked a lot of questions about Oklahoma. Don liked to listen to their wild tales, most of which he wasn’t sure were true.
One day the Chief Mechanic told me they had just finished a hundred hour engine overhaul on one of the choppers. He said they were going to take it up for a check flight and asked if I would like to go along for a fifteen-minute ride. I had never flown in a helicopter so naturally I agreed.
The pilot, mechanic and I climbed aboard. They got up front in the pilot seats above the cargo bay. I sat on a jump-seat in the cargo bay. We took off. For the next ten minutes we flew around making numerous up and down maneuvers turning one way and then another–all part of the check out.
I was enjoying the flight looking out the open door at the countryside below. It was very noisy. Suddenly, the engine quit. It was quiet. Very quiet except for the whish, whish sound of the chopper blades. I quickly glanced out the door. We were at least a thousand feet off the ground above the heliport. My heart leaped into my throat. I thought, “We’re going to crash.” I don’t know why I thought it would help, but I snugged my seat belt tighter.
Fifteen seconds passed. We were still airborne. I looked out the door. We were still five hundred feet from the ground. Another fifteen seconds. We were about two hundred feet from the ground. I thought, “We may survive this.” Another ten seconds and we were only twenty or so feet from the ground. I began to suspect I had been had. Then, a slight jolt and we touched down.
My British friends were having a hoot. They had scared the wits out of me. They never killed the engine. They just put it into idle which made very little noise. They ‘dead-stick’ landed the chopper right on the pad. I didn’t know you could ‘dead-stick’ land a helicopter.
It was not unusual for an occasional roving band of nomads to pitch their tents close by the company base. The women came to the river to wash clothes and dry them on bushes. They kept to themselves and did not bother anyone or anything.
They traveled in small bands with a small herd of sheep, a dozen or so goats, several donkeys and eight or ten camels. They pitched their several large tents about a half-mile from our base.
They did not look anything like the Iranians or Arabs. They were taller and had a more wiry look than the usual Arab. They had a hard piercing look about their face instead of the usual blank look of an Arab. The women did not cover their faces. Instead they wore bright ornate nose and ear jewelry. I think they were Bedouins.
One evening some of the guys that had been there longer than I asked if I wanted to go with them to “see the girls dance.” I had no idea what that meant, but I went along. We had to chip in enough money to get together a little over thirty dollars to pay the elders.428 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 429 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
After dark an Iranian chauffeur drove us over to the nomad tents. Two of our guys negotiated a price with a couple of the elders. They arrived at an agreeable amount.
The two dozen or so male nomads sat on the ground in a large circle in front of one of the tents. A goodly fire blazed in the center. We were told by hand signs in no uncertain terms that we had to stand about ten yards beyond the circle in the shadow of a tent. Four older men came out of the tent and sat on the ground opposite to where we were standing. Each had a crude looking instrument. One was a five-foot long three-string instrument. Another was a small drum that appeared to be a goatskin stretched over a deep wooden bowl. The others were a tambourine and a pair of hardwood sticks with a series of small notches.
They began a slow rhythmical cadence. Two young girls came into the circle with bronze castanets keeping cadence with their feet and arms. They looked to be no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. They were fully clothed from neck to ankles with full flowing colorful skirts. They were barefoot.
The cadence gradually picked up faster and faster. The girls kept with the cadence. The best way I can describe the dancing is to compare it to the Spanish Flamingo style of dancing only it wasn’t the same. It was much more physical. They did not dance as a team. They danced separately. There was a lot of swirling that revealed nothing above the knee. They kept a steady cadence with the castanets that made a ringing metallic sound. This went on about fifteen minutes. I was almost exhausted just watching them. The cadence reached a pitched frenzy and suddenly stopped. The girls ran into the tent.
In a couple of minutes it started again. This time it was two different young girls. I had never seen dancing like that. It had an eeriness about it with the strange sounding musical cadence and the flickering light of the fire darting in and out among the dark shadows of the tents.
Don had another experience with the natives that he came to regret for years afterwards. The local sheik was the contractor for all the laborers. He was the one that got paid–handsomely. He threw a feast one evening for the company employees in appreciation of the largess of the company.
It was after dark. We were traveling in several vehicles with our Iranian chauffeurs. Every time we came to a fork in the road a man was standing there with a flame lantern to show the driver which road to take. We must have gone ten or twelve miles meandering around in the desert. We finally came to a small group of mud huts with space to park the vehicles.
We were met by the sheik’s emissary and several men with lanterns. They led us on foot about a quarter of a mile to a large grove of date palm trees. As we approached the grove we saw flaming torches around the area set aside for the event. The sheik greeted us at the edge of the grove.
The ground was covered with numerous Persian rugs. Several tables about eighteen inches high and six feet long were strategically placed about. Several small pillows were placed at each table to sit on. A large bowl of dates, berries and other condiments I did not recognize were sitting on each table.
There was some amount of small talk through an interpreter. After a bit several men came bearing an ornate pitcher and small ornate metal cups. They poured a drink of some kind for each of us. I think it may have been soured goats milk. It was not a drink to relish.
In a few minutes we saw a procession of a dozen torches winding through the palm grove. As they got closer we saw they were bearing large trays of food. They set a tray on each table. We all partook of the food though we had no idea what we were eating. That was the only native food I ate while in Iran. For years and years afterwards I had an intestinal parasite that caused me a goodly amount of pain and discomfort.
The Gary Powers incident occurred while Don was in Iran. This was when the Russians shot down an American U-2 spy plane over Russia and captured the pilot, Gary Powers. It sent shock waves around the world. For the next two or three weeks the political situation was very unstable as the Americans and Russians negotiated. The world held its collective breath for fear of a major war.
This was a bad situation for many people including Don. He was half a world from Oklahoma and Pat and Greg. He worried how he would ever find his way home if war broke out. Pat worried that if war broke out would she ever again see her husband. Fortunately for all it was peacefully though precariously settled in a few weeks.
