Oil Field Kid
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Did you ever wonder what it takes to be a full fledged oil field kid?
Well just read this poem and you’ll find an answer just like I did.
I know there are a lot more old oil field kids like me out there,
So we just might have some traits in common if you even care.
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Oil Field Kid
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You know you’re an oil field kid if your Dad wore a hard hat everyday,
He put on his hard hat, kissed Mom goodby, and he was on his way
To his job at the refinery for a hard days work to feed the family.
He walked to work each morning, home at noon, and back happily.
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That’s Dad In his hard hat on the left repairing a hydroflouric acid meter.
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You know you’re an oil field kid if you rode an oil pumping Jack,
Yelling “Yippie Ki Yay” riding up and down on that Pump Jack’s back.
I know now that it was something that we shouldn’t have done,
But we were oil field kids constantly looking for things that were fun.
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.Riding a pump Jack somewhere in Texas.
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You know you’re an oil field kid if you walked on a pipeline up in the air,
Rather than walk on the rough terrain underneath far below there.
It was a bit scary being so high up there looking far down below,
And both of my dogs walked across just behind me so very slow.
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Come on you two dogs let’s walk on across.
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You know you’re an oil field kid if you’ve heard a big explosion,
Resulting in a huge fire with smoke darkening the whole horizon.
We spent hours watching the flames shoot high up in the sky,
Wondering all the time just what had caused the flames to fly.
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.A burning hydrocarbon storage tank makes a pretty big bon fire.
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You know you’re an oil field kid if you watched a rig drilling for oil,
In the canyons not too far from your grandmother’s home soil,
In the town where you were raised walking the canyons everywhere.
I recall a roughneck loosing his toes when the drill pipe fell there.
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.Roughnecks running drilling pipe on the drilling rig floor.
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You know you are an oil field kid if you got a job servicing wells
At age 17 working the tongs pulling those tie rods up from hell.
To change the bottom hole pump to get the well pumping again.
A nastier job I have never had getting crude oil all over the land.
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Only one hundred more rods to get the pump up.
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You know you are an oil field kid if you live by a chemical plant fence.
We lived about a hundred yards away but it did make some sense,
As my Dad was close to his work and walked there each day,
The smells were very putrid when they let chemicals get away.
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You know you are an oil field kid when you work the summer
Salvaging piping and equipment from the refinery, a real bummer.
The work was very hard and the pay was almost nothing at all.
But I really needed the money to go to college that next fall.
Wow, we’ve got a lot of stuff to salvage here!
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You know you are an oil field kid if you worked close to home,
In a chemical plant doing hard labor with chemicals home grown,
I pretty much did every thing there was to do at that location,
But it wasn’t too bad at all for my short summertime vocation.
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Finally you know you’re an oil field kid when you get that degree,
And go to work for an oil company as you’re choice being free,
Then working there for your entire process engineering career.
Then retiring, I wonder if that makes me an oil field old man so dear?
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By Bill
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Thanks for reading Oil Field Kid,
Bill