1967
With a crooked tree limb masquerading as a baseball bat, Tyler Raines stood to the side of the old rusted hubcap serving as home plate, anticipating the arrival of the ten-inch rubber ball rolling toward him. He felt lucky someone picked him when his so-called “friends” were choosing sides. His physical limitations seemed apparent to everyone but him.
He knew his teammates would have preferred he only focus on the ball as it neared the hubcap. But Tyler couldn’t help but wonder how he was going to get to first base with his new wood-and-canvas, knee-high foot brace impeding his progress. It was bad enough the other kids teased him unmercifully about having a clubfoot. But putting his limited athletic abilities on full display would undoubtedly increase their taunts and snickers.
“Come on, peg leg!” one boy said.
“Hey, stick man, hit the ball!” another chimed in.
“Forget the bat. Take that wooden thingy off and use it . . . to strike out!” That one got everyone roaring. The ragtag bunch of hooligans never missed an opportunity to tease Tyler.
Unaware they were considered poor among the other families, Tyler and his Mama, Sally, had always been content with little. They lived happily in little more than a tin-roof shed on the outskirts of town. Yet with all the focus on his infirmity, Tyler wished he could crawl under the hubcap and disappear in this moment. But in Bettie, Texas, in the hundred-degree summer heat, stickball was all the kids had to do. What he wouldn’t give for a real baseball . . . Unfortunately, such luxury was nowhere to be found.
When the rubber ball darn near ran over the hubcap, Tyler threw his stick down, turned to face the infield, and proceeded to swing his clubfoot at the ball with all of his might. He watched the ball sail past the infield, continue over the outfield, and land on the street right in front of Mrs. Haney’s new Chevy Impala convertible—while it was moving! The grimy urchin kids watched in horror as she swerved, hitting the only fireplug in downtown Bettie. Like rodents exposed to light, the urchins scattered. A plume of water covered Mrs. Haney, her pillbox hat, and her expensive silk brocade dress.
Tyler stood there in utter disbelief at how far he hit the ball . . . and how catastrophic it all ended. Instead of hobbling over to first base to bask in his glory moment, he shuffled over to see how he could help Mrs. Haney. As predicted, the urchins were nowhere to be found.
“Mrs. Haney, I had no idea I could kick the ball so far. I’m the reason you swerved,” Tyler said shamefully. “This is all my fault.” He fixated on the worn hole in his sneaker that his big toe had made. “I’m really sorry.” He tried hard not to cry.
Aileen Haney knew Tyler and his mama didn’t have any money. Heck, everyone in town knew that. So she opted for mercy. “Tyler, thank you for being so honest and for staying while the other boys disappeared. See here? There’s not much damage to the bumper.” She nonchalantly pointed her hand at the bumper, hoping he didn’t look at the damage and feel even more guilty. “I hear the volunteer fire department’s siren, so everything will be fine. Tell me, how’s your leg healing? Is the brace straightening your foot out?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tyler replied, using his eyebrows as visors. “Doctor says I may need another year though.”
Tyler’s clothes were raggedy, though always clean and pressed when necessary. His mama had often said, “Young man, your deadbeat father may have left us with nothing when he ran off with that postal clerk from Gilmer, but I expect you to always be clean and mind your manners.”
“Mrs. Haney, I’ll figure out a way to pay you back for the damage I caused to your car,” Tyler continued without the slightest clue as to where the money might come from. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
“Nonsense,” Aileen bellowed. “That’s why I have insurance. The repair shop will make it good as new. Now you run along home and be sure to tell your mama I said hello.” She hugged him and gently directed him toward home.
As several of the store owners began to gather, all that could be heard was the increasing sound of the fire engine’s siren and the steady clompity-clomp of a young man who had defied all expectations by kicking the ball out of the ballpark.
~
“Tyler told me what he’d done,” Sally Raines commiserated. “Aileen, I’m so sorry for the damage he caused. Please, tell me how much it’ll cost to fix, and we’ll pay you back just as soon as we can.” She had walked across Farm Road to Market Road 2088 to the better side of town in hopes of making it right with Aileen. Walking home in the heavy rain wouldn’t be fun.
“Nonsense, Sally,” Aileen replied immediately. “Tyler’s just a boy—and a good boy at that. He made a simple mistake and was very forthright about owning up to it. Besides, he didn’t run and hide like the other boys. He stepped right up, apologized, and told me what he wanted to do about it. That’s why Elmer and I have car insurance. They’ll take care of everything. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
The pride on Sally’s face was evident. However, damage had been done, and lessons must be learned. “Well, if you won’t let us pay for the new bumper, is there something we can have Tyler do for you or Elmer that could help me teach him a lesson? Please?”
“Hmm . . .” The gears were turning in Aileen’s mind. “I’ve got a thought, but I’d need to talk with Elmer first. Could Tyler be available Saturday mornings for the next month? And would you have any objections to having him work with Elmer on a project? It might be a little strenuous. And with that leg . . Oh, I don’t know.”
“Anything, Aileen, anything you can think of!” Sally pleaded. “He’s gonna have to learn the value of a hard day’s work anyway, and this’ll be a good learning lesson. And don’t you worry about his leg. It’ll make the value of the lesson even more worthwhile.”
“I’ll talk with Elmer and get back with you, okay?” Aileen glanced around for Sally’s car but saw nothing. “Please, let me drive you home. This rain will have you soaked for the rest of the day.”
