Hell he might have known my Father, he worked for Brown and Root for 40 years, a lot of it in Louisiana and offshore, running out of Belle Chase and Venice and Intracoastal City...

In 1971 my Father loaded me up one Saturday, thought we were going to get our usual haircut but no he kept driving. Got on I-10 headed east, ok I thought we're gonna visit his Brother in Anahuac, nope kept going. So when I ask he says I am fixing to go on a pipeline lay barge for Brown and Root, we're going to Intracoastal City to catch the boat out. Got there and he discovered I couldn't go, wasn't old enough. No problem, his buddies at Brown and Root put me to work on the loading dock until he got back two months later, had to stay at a boarding house in Abbeville.

He also worked land jobs for them, taught at their welding school for a while, did some overseas jobs, he travelled a lot. He was a heavy equipment operator too, that was what he did offshore. Once they were making up the header at the oil rig about 70 miles offshore in a few hundred feet of water, he had a 200 ton manitowoc crane but the header weighed a lot, and offshore you have to swing your load slightly to keep it level and true, if you follow, because the barge rocks a little, so you gently sway your load. But there were heavy swells and my Father got to swinging too much, it tipped over. His load went into the water but his boom crashed down on a supply barge tethered alongside, so the crane didn't go over, they saved it with the other crane. Even saved the header, I have pics somewhere. The crew, mostly Cajuns, said they never saw my Father move as fast as he did climbing out of that crane.

Small world innit.

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