More Memories

 There is a ton of stuff to do but this morning the thoughts of Roy retiring fills me with some good memories and those lean times memories of all these years. Several days ago Roy was debating on whether to keep his hard hat from the Howell Petroleum days. I'm thinking sentimentally because he wore that hat when he went down in the coal mines in Kentucky. His whole Kentucky experience is memorable. He went to the office in that small Kentucky town only to find out that the last person who had come to check on things, well let's just say, his body hadn't been found...yet. Roy has always had a calming influence and didn't come into any job with an ego, that probably kept him alive in his Kentucky travels. He drove over to go to a Kentucky football game, got lost...before GPS, and checked into a small motel until morning or the fog cleared. When he got back out on the the road, the next turn he needed to make was just about a block from where he spent the night. The company plane came to get him after all his Kentucky work and the plane almost crashed on take off. He has jumped onto offshore oil rigs from a helicopter and spent some cold days out in a pipe yard, auditing the pipeline count. He went on a six week fraud investigation of a pipeline where kickbacks had taken place and it seems the quality of work placing the pipeline might have been an issue. He could not tell me where he was or what he was doing, but once he called to give me instructions on picking up some critical boxes of files from an oil and gas company, whose name has left me long ago and most probably not even in business anymore or bought by a larger firm. He gave me the instructions and I was to follow them exactly but in the case that someone realized I had those files, if confronted to give them up. I felt so espionagey. He was out of town, on the case thus my involvement. They had at their disposal on this investigation all kinds of wonderous things and when they would bring a person in for information, they'd play Roy is a lawyer card to help get any info. I don't even remember the end result of this work, but we moved those boxes of files several times, just in case. Finally after about twenty years, Roy got rid of the files.  Along with the adventures, he had those boring jobs, well to me, of just number crunching. He did some tax work on the side in those early years and met some interesting people along the way. He clerked one summer and then part time on the side again for a small law firm. He learned that while he loved the aspect of contract law and such, he did not want to be a courtroom lawyer. He really didn't want to practice law at all, just use it in his career for better decision making and better contract reading. Because of Covid, his goodbye party had to be limited in number but he was pleased that the EPD law department wanted to come to his party. He loved talking law with the company lawyers. In the 80s for several years, I worked with Roy and yes, we are still married. We traveled a lot for our work and spent too much time in Oklahoma City and Amarillo, sorry Marty 😀. If it was now, we would love it cause y'all are there. We audited an oil well that was about twenty miles from our house, but we audited it in Westport Conn. The offices were in an old mansion. We traveled on the weekends while there to the surrounding area, like Plymouth Rock. A guy in a VW with a huge megaphone on top drove by a lot saying, Plymouth Rock is a fake! Truly, I was disappointed that it was a smaller type rock than I had imagined. We worked for six weeks auditing properties in Denver, Co. So, we were out the door every weekend seeing the sights. 

Roy went to law school at night. He had made a high grade on the LSAT but he didn't know if that would be enough. He made an appointment to see the Dean about attending. If he hadn't gone in person and talked with U of H, he probably would have been turned down due to his age, but after meeting, talking and seeing Roy's transcripts, plus LSAT, he admitted him on the spot. He had vacation to use the first year but the following three years, he was working for himself and on contract accounting jobs. He never had weeks of vacation to use for studying. He sold the review courses to his fellow students so that he could take the review class for free. He wasn't able to go to another review but his friend gave him the notes and review for it. 

When he sat for the CIA exam it was the same day that I was leaving with the University Club tennis team going to Hilton Head for a tournament. He dropped me off at a friend's house. We were riding together to the airport. When he shut the trunk, his thumb got jammed and he most probably should have gone to get stiches, but he went onto the exam. I told y'all before where he placed. 

I have thought about Roy's career all day while doing chores and errands. The good times and the lean times.