[busterb]

Now back to the Ben Lancer. I was working on it because a friend from brown & root barge job set me up. We, the company, did a lot of hi-pressure piping work for Odeco.
There were 3 of us. Larry Jack was the super, Johnny would be the welder foreman and I would look after the fabrication. Or if 24 hrs a day, Johnny would be day foreman and me nights.
Johnny was from B&R and he learned from an old master named Dugan. Who invented more tricks than most welders will ever learn. Maybe died now.

While on subject of old masters, 1967 I worked for Williams Bros. in Iran. In that crew were some of the old men who had pioneered the pipeline world.. We had a camp burn and one of the Williams boys came over. Joe, maybe a Lt. governor I think. Anyway we were in rec. trailer. Someone went to introduce him to Whitey. Whitey said, Yeah I know that cunt, I invited him to my birthday party and he didn’t show up.
Some of the old welders had used bare rods, and learned that wrapping plain old friction tape around rods worked wonders. A few of the old hands were still working when I went to Peru about 10 years later.

I’m really trying to figure out how to do this. I’ll try to get Odeco Ben Lancer and ocean driller out of way. Then maybe how I set Chevron MP 42 H platform on fire?

The Lancer was in Green Canyon, rigging up to drill in about 1200 ft of water. We were there to do the hi-pressure piping. The safety folks had been there. NO more ropes or chains. So they put ¾” steel chokers on small diameter pipe, which will never bite, hold. Anyway they dropped a joint of 4” down about 4 decks and hit close to a young man working for your vice pres.
A few minutes late he realized how close to dieing he’d come. Was so sick, screwed up, had to be air lifted to shore.
In the 4 decks down where the pumps were that we had to tie into. A mud boat came along side .They blow dry mud on board, but the mud lines were cut. So the whole deal was full of dust. I first thought was that someone had set the Halon fire suppression system off. If so, that’s ball game. No place to run because the entire deck grating was up so we could run pipe.

Ocean driller
When I went to Pascagoula, ms, as night foreman. On the way, radio said a welder had fallen and was killed. So when I get there boy are they busy with the safety nets.
Larry was doing all the time keeping. We were staying in a motel. Other hands were in porta buildings. Anyway I was looking at meal roster for my hands and had about 3 that I’d never heard of. So I asked Larry about this. Hey what if coast guard or OSHA comes around and I can’t produce the hands? Hell they’ll be dragging the damn gulf.

He said you know the 2 gals that are over at motel and the new Red Wing boots the tool pusher is wearing? That’s the guys you can’t find. Not to worry.