Man From Nowhere

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The town that I was born in is completely gone forever. The elementary and high school I graduated from were shut down and converted to office buildings within the fence of an operating oil refinery thus I can’t go back and visit my home town. So I am now and will always be a man from nowhere.

 

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Man From Nowhere

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I was born at Phillips Petroleum Company’s Pantex Hospital in Phillips, Texas on February 20, 1943. Mom said I was a porker and weighed in a more than 10 pounds. My Dad was in the Wartime Navy and was able to come home on leave for my birth.

 

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The Pantex Hospital was quite small and was located very close to the refinery fence near the Pantex NGL center of the the refinery. Not too many years after I was born, Phillips built a Medical Center located in a much safer location within the town of Phillips.

 

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The Pantex Hospital was converted to a community center for the town of Phillips. When I was in high school, the Friday night dances were held at the place I was born. It was also .the place of birth for most of the other kids attending the dances. There was always a craps game going on back in the coat room as the chaperones rarely ventured out of the main dance room.

 

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After, I had graduated from high school, I left home to attend college at Texas Tech. As fate would have it, I got an engineering job with Phillips Petroleum Companies Exploration and Production Department in Borger, Texas. I eventually moved to Fritch, Texas.

 

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While I was living a Fritch, the Phillips Refinery had a giant explosion that did a lot of damage to the houses in Phillips, and they decided to move all the houses out of Phillips. After a couple of years, the town that I had been born in and had grown up in no longer existed. The refinery fenced in the old town area so there is no public access to my old stomping grounds.

 

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So as you can see, I am a man from nowhere with only memories of my old hometown and alma mater. So my future family will know that I did come from somewhere, perhaps my daughters will remember that I did indeed exist, even if my hometown birth place and roots are gone.

 

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The Man From Nowhere,
Bill

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