Company Men in the North Sea were legendary back in the 70’s. Some of these guys were really nice and really smart. Running Bear was one of the really nice ones.
If you were not offshore, by going to either the Marcliff or the Imperial Hotel Bars for lunch was the best way to find out who was in town. These hotel lunches always ended up in a resident bar. The normal hotel bar would close after lunch, but if you were a resident of the hotel you were allowed to move into the residents bar to continue the pursuit of happiness. Just rent a room and you are a resident. Your friends come in with an invitation from you. I remember at the Imperial one lunch time K.D. said, “Is that a case of Tequila?” There had never been any Tequila in Scotland before this day. There was none the next day. After a case of that stuff we could all temporarily speak and understand Scottish. You had to live hard and fast. Nobody ever expected to live through all of this.
The drilling rigs in this part of the North Sea are the biggest and best semi-submersibles in the world. You have riser pipe to contend with. The riser is a man made annulus that connects the bottom of the ocean with the rig to return drilling fluids to surface. All of the sub-surface BOP control lines go down the side of the riser. Since the rig is heaving with the waves you need slip joints to compensate for the heave. The heave can be as much as 30 to 40 ft. where normal seas would not be over 4 or 5 ft. One must have an imagination to be able to visualize this. My Daddy told me to get the engineers to draw me a picture until I could visualize what was going on. I have drawn pictures on the hoods of thousands of pickup trucks by now. It is the best way to explain things to people. Draw a picture in the dirt.
Running Bear was a real Canadian Indian. Do you think that he could get drunk? You know the kind of OilFieldTrash drunk that ends up sleeping in somebody’s front yard until it gets hot. Inside these hotel bars there were miles and miles of hole drilled, theoretically. I did this and I did that. No one could have saved the day but me. These amazing oil wells were being drilled by one man, all by himself. What an amazing feat. If by chance something goes wrong, “they” come back into the picture. They did it wrong, I told them. They wouldn’t listen to me. They should have listened to me. I told you so. This type boasting was never heard from the good company men like Running Bear. He would draw you a picture and explain things so that your common sense took over and you could understand. What is amazing is that the entourage agrees with whoever is buying the drinks at that moment. Being an independently wealthy North Sea oil man, it is your duty to treat most of the time. Unfairly, the Scottish boys didn’t make the same money as the Americans doing the same jobs (GTF, Jimmy) and they let you know it. Even though we were speaking the same language, the drunker they got the worse understanding them became. Luckily, there was always a female translator available. Problem was, you couldn’t understand her either but you played like you did. If you were lucky you might be in town 2 to 3 days a month.”
“ Bonus??”, we didn’t get no stinkin’ bonus. You couldn’t do much damage to a bank account in three days. Normally you got sent back to a rig with the same people that you were in town with. It just works like that. I don’t know why. It’s old home week. You have made a new friend that will last a lifetime.
Running Bear willingly taught poker school every night in the recreation room. I can remember one night after having pinto beans for supper someone brought a can of Right Guard to the poker game. How thoughtful, this was a welcomed gesture because Bob had the upset stomach real bad.