I worked with a couple surveyors from Hattiesburg in 1982-83 during my foray into oil exploration surveying (AKA seismic, AKA doodlebugging). I was going through some old photos from back in the day (Jeez- almost 30 years ago!) and thought about them the other day.
One of the guys was a big rascal name of Woody (I don’t recall his last name). He was leaving the seismic trail to work for his future father-in-law who was a City surveyor or some such in Hattiesburg.
Woody
Rumor has it the other guy died on an oil platform. His name was Bill Davenport. Everyone called him Little Bill.
Little Bill
There was also a slew of Hattiesburg boys on the Seismic “Jug” crew. A wild bunch, those Mississippi boys. Never a dull moment.
Don't know that bunch. Though I was in Petal in 1971 while working on a compressor station outside Heidelberg.
I did work doodle bugging in 70 and in the fall of 71 and in the summer of 72.
I worked on a doodlebug crew North of Meridian in 1980-81. The Party Manager was from Hattiesburg.
James
James - you got me scrambling to remember who the PM was on this crew. Or what company it was (Sigma Geophysical, I believe, but it could have been Sefel. Maybe GXI… I gotta look through my old resumes to see who I worked for back then and where). I remember the observer was a tall long haired hippy guy from the south who kept to himself.
"a tall long haired hippy guy from the south"
That ought to narrow it down!! 🙂
Good thing he didn't have a mullet, or he would be impossible to find.
Seismic must have been a real under the radar subculture in the early 70s Steven. Even though I lived in Texas and Oklahoma from around ‘64 to ‘75, I’d never heard of it until 1981 when the economy crashed out here and I headed to the Rockies to work seismic. In the early 80s every little Podunk town in the Rockies and down through Oklahoma and Texas was crawling with seismic exploration crews.
I’m curious, were any seismic survey crews using highly advanced technology in the early 70s (like Tellurometers or HP 3800s)?. For me, I went back about 30 years in technology and used plane tables/alidades, Mountain transits/E rods, but every now and again you’d run into a Shell Oil crew using the then unheard of HP 3820 total station. An honest to God digital total station in 1981. A strange dichotomy of antiquated, tried and true methodologies and cutting edge technology. It would be another 8 years until I worked for a company that had a total station.
> That ought to narrow it down!! 🙂
HA! I guess that is a broad generalization, given the time frame
> Good thing he didn't have a mullet, or he would be impossible to find.
Except for proto-rock videos on the new fangled MTV, the mullet hadn’t really hit the working man streets at the time I knew the Mississippi boys. We all looked like Duane Allman. Another year or so and the mullet washed over the land like a biblical plague of bad hair days.
And our once promising civilization began its final decline.
Those kind of guys are not limited to just the Hattiesburg area. ALL Mississippi surveyors are that way. I've been around some real characters down here. The mob I am working with now are no exception either. I think it has to do with the heat. They are constantly in it. (yes, that can be taken 2 ways. it's intentional.)
> I think it has to do with the heat.
Maybe that’s it. We were in Red Lodge Montana so the cool temperatures may have made them even more animated & frisky than usual. Like, Woody bought himself 3 K-bar pocket knives of different sizes. Named them Baby, Mama and Daddy, according to size. They’d slide around on the dash or the console of the Bronco and one of them would end up missing for a while. He’d say “Baby’s been abducted!” or “Daddy’s gone to town for some wine!” until we found the missing blade. I laughed a lot working with that guy.
I was using an HP 3810a on a seismograph crew in Greenville TN in 1980. Only because my Wild T-0 was fogged up beyond repair from sealing it in the bullet case after a downpour. I forgot to set it out when I got to the office. Never did that again.
James
> James - you got me scrambling to remember who the PM was on this crew. Or what company it was
I was working for Geosource, Petty-Ray division. The Party Manager was older and clean cut. He had spent several years in North Africa before coming back to the South.
Teledyne was in the area about the same time we were.
James
> Seismic must have been a real under the radar subculture in the early 70s Steven. Even though I lived in Texas and Oklahoma from around ‘64 to ‘75, I’d never heard of it until 1981 when the economy crashed out here and I headed to the Rockies to work seismic. In the early 80s every little Podunk town in the Rockies and down through Oklahoma and Texas was crawling with seismic exploration crews.
>
> I’m curious, were any seismic survey crews using highly advanced technology in the early 70s (like Tellurometers or HP 3800s)?. For me, I went back about 30 years in technology and used plane tables/alidades, Mountain transits/E rods, but every now and again you’d run into a Shell Oil crew using the then unheard of HP 3820 total station. An honest to God digital total station in 1981. A strange dichotomy of antiquated, tried and true methodologies and cutting edge technology. It would be another 8 years until I worked for a company that had a total station.
Strictly plane table and Alidade. My father was working Seismograph as a surveyor before I was 2 years old in the early to mid 50's. He was doing it again in the 60's starting about 64 until 66. In 67 he started his own surveying company in Oklahoma. In 68 Oklahoma started licensing their surveyors. His NO. was 174.
He worked seismograph as a land man in the late 70's and eighties. by then I was back into land surveying and never went back to seismographic work.
In a lot of ways the "Oil Patch" has kept me and my family fed and clothed for quite a few years.
🙂