The short time Don lived and worked in that part of the world he came to an understanding of the vast cultural difference between Islam and Christianity. He experienced the Islamic mind at work and several years after he returned home he wrote the following based on his observations of Islam versus Christianity:
HATE is to Islam as LOVE is to Christianity
DECEIT is to Islam as TRUTH is to Christianity
DESPAIR is to Islam as HOPE is to Christianity
MALICE is to Islam as KINDNESS is to Christianity
GREED is to Islam as CHARITY is to Christianity
CRUELTY is to Islam as MERCY is to Christianity
DEATH is to Islam as LIFE is to Christianity
LIFE in Islam is a sacrifice to be made to Allah as a martyr.
LIFE in Christianity is a precious gift from God to be cherished.
In August 2005 Don watched a four-hour television documentary, “INSIDE 9/11,” on the National Geographic Channel about events leading up to September 11, 2001, and subsequent related events. Don said, “The entire four hour documentary is a real eye-opener that everyone should see once a month just so we don’t forget what happened and who our enemies are.” Osama bin Laden was quoted, “We love death. Americans love life. That is the difference between us.” Don said, “What Osama bin Laden really meant is they love a martyr’s death by killing as many Americans as they can.”
The day finally came when Don’s work was winding down. A permanent Material and Warehouse Manager had been transferred from within the company for assignment to the Iranian operation at Kosrovabad. Don could soon go home.
He arranged for two weeks vacation and through the local travel agent for the company made reservations for Pat to fly to Rome and meet him there on his way home. He had tour arrangements for them to travel by bus and train through Northern Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and to Paris for a few days. Three days before Don was to depart Iran he received a telegram from Pat saying she was not meeting him in Rome. She had rather spend the money on new furniture for the new house that was to be ready when Don returned to the States. Don was disappointed but glad to be going home.
I was packed and ready to go. My passport and papers were all in order. I was at the Abadan airport. The Pan Am Boeing 707 was on the tarmac. All the passengers had cleared customs and boarded except me. It was departure time.
My luggage was still open in customs. Several Iranian customs officials and an airline representative were standing near my luggage engaged in serious conversation. Departure time had come and gone. The airplane was still on the tarmac. I was getting anxious. I wondered what could be wrong? Would I miss my flight?
Suddenly, the conversations stopped. They slammed my bags closed and hustled them out the door. The representative quickly took me to a waiting luggage cart with my baggage. The driver dropped me off at the bottom of the stairs to the door of the plane.
As I bolted up the steps I looked to be sure they were loading my luggage. They were. I breathlessly reached the top. A flight attendant was standing there holding the door handle. I said, “Thanks for waiting. Sorry for the hold up.” She replied, 432 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 433 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
“No problem. It happens all the time. Have a seat, sir, and buckle up.”
I sat down and buckled up. The plane was rolling before I could catch my breath.
After we were in flight I asked the flight attendant what was the problem. She said, “Oh, they were dickering over the banshee (bribe) so we could take off. They always pick a passenger to hold up until Pan Am agrees to pay the agreed banshee. You just happened to be the unlucky passenger.”
I settled back in my seat, looked out the window and muttered to myself, “Adios, you _______ ,” and ordered a whiskey. I was relieved to be leaving that part of the world far behind, and glad to be going home. I never had any desire to ever go back.
If the world had a butt-hole it would be over there. They lived in squalor unlike anything I had ever seen, even in Mexico. They are extremely devious. I made the mistake of trying to show compassion and kindness when I first arrived. I quickly learned they view compassion as a weakness to be exploited. They are not trustworthy. They are all petty thieves. They will steal anything from you if you are the least bit lax.
I got the sense they stood out there in the blazing hot desert in rags with their skinny camel looking at us, the well-heeled Americans running around in air conditioned cars stealing their oil while not understanding that it was their government (the Mullahs, Sheiks and Shah) that was receiving billions of dollars in royalty payments, but hoarding it for themselves building fine palaces and mosques while ‘living it up’ on the French Rivera or some other likely place.
Don returned via Rome and Paris. The Pan Am flight was in Rome only about an hour and then on to Paris. He stayed in Paris three days and two nights. He exchanged some dollars for French francs at the airport. He checked into the Plaza ‘d Athene, an old but grand hotel in the heart of Paris.
The money changer gave me crisp new paper francs. I paid the taxi fare to the hotel and got old crumpled paper francs for change. I got settled in the hotel and went out to shop for a few gifts for Pat and Greg. I paid for everything with crisp new francs and always got change back in old worn wrinkled francs. I tried several times to pay with the old wrinkled francs but the shopkeepers always wanted the crisp new francs. I didn’t quite understand.
I had dinner at the hotel restaurant. I couldn’t read the menu. The waiter was haughty to say the least and not much help. I asked what an item was. He said, “Potatoes American style.” I was curious to see what the French thought American style potatoes were. I ordered some along with the meal. He brought french fries. I don’t know if it was his idea of a joke or it was for real.
I met a fellow employee who happened to be in Paris. That evening we went to several of the usual tourist places including the Moulin Rouge.
The next day I took a sightseeing bus tour. It went to the Eiffel Tower, a couple of museums, and Napoleon’s tomb. I didn’t like the tour bus concept. It was hurry off, hurry up, and hurry on–not my idea of sightseeing.
The next evening my fellow worker and I went to Au Petite Balcone (The Little Balcony) somewhere in the back alleys of Paris. It was an interesting nightclub with Apachee dancers.
I ran out of crisp new francs. All I had was a bunch of wrinkled francs no one wanted. I took a taxi and tried to pay with the old francs. He wouldn’t take them. I told him they were all I had left. He then explained it to me.
During the month I was there France was revaluing the franc ten to one. One new franc was worth ten times an old franc. The moneychanger at the airport gave me new francs at the revalued rate. The only difference in the new francs and the old francs was the new francs had a small “NF” printed on the back in the upper left and upper right corners. Otherwise, they looked exactly alike except the new francs were new and crisp bills and the old francs were old and worn.
