From Boots To Suits
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Sometimes in life we are forced to adapt to new ways to survive,
It is hard on us at times, but we must continue to run our lives.
The poem describes some adapting I had to do with jobs at times,
It’s often hard to adapt even if you are just making these rhymes.
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From Boots To Suits
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When I was promoted to a job in Oklahoma City in the 1978 winter,
I had no idea my job location was a downtown high rise in City Centre.
I was used to working in an old hotel building on Main Street Borger,
With no traffic at all with everything running in a very systematic order.
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Yeah Pam, I think this young hayseed can handle that city life. How hard could it be?
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On my first time to visit the office, I stayed downtown in an old hotel,
I walked to the high rise office thinking “how will I survive in this hell.”
They told me the dress code was suit and tie except on field trips.
I was used to jeans and cowboy boots in the office where I did sit.
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This is the office where I did sit on South Main Street in Borger, Texas. Now the windows are all broken and it looks so bad. Next to it on the left was the Round The Clock Resturant. Across the street was Barneys Pharmacy. My window was second from the right end on the top floor.
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When I officially went to work in Oklahoma City they had an ice storm,
The streets were covered with ice and it took two hours to get home,
I was all stressed out wondering if I would survive on this job,
When I laid down to bed that night, I felt like I was going to sob.
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But things got better and began to fall into place after a while.
I kind of got used to the traffic and the downtown area had style.
I discovered there was a large tunnel system under the downtown.
At noon, I would walk the tunnels just to see what was around.
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The tunnel system below the downtown area allowed you to move about when it was raining without seeing a drop of rain or in the winter without a coat.
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There were all kinds of fine restaurants down there to be found,
And lots of fashion stores for the ladies to shop there underground.
They had human manikins in the windows that I tried to make smile.
But most were good and survived without a smile on their Bill trial.
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After a year, we moved to a super new high rise at 30 stories,
The offices were very nice standing there in all their new glory.
You could see clear to Edmond from my window on the North side.
And we had our own free parking lot right there for all our rides
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That tall dark building on the left was where I worked the last two years. We watched them build that tallest building when I was there.
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As it turns out, this new high rise was close to the Federal Building,
That was leveled by a bomb by a crazy man with so much killing.
I often wondered if the place that I worked in for two long years
Was damaged by the bombing incident that caused so many tears.
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We were quite a ways from the blast center, but it likely rocked the building pretty good.
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I spent a lot of time on field trips while working there in the City.
I would leave from my home and miss the traffic, what a pity.
In the three years I worked that job, we installed five new gas plants,
And started them up making Phillips money and the bosses enchanted.
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I guess it worked because they offered me a Houston job downtown.
I was now a big city man and thought I had the city living down.
But moving from OKC to Houston was a much much worse shock.
As I found out after I drove the highways feeling a lot like livestock.
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My office in Houston was on the second floor of a high rise right on Loop 610. The highway was elevated there and I could look out right into the eyes of the drivers on the loop.
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No matter where the job is, we will always adapt given time,
As we must continue to feed our families and leave our fears behind.
As I look back, it was often very difficult to adjust to new ways of life.
But I always saw it through eventually shedding all that strife.
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By Bill
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Thanks for reading From Boots To Suits.,
Bill