Everyone in France were dumping their old francs at the revalued rate on unsuspecting tourists like me. When I purchased a ten franc item and paid with a new twenty franc 434 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 435 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
bill they gave me back ten old francs as though they had the same value. Actually, they had only one-tenth the value.
I have never liked the French since. Their motto is “Fleece the ugly stupid Americans and laugh all the way to the bank.” They took me for several hundred dollars.
Pat and Greg met Don at Love Field in Dallas as he arrived on a Braniff flight from New York. They spent a few days at Lake Murray with Pat’s parents. Then, they drove to New Jersey.
Their new house was located at 22 Perry Road in the Lawrence Brook development, East Brunswick. It was finished and ready to move into. Don and Pat had to go to the Ninth National Bank of New York in New York City to close on the loan.
We arrived about fifteen minutes before the appointed time. We were shown into a conference room to wait. In a few minutes the builder’s representative showed up and waited with us. The appointed time came and went. Fifteen minutes passed and we still waited. The bank’s representative finally came in and impatiently said, “Mr. Davidson, if your lawyer will just hurry up and get here we can get on with this.”
I replied, “Lawyer? I don’t have a lawyer. What do I need a lawyer for?”
“Why to make sure you don’t sign something you shouldn’t.”
“Sir. Are you going to give me something to sign I shouldn’t?”
“Uh, oh. Well. No.”
“Then let’s get on with it.”
I imagine those slick New York bankers had a field day at their cocktail parties telling about those dumb hicks from Oklahoma.
The company paid to have their household goods stored while Don was in Iran and Pat and Greg were in Oklahoma. The storage company delivered the furniture and they went about setting up housekeeping in their new home. But, not without problems.
All the houses in New Jersey were built with basements. The furnace, air conditioner, and water heater were located in the basement. In a few days Don noticed water seeping into the basement. He tried to patch the walls to no avail. The builder was non-responsive.
One day Don had a chance meeting in the street with an old timer that lived nearby in a farm house before there was a development. In the course of conversation he waved his arm pointing right at Dons and Pat’s house and said, “See that house there. It’s built right on top of old Indian Spring.” That was enlightening.
This got the builder’s attention. They came and dug a trench all the way around the house. They applied a thick layer of tar material on the outer walls of the basement. That took care of the water problem except for a small amount of weeping through the floor. It surely must have diverted the water from old “Indian Spring” to someone else’s house further down the hill.
Don’s commute to work each day was two hours into New York City and two hours home. That is if everything went without incident. Pat drove him two miles to the commuter bus stop where he caught the bus that went onto the New Jersey Turnpike. It went through the Lincoln Tunnel into the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. Don usually walked the several blocks to his office.
Coming home was the reverse. Four hours out of his day to get to and from work. If there was any kind of incident like an accident on the turnpike or in the tunnel, or it rained, or it snowed, his commute time was extended anywhere from half an hour to several hours. It was not uncommon for Pat to go to the bus stop to meet Don’s bus only to wait an hour or two hours for it to arrive. Sometimes she had to go home and Don had to walk the two miles to get home late at night only to get up the next morning to do it all over again.436 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 437 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
In the mornings Pat drove me to the bus stop without waking Greg. He was only two and a half years old. It took only about six minutes to run me to the bus stop, drop me off, and drive back home. It was so early in the morning that Greg was sound asleep. Only, for whatever reason, one morning he woke up. He looked out the upstairs window just in time to see us drive away. Poor kid. He thought we were abandoning him. He was in a panic when Pat got back. After that she always took him with her.
Shortly afterwards Greg got a serious ear infestion. He had to be hospitalized to have a myrangotomy operation on his ear. It was a delicate operation. He had to be put under with a general anesthesia.
When Greg began to come to in the recovery room it was wild. He had crazy hallucinations. He ran from spiders, chased butterflies, ran after the ice cream truck, fought with his playmates, etc. He bounced up and down and all over the crib. It seemed to Pat and I that it went on forever. It was pitifully painful for us to see our child that way. We began to wonder if he would ever come out of it with full recovery.
Thank God he did.
Most of the people who lived in Lawrence Brook were from the Bronx or Brooklyn in New York City. They had arrived. They had their own home in the suburbs and no longer had to live in a walk-up tenement in the city. They knew next to nothing about anything related to the maintenance and upkeep of a house with yard, shrubs and trees. Most had none or very minimum hand tools.
Don put in a lawn, planted shrubs and small trees. He planted a garden in the backyard with okra and black-eyed peas among other things. He became the neighborhood source of how or what to do for this or that to do with lawn work and house maintenance.
One Saturday afternoon I looked out toward my garden. I saw two men standing in it. I sauntered out and inquired what they wanted. They said they heard I had black-eyed peas growing and wanted to see what they looked like. I said, “You’re standing in the middle of them.” They also wanted to see okra growing. They had no idea what it looked like.
One evening I had already gone to bed but had not gone to sleep. Pat was still up. I heard the doorbell ring rapidly several times. Pat called up for me to come down.
It was a neighbor from across the street. He wanted to borrow my pipe wrenches. His wife had dropped her diamond wedding rings down the lavatory drain. I gave him two pipe wrenches and he left.
I got dressed. Took a piece of wire, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and a flashlight and went across the street. The front door was wide open. I walked in. I heard the neighbor upstairs. I quietly walked up the stairs. I saw his wife laying on the bed sobbing. He was under the sink frantically trying to undo the piping. I bent the wire to make a small hook, bent over the neighbor, and shined the flashlight down the drain.
That diamond almost leaped out at me it was so brilliant. I ran the wire down the drain, hooked it and pulled it out. The neighbor was so intent he didn’t even know I was there. I took the diamond rings into the bedroom and dangled them on the wire close to her face. She was surprised. She took the rings, went into the bathroom, kicked her husband, and said, “Dummy. Don got them out for me.”
Another neighbor, Marshall Frey, worked for a major advertising company in New York City. He wrote television commercials. One day I casually commented to him during the course of a conversation that television commercials are so dumb anyone could write one. He whipped out a small pad, thrust a pencil into my hand, and said, “Write me one.”
“Duh, uh, duh. Gosh, maybe it isn’t so easy.”
He always had that little pad and pencil. Any colloquial expression I uttered he whipped out that pad and pencil and wrote it down. After a while I told him I was going to demand royalties.438 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 439 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
The Geoseffis lived across the street. They had a bunch of kids. He worked in New York City. It had snowed all night and a major snowstorm was brewing. About noon time that day Pat got a phone call from Mrs. Geoseffi. She was about to give birth and needed a ride to the hospital. Pat was the only woman in the neighborhood that knew how to drive. Pat drove her about five miles to the hospital in a blinding snowstorm praying all the way she would not have the baby before they got there. She gave birth a few minutes after they arrived.
Don liked his job. His boss was a ‘klutz’ but Don liked what he was doing. What he disliked was the long commute times and the lack of quality time with Pat and Greg. It didn’t take much for him think about changing jobs to get out of the New York area and go back west. An incident at work was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”
One day a young accounting trainee showed up at my office. He was working with capital equipment classifications for purposes of depreciation. He had difficulty understanding the criteria for classifying the various kinds of oil field equipment. Someone in the Accounting Department told him “Go see Don Davidson. He knows all about oil field equipment.”
He brought a computer listing of the field equipment installed in the recently operational Argentina properties. He asked me to look over it with him and explain why all the equipment was classified as pipeline equipment when almost all of it obviously was oil and gas gathering equipment. My eyes popped out of my head. I told him to give me the list and I would look into it.
I took the list to the Comptroller and asked if he knew all the Argentine oil and gas gathering equipment was classified as pipeline equipment. He was mildly surprised but didn’t really know the difference. I explained, “Oil and gas gathering equipment, because of its highly corrosive nature, receives accelerated depreciation rates; whereas pipeline equipment which is not so highly corrosive is depreciated at a much lower standard rate.”
He asked, “Then why is it classified as pipeline equipment?”
“Because someone who has worked in domestic operations mistakenly misclassfied it based on the old rule of thumb in the States that if it was no larger than four inches it was oil and gas gathering equipment. If it was six inches or larger it was pipeline equipment.”
“Well, why is that?”
“Because in the States everything is small leases with one, two, or maybe three wells. Therefore, the pipe size doesn’t need to be larger than four inches to accommodate all the flow.”
“Oh, I see.” He still didn’t grasp the significance.
“In Argentine it is one very large lease with forty-five wells. The oil and gas gathering equipment has to be six inches or larger to accommodate the flow. The break point should be the flange where the oil and gas gathering lines interface with the pipeline.”
“My God! We’re loosing thousands.” He finally saw the light.
“Yes.”
I was given the project to get all the Argentine equipment properly classified. It took the accounting trainee and me about three weeks to complete. It didn’t save thousands. It saved over a million dollars the first year.
We had a meeting in my boss’s office for the implementation. The Vice-President of Production, the Controller, the Accounting Manager, the accounting trainee, my boss, and I were in the meeting. Congratulations were being handed out by the Vice-President and the Controller. Instead of congratulations my boss said, “Oh, that was so simple anyone could have thought of it.” I wanted to choke him. He had no idea what a flange or wellhead was. His casual offhand lack of knowledge or appreciation to upper management for what the ‘lowly’ accounting trainee and I did helped cement my decision to change jobs.440 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 441 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
Don came home from work late one night and said to Pat, “This isn’t living. It’s existing. I’m changing jobs so we can move back west.” He made several inquiries and interviewed with a company in Utah. The man he interviewed with later changed jobs and sent Don a job offer to come to Salt Lake City and work at Hercules Powder Company on the Polaris, Ranger, and Minuteman Programs. Don accepted. Don and Pat set about getting prepared to move. A major item was to sell the house.
I hand painted a ‘For Sale by Owner’ sign. It was still wet when I drove the stake in the ground in the front yard. Greg sat on the curb and watched.
I went into the garage to clean up the brushes. In a few minutes I heard Greg call out, “Hey, Mister. You want to buy a house?” I looked out the garage door and saw a car stop. A man and woman got out. They spoke briefly to Greg. He directed them toward me in the garage.
They came in and looked at the house. Before they left we signed a sales contract. I guess Greg should have gotten a real estate salesman’s fee.
Don, Pat and Greg moved to Salt Lake City. They lived in a motel a week and then rented a house at 1181 Ridgedale Lane. Once again they settled into a new place and a new job. It was totally different from New York. A slower pace, a much shorter commute to work in a car pool, friendlier people, close to the mountains, and a drier climate–all very favorable and agreeable to Don and Pat.
Don’s Aunt Bea lived at Price, Utah, about an hour drive from Salt Lake City. A tragic oil field accident killed her husband, Dick Riley, a few weeks before Don and Pat moved to Utah. She had stayed with Don and his brothers and sister when they were kids on NW 40th Street in Oklahoma City. She was never around them again more than a few times for no more than an hour or two on each occasion.
On one of Bea’s visits with Don and Pat they reminisced about the time she stayed a year with Don’s parents. When Don’s mother had Sam, the youngest boy, she also had a hysterectomy. She was not well. Bea took care of the children most of the time.
Aunt Bea was only a teenager. I was five. My oldest brother, William, was eight and Bobby Joe, was seven. She gained an insightful personal perspective of each of us that was realistically descriptive of us as adults.
She said, “If I would have given each of you boys a quarter Billy would give his away. Gene would save his. Bobby would figure out how to get Billy’s and Gene’s quarters from them.”
How true! Pat and I were amazed. What she said has been so realistically true all our lives.
Don and Pat made several trips to Price to see Aunt Bea and try to be of help. Don’s cousins, Evann, Walter, and David, were teenagers. It was a trying time for them as well as for Aunt Bea. Then, a few weeks later Bea’s mother, Don’s grandmother, died. Bea drove alone to Oklahoma. Don had just started a new job and didn’t ask for time off to attend the funeral. Two years later Evann was married. Don, Pat and Greg attended the wedding.
Don took up snow skiing. He bought a Winchester Model 70 rifle and also took up deer hunting. They bought camping gear and in the summer went camping and fishing in the Unita Mountains and Yellowstone. Pat got an electronic console organ and took music lessons. Don had a lot more spare time and finished off a nice recreation room in the basement of the rent house. The landlord bought all the materials and Don did the work. It turned out very nicely.
Don worked and car pooled with Mick Cannon. He and his wife, Marion, became very good friends. Their families were old time Morman families that came to Utah with Brigham Young. Mick’s family owned land with a cabin on the Upper Weber River on the western slopes of the Unita Mountains.442 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 443 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
Don had many enjoyable days hunting with Mick in the High Unitas. They spent hours together and had lots of time to discuss many subjects of a social, religious, political, philosophical, etc. nature. Mick was easy to talk with. He had a positive and optimistic attitude toward life. Mick and Marion were salt of the earth people.
Greg attended Saint Ann’s Catholic School kindergarten. He was in the Christmas pageant. The students practiced under the watchful eye of The Sister. They were to sing “Silent Night” as the finale.
We had company. We wanted Greg to show off his singing ability by singing “Silent Night.” He began to sing with the clarion clear voice that only a child has. He sang: “Silent night. Holy night. All is calm. All is bright. Round up your virgins. Mother and child.”
We all cracked up. Greg didn’t know what was so funny.
When Greg was five years old he had his tonsils removed. At home he had to stay in bed a few days. Don and Pat gave him a lot of ice cream. After he felt better they decided to get him a small table-top television for his room.
I took Greg to Sears to pick out a television set. We found just the right one and I purchased it. We had to go to the warehouse to pick it up. Greg wanted to know why couldn’t we take the one from the store.
On the way to the warehouse and while we waited to get the set I took the opportunity to explain warehousing to Greg. I explained that they couldn’t keep all the televisions at the store, that people went there to pick out what they wanted and then went to the warehouse to get their set. Greg seemed to understand.
A few nights later when we were saying our ‘good nights’ to Greg he kept talking about all manner of things. He didn’t yet want to go to sleep. He was bringing up every thing he could think of to talk about. We kept encouraging him to lay down and go to sleep.
He suddenly set up bright-eyed and exclaimed, “Daddy, tell mama about that whorehouse you took me to.” Wow! I did a double take. “Where have I taken this kid lately?”
“You know, Daddy, that whorehouse where we got my television.” Wow! What a relief.
During the summers Don and Pat took Greg camping and fishing at Mirror Lake in the Unitas. In the wintertime Don took him skiing at Solitude and Brighton.
Greg was four years old when I started to take him skiing at Solitude. I carried him about two hundred feet up the ‘bunny slope,’ pointed him downhill and gave him a gentle shove. He skied all the way to the bottom, came to a stop and waited for me to come get him and carry him back up the hill. I did this over and over until I got tired carrying him up the hill.
After a few weeks I decided I was tired of carrying that kid up the hill. I took him and his mother to the chairlift at Brighton. Pat watched. She didn’t much want me to take him to the top of the ski slope even though it was a ‘bunny slope.’
It came our turn to get on the chairlift. We got in position to get on the chair as it came around. I looked back to catch the chair arm as it came to us. Unknown to me Greg dropped one of his ski poles. He bent over to pick it up. As I caught the chair and let it swing down for us to sit in I realized Greg was bending down and the chair would knock him over.
I grabbed him by the arm. We went off the end of the loading platform with me sitting in the chair holding Greg by his arm as he dangled over the edge of the seat. I knew I couldn’t hold him like that all the way to the top. There was a big snowdrift directly below us. I dropped him about ten feet into the snow. Pat about had a heart attack. “What is that idiot husband doing to my baby?”
The operator stopped the lift. He pulled Greg out of the snow and set him in the chair behind me with another skier. The ride to the top was uneventful. We had a ball skiing down.444 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 445 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
Soon Greg was getting on and off the lift by himself and skiing like an experienced skier. And, I didn’t have to carry him up the hill anymore.
Don loved to ski. He skied with Gary Anderson, the next door neighbor, and his friend, Phil. They were excellent skiers and Don learned a lot from them. They went skiing as often as they could at Alta.
After two years in the rent house Don and Pat bought a new house at 7102 South 1848 East in south Salt Lake City. It was a tri-level and only a mile from the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon that went up to the Alta ski area. Once again Don did the landscaping for a new house. Don and Pat had an exciting event while there.
It was a pleasant Sunday morning. I was working in the front yard. Two houses away the twelve-year old daughter came running out of the house screaming, “Fire! Our house is on Fire!”
I looked toward the house and saw smoke billowing out the glass sliding door that opened onto a wood deck. I ran to our front door, yelled at Pat to call the fire department, then ran across the yards to the deck.
I saw a garden hose on the ground with a spray nozzle. It was connected to a faucet. I turned it on and ran up the steps of the deck and through the open door into the kitchen. There was fire and smoke everywhere. The lady of the house was trying to put out the fire. She did not realize she was on fire. I drenched her. I then began to spray the flames to extinguish them.
The fire department arrived just as I was putting out the last of the flames. The lady’s hands and arms were badly burned. Pat started taking her to the hospital, but met her husband on his way home. He took her to the hospital.
The kitchen was a mess. The lady had made french fries the night before. She put the pot of grease on the stove to heat and went downstairs to do laundry. She forgot about it until she smelled smoke. She rushed upstairs, grabbed a towel, picked up the flaming pot and hurled it at the sink. That splattered flaming grease everywhere. She then began to try to put it out.
Pat and I spent all the rest of the afternoon and evening cleaning up the mess in her kitchen.
Don went skiing at every opportunity. Solitude had night skiing and he would go there one or two nights a week. He went to Alta Saturdays and Sundays. He got to be a fairly good skier. He raced several times in novice races. He never won but had fun. Don’s cousin, Polly, her husband Lee, and a friend came to visit for a week of skiing.
While they lived in Salt Lake City Don and Pat made several vacation trips to Oklahoma to visit their parents and other relatives. On one such trip Pat’s Dad, Bert, approached Don with the proposition to buy a 120-acre farm adjacent to his. It would give him an additional eighteen acres of peanut allotment. Bert could float a ten-year Farm Home Loan in his name. He asked Don to make the yearly payments with the provision that when the loan was paid he would transfer title to Don and Pat. Don agreed.
At work Don was cleared for top secret and worked part time on an Air Force special top secret project in addition to his regular job as a supervisor in Management Systems. Hercules had a small but critical part of the overall project. It was so secret that Don had to work behind secured doors and could not work on or discuss any aspect of the project outside the secured area. The initial test by the Air Force in the South Pacific was so unstable with unexpected consequences that it was drastically scaled back. To this day Don thinks it is still a top secret project though over the years he has seen it generally described in several publications available to the general public and on the Internet. Something commonly known as the “E-Bomb.”
The Air Force was cutting back on the Minuteman Program. The Navy was cutting back on the Polaris Program. The top secret 446 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 447 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
program was scuttled. Hercules began laying off people. Don was laid off due to program cutbacks.
The NASA Apollo Program was ramping up in Huntsville, Alabama. The various subcontractors sent teams of recruiters to Salt Lake City recruiting excessed aerospace personnel. Don interviewed with Brown Engineering Company and accepted their offer. Thus, Don, Pat and Greg packed up and moved to Huntsville. They bought a tri-level house at 408 Cumberland Drive on a hillside facing the Marshall Space Flight Center. When they test fired the Saturn missiles it literally shook the house.
Don worked in the group responsible for testing component parts of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) to determine their reliability and maintainability for stress in hostile environments. This is where He first began to work directly with computers.
Greg was enrolled at Weatherly Elementary and completed the first through third grades. In Alabama they taught reading, writing and arithmetic. Pat was a stay at home Mom. She took Greg to and from school, was the Cub Scout den mother, and took care of the household. Don worked with Greg in the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.
It was supposed to be a father and son project. Each boy got a block of wood, a set of four wheels, two small wood cross pieces to hold the axles, and four nails for the axles. The idea, or at least as I understood it, was the son was to make the racer with the guidance of the father.
Greg carved a very nice looking racing car, painted it, put on decals, added a steering wheel, and windshield. It looked very smart, classy and well done, especially for an eight-year old boy. I did very little except to suggest things he should consider and do.
Day of the derby. Greg carried his car in. The other boys oohed and aahed at how nice it looked. The only thing it wasn’t a beauty contest–it was a speed contest. When it came time for Greg’s car to run it barely made it down the sloping course. No attention had been given to the design for speed. His car was dead last. He was greatly disappointed.
I told him not to despair. There would be next year. I saw right away it was not a father and son project. It was a father project with the sons as spectators.
The next year I made the car. It was made for speed. The guys at work helped me design it like a flying wedge. The maximum allowed weight was scientifically distributed by a highly technical computer program. It was tested in a small wind tunnel to design it for minimum wind resistance. The nails for the axles were honed to a fine surface embedded with graphite. The wheels were honed down to a sharp razor edge to minimize resistance.
Day of the race. The Cub Scout Master’s sons had won the derby every year the past several years. This was the last year for his youngest son. They had an unusually nice large trophy for the winner fully expecting the son to win.
Race time. The different heats were fast. The cars went zip. Each heat was close. Came time for Greg’s car. Greg hadn’t touched it except to carry it to the starting gate. His car went zoom. The other car in the heat wasn’t even close. All the kids went “Oh!” The dads went “Hum.” Not because of the design but because of the speed. Not one car came close to beating Greg’s. He won every heat with time to spare. He took home the nice large trophy.
The next year I didn’t even so much as advise Greg. I had made my point. Greg’s car that year placed second. He used the wheels from the car of the previous year.
One of the men Don worked with at Brown Engineering was a pilot. He had an airplane and an instructor’s license. After work hours and on weekends he made extra money giving flight lessons.
I mentioned to him one day that I would pay for him to take my son up for a short flight just so Greg would have the experience of flying. The co-worker said he had a student the 448 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 449 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
next Saturday morning and for me to bring Greg to the airport. Saturday came and Greg and I were there early.
After awhile the friend landed and discharged his student. He took Greg in tow and seated him in the student seat. They took off and were gone for what seemed a long time. Fifteen minutes passed. Thirty minutes passed. After about forty-five minutes I saw the airplane circle the airport and turn for a final approach.
As the plane came in on final I noticed it was a little erratic. It bobbed up and down a little and yawed first to one side and then to the other. I thought, “Good grief. Does this guy know how to fly an airplane or not?” Just moments before touchdown the plane straightened up and made a perfect landing.
I watched as they brought the plane around on the tarmac and shut down the engine. He unbuckled Greg and helped him out of the airplane. Greg calmly walked over to me and exclaimed, “He let me fly it,” as though it was no big deal.
My friend had not only taken Greg for a ride, but let him fly the airplane right up to a few moments before touch down. That explained the erratic approach. He would not take any money for taking Greg up. I think he had just as much fun as Greg did.
In her spare time Pat joined a group of ladies that participated in several different kinds of craft classes. She learned tole painting, miniature painting, and decoupage. She also learned cake decorating and decorated some beautiful cakes. Some looked more like dolls dressed in antebellum attire than cakes.
She sometimes bemoaned the fact she didn’t have an appropriate pattern for some project. Being somewhat artistic Don would draw patterns for her. After a while they had a collection of patterns.
Pat came up with the idea to make a set of patterns, advertise them in a national craft magazine, and sell them. Don got busy and drew a set of over one hundred patterns. They had them copyrighted and printed. They called their little business “Pee-Dee Patterns.” They ran several adds. They sold them for one dollar a set. They mailed them all over the world including several sets to a lady in Africa teaching art to the natives.
It was fun and satisfying to open the mail box each day for several weeks after each ad ran and get anywhere from twenty-five to a hundred envelopes with a dollar or more in each one. The cost was twenty-seven cents per set excluding the cost of the magazine ad which was a little over a hundred dollars each issue.
The house in Huntsville had a fire-burning fireplace. It backed up to a heavily wooded area. On Saturday mornings Don insisted that Greg help perform a few chores outside the house. One such chore was helping Don cut and stack firewood.
One Saturday morning Greg and I were in the backyard gathering, cutting and stacking firewood. Greg had difficulty understanding why we had to do this since we already had an ample supply of stacked firewood.
Some of Greg’s friends came by with a football. They wanted Greg to go play with them. I told them, “No, Greg has to help finish cutting and stacking this wood. Then he can go play.” They left.
Greg protested. I told him he had to finish what we had started before he could go. I told him that when I was a little boy we had to cut and stack firewood every day. It was good for me and it was good for him to do some of the same.
A few big tears welled up in his eyes and he began to saw with a bitter vengeance. I went about stacking wood. Greg grew quiet and settled into a steady sawing motion.
After a few minutes he stopped, looked up and said, “Dad, I know why you like to cut wood so much.”
“Yeah, why?”
“Cause it makes you feel like a little boy again.”
I pondered that profound insightful statement a moment.
“Go play football. I’ll finish up.”
One evening in mid-December there was a severe thunderstorm with strong variable winds. The lightening flashed and the thunder crashed. The wind howled. Don commented to Pat, “If it 450 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 451 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
wasn’t the middle of December I’d say we’re having a tornado somewhere nearby.” The next morning it was evident there had been a tornado. It flattened a number of houses a quarter of a mile south of their house. It skipped over the mountain east of them and did extensive damage to a large number of homes in Huntsville.
Another strange and unusual incident occurred while Pat and Don lived in Huntsville.
The back of our house faced south. The area south of the house was undeveloped and heavily wooded. The master bedroom was upstairs on the south side. The bathroom for the master bedroom had a window that faced south toward the wooded area.
It was February and the trees were without leaves. I had to get up about four o’clock one morning and go to the bathroom. I sleepily looked out the bathroom window. What I saw astounded me and opened my eyes wide.
I saw a large florescent eerie green round ball of light through the trees. I stared at it a couple of minutes trying to determine what it possibly could be. It was either getting larger or it was getting closer. Could I be dreaming?
I awakened Pat. I told her to go into the bathroom, look out the window and tell me what she saw. She was reluctant but did as I asked. She was astonished, too. By now it was even larger. It obviously was either getting larger or closer. It looked spooky through the trees.
We watched it the next several minutes. The intensity began to fade. It obviously was not as bright as when I first saw it. Also, it was much larger around. We went back to bed.
That morning when we got up it was all over the morning news on the local radio. Hundreds of people in Huntsville had seen it and called the police, sheriff, radio station, etc. for an explanation.
It was early in the NASA space program. They didn’t know what kind, if any, wind currents were in outer space. Early that morning they fired a missile from Elgin Air Force Base near Pensacola, Florida, into the outer limits of the stratosphere and exploded a container of florescent green dye so they could observe any wind currents. That was the official explanation. Who knows?
The curvature of the earth is such that from Huntsville it appeared to be about ten degrees above the southern horizon. Since there were no winds the size of the green ball kept expanding until it completely dissipated.
The design and testing phase of the Apollo LEM Program was winding down. Don’s group was scaling back on manpower. Don was given the title of “Special Projects Manager” with a box full of very nice looking business cards. Translation: “Go drum up some business for the group, or else.”
The USS Thrasher was the first atomic submarine. In 1963 it suddenly and catastrophically sank while at maximum depth during a test dive during its initial shakedown cruise. All 129 aboard including a number of civilian engineering contract personnel were lost. Only a few pieces of flotsam were ever recovered.
The Navy immediately undertook an exhaustive investigation including a complete design review of all mechanical parts. Don’s management made the decision to present the Navy with the capabilities of the group and the advantages of conducting reliability and maintainability studies of the various parts.
Don made numerous trips to Main Navy in Washington, D.C. to meet with various Navy personnel responsible for design integrity. He made many presentations explaining capabilities and successes of his group in the Apollo LEM program and how they could be applied to the Navy design process to assure design integrity and reliability.
At the request of the Main Navy personnel Don made a special trip to the Submarine Center at Groton, Connecticut, to make a presentation. The result was Don’s group received a contract from the Navy to conduct reliability and maintainability studies and testing of the Main Blow-Down Valve System for atomic submarines. All submarines have these large critical valves plus redundant valves which enable them to submerge and return to the surface.452 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 453 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
While Don and Pat lived in Huntsville Don’s parents came to visit. Also, his Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary Dunahoo from Kansas City came to visit. Don’s cousin Jim Gardner, his wife, Laquetha, and two daughters came to visit. Jim was a Lieutenant Commander and a Naval Aviator.
Pat made oatmeal for breakfast. At the breakfast table Laquetha remarked that she always had to scorch Jim’s oatmeal a little because that was the way he liked it. Don about cracked up. He told the story of how he had cooked oatmeal for Jim and his brother, Robert, when they were kids. Don accidently scorched the oatmeal, but convinced Jim and Robert that was the way it tasted best.
Don was not comfortable with a career in the aerospace industry. It often meant sudden and drastic change brought on by the nature of the business where large companies constantly vied for government contracts. Workers constantly moved from one company to another at the mercy and whims of government contract letting.
Don and Pat wanted to locate in the Dallas area mostly because her parents were in failing health and they wanted to be close to help them when needed. Her folks lived at the southeast corner of Lake Murray State Park where they owned and operated a country store and tourist courts. Pat’s Dad had quit farming but still raised cattle.
Don and Pat moved to Dallas in 1967. They bought a house at 7749 La Verdura Street in Far North Dallas. They lived there the next ten years. Though the house was in Dallas it was in the Richardson Independent School District. It was only an hour and a half drive to where Pat’s folks lived near Marietta.
Within a few months of moving to Dallas Pat’s mother became ill with a heart condition. She was in and out of hospitals a number of times over the next several years. Don and Pat made many trips to Marietta to care for Pat’s mother and help her dad. Pat’s parents sold their tourist court and country store business and her dad quit farming, though he continued to raise cattle. He grazed the cattle on the 120-acre property adjacent to his.
Don first worked for Forney Engineering Company in Dallas as Manager of Computer Operations. This job did not work out very well. Soon it was apparent there was constant contention between the Controller and the Chief Engineer over who actually had control of the utilization of the computer. Don was constantly caught in the middle of this internal political battle.
Don looked into the possibility of an opportunity to manage a computer service center in Guymon, Oklahoma. He made several trips to Guymon to talk with the financiers and potential customers, mostly in the cattle feedlot business. Don’s longtime friend, Jack Dreessen from his days at Moore, was the president of the Guymon Chamber of Commerce. Pat and Greg flew to Guymon on one trip with Don in a Cherokee Six to look over the prospect of living in Guymon.
On another flying trip in the Cherokee Six Don and the pilot got caught up in a severe weather front with thunderstorms, heavy rain, lightening, and tornadic winds.
The weather looked uneventful when we departed Guymon. The weather report was for a few scattered thundershowers. We soon saw a large thundercloud forming directly in our path. The pilot decided to fly around it only to be faced with yet another large thundercloud forming directly in front of us. He decided to fly around it only to be faced with yet another one directly in front. It quickly became obvious they were forming all around us.
In a matter of minutes we were in heavy rain with lightening all around us. The wind buffeted the plane violently, visibility was almost zero at times. I studied the map to try to determine exactly where we were and where the nearest landing field was located.
The pilot took us down to about five hundred feet for better visibility. I spotted a water tower at about eleven o’clock. I told the pilot that if that is Memphis (Texas) there is an airfield three miles northeast of town. He took it down to about two 454 William E. “Bill” Davidson Family 455 DONALD GENE DAVIDSON
hundred feet and flew a tight circle around the water tower. I read “Memphis” on it. He headed northeast and we soon saw the airfield through the heavy rain. He made a low pass over the runway to check for standing water then made a tight turn and landed.
We taxied to the airport office, shut down the engine, baled out and ran to the office. We were met at the door by a man who shouted, “What are you idiots doing out flying around in this? Don’t you know we’re having tornados?”
I was relieved to be on the ground. We spent the night in Memphis and flew to Dallas the next morning.
Don decided to seek employment back in the oil business where he was more comfortable with his knowledge of the industry. Subsequently he went to work for Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) in downtown Dallas as a Systems Analyst in the Systems and Programming Department.
Greg was in the Fourth Grade when Don and Pat moved to Dallas. He went to Mohawk Elementary in Richardson where Mr. Malcom was principal. Pat was a stay-at-home Mom. She and Don thought it best that she be home to see Greg off to school and be there when he got home. In the sixth grade Greg attended Bowie, a newly opened school in Dallas and closer to home. Greg was the first Captain of the Bowie Student Patrol.
One hospitalization for Pat’s mother was at Scott-White in Temple, Texas. She was there six weeks, three weeks in intensive care. Pat’s dad had a mild heart attack while visiting his wife in the hospital. The best possible place to have one if you must.
Pat’s mother recovered well enough that she was released from Scott-White to go home. Don and Pat spent many weekends and some vacation time the next several years staying with Pat’s mother in and out of hospitals and helping her dad.
Pat and I often spent our weekends with her folks. Pat cared for her mother and helped with the household. I helped her dad with the cattle, repairing fences, cutting grass, fixing things that needed fixing, etc. It was usually a weekend full of work and we were worn out when we got home. However we did have a few fun times and I have to tell this on Pat’s dad.
He bought a new Chevrolet pickup. A pack rat soon made its home in the underside of the truck. It packed all kinds of things into the crooks and crannies of the frame and engine. It often gnawed the insulation from the ignition wires necessitating replacement. Bert tried every thing he could think of to get rid of that pack rat but to no avail.
It would ride all the way to town and back. He would throw on the brakes trying to jar the rat loose, then give it the gas to run away from it if it fell off. All to no avail.
One weekend when Pat and I arrived I said the water was running across the lake spillway about four inches deep when we came across. Pat’s dad had a great idea. He said he would take the truck to the edge of the spillway which was about a hundred yards across. He would give it the gas and the water splashing up would dislodge the rat and it would fall into the running water and be swept away.
He took a friend and me with him. We got out and kneeled down on the dry pavement to watch under the truck to see if the rat fell off and into the running water.
Pat’s dad gave the truck the gas. Water splashed everywhere. We watched. About seven-eighths of the way across the spillway we saw the rat fall from under the truck into the water. He swam frantically toward shore. The truck went about ten yards out of the water and the engine quit. It drowned from all the water splashing up onto the engine. The rat made it to shore. It ran the short distance to the truck and jumped back up to the underneath side.
It was several months later when Bert finally got rid of that rat. He kept scattering a little corn on the ground behind the parked truck. He went out early each morning with a shotgun. Finally one morning he saw the rat eating the corn. End of rat.