Sally carefully weighed the options between walking home in the rain and having Aileen see up close and personal the shanty they called home. It wasn’t long before their conversation moved to the clean and dry front seat of Aileen’s brand-new yet now slightly damaged Impala.
~
“Thanks for picking me up, Mr. Haney,” Tyler offered hesitantly. It was seven o’clock on Saturday morning when he looked around the clear tape of a cracked window over the shack’s makeshift kitchen sink, only to see Mr. Haney’s 1963 Chevrolet Cheyenne pickup waiting patiently at the curb. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you how sorry I am for causing the damage to Mrs. Haney’s car. Since you won’t let me pay for the damage, I really appreciate the opportunity to make this right.” Elmer offered a smile and nodded yet said nothing. Silence lingered a moment longer and then Tyler added, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an oil well before.”
“I’m glad to have you along, Tyler,” Elmer replied. “Gets kinda lonely out here at the bust of day on the weekends. But them roughnecks and roustabouts done been working since four a.m. on these rigs, and they want their money.” He paused a moment, then said, “Thanks for your honesty about Aileen’s car. Ain’t no big deal.”
His language is a little gruff, Tyler thought. But he seems pretty gentle otherwise. He looked around at the clean yet worn interior of the truck. Old man Haney was busy working the clutch and stick shift, occasionally grinding the truck’s gears by releasing the clutch too soon. The sticker on the glovebox heralding “East Texas Oil and Gas” was a smaller version of the sign painted on the outside of the door he’d just crawled through. “How long have you been with this company, sir?”
“Better parta twenty years,” Elmer responded as he spit the residual of his tobacco out of the driver’s side window. He motioned to a stack of checks flapping in the bib pocket of his clean, neatly pressed overalls. “Years ago, I used to be one of the guys waiting on these checks. That was before I broke my back—had a well casing fall on me. Thought it would be good for you to see what hard work is all about. Gonna have you deliver these checks. Gotta make four stops.”
Tyler figured it would be difficult moving around a well site with his braced leg. But he was focused and determined on trying to make things right with the Haneys. “Whatever you need, Mr. Haney. I’m here to help.” Elmer’s brief glance at his leg—a sure sign of yet another skeptic—was all Tyler needed to become even more determined to please.
~
The drilling rig was constant motion. To run the drilling bit, gigantic motors coughed and spit as operators coaxed more power out of the tired, old machinery. Men were moving in all directions. Heavy chains wound tightly around the spinning drill shaft only to be freed when another well casing needed to be added. Even through the sound-deadening headphones, the noise was ear-splitting. With the pungent odor of oxidizing lubricant filling his nostrils, Tyler was mesmerized by all the activity happening around him. Somehow he knew he belonged here. In a weird way, this place felt like home, his new home, and he had to figure out how to get more of it.
Mr. Haney introduced him to the operators, roughnecks, and roustabouts as they lined up with their hands out. Demure but definitely not shrinking, Tyler handed each man his check. With a firm handshake, he looked them in the eyes and said, “Tyler Raines, and I’m pleased to meet you.” There was no teasing about his clubfoot. Only the knowing respect of men who’d suffered their own injuries and pressed on despite their unfortunate circumstances. Though only a boy, Tyler felt accepted by the rough-and-tumble crew. He felt like a valued part of the entire process, a feeling he rarely had in the absence of his real father.
By the fourth drilling rig, Tyler was already scheming to get Mr. Haney to bring him along every Saturday. He knew he’d been helpful to the old man and didn’t care about ever getting paid once his debt with the Haneys was finally settled. He took a deep breath in and smiled. For a snot-nosed kid who’d be heading to junior high in the fall, Tyler realized he’d found romance. Only this romance had a pungent, oily smell, a dangerous and slippery platform, and made one whale of a noise.
As fate would have it, on his fourth and final stop, Elmer Haney happened to run into Connor Stansbury, president of East Texas Oil and Gas. There was no hiding Tyler, who was passing out checks and talking up the rig workers when Stansbury walked up to him.
“Elmer, what in heaven’s name are you doing with a boy up here on the drilling platform? You know it’s against company policy. If the Feds ever see a kid out here on one of our drilling rigs, to say nothing of a kid in a leg brace, they’ll pull all my drilling permits and fine us for violating child labor laws.” Stansbury seethed as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Sir, it’s my fault that Mr. Haney brought me out here to the well site. I’m Tyler Raines.” He stuck out his hand and looked Stansbury square in his eyes. “I begged him to let me do anything I could to help him because I ruined his wife’s brand-new car. I’m trying to work off my debt, sir.”
Connor Stansbury was momentarily speechless. “Well, son, while it’s nice to meet you, this is no place for someone your age. You could get hurt, or worse! Besides, Elmer should have known better.”
“Yes, sir,” Tyler responded. “I’m sorry I was so insistent on him bringing me along. I’d never seen a drilling rig before. I took the checks from his truck to be helpful and figured I’d see what all the activity was about while meeting the guys and passing out their money. Sir, you’ve got quite an operation here. One day I’d like to be involved in the drilling business.”
“Kinda precocious, aren’t ya, son?” Stansbury chuckled. “What makes you think you’d like to do this for a living?”
“I’m not sure what pacosous means, sir,” Tyler replied. “But the way I’ve got this figured, if you’re getting any oil or gas coming outta that hole, times the four well sites we’ve seen today, and you’re pumping those things night and day, it wouldn’t take too long before you’d have a whole lot of it—and probably a buncha money! It’s just me and my mama. We’re livin’ paycheck to paycheck, and even fallin’ behind at that. So I’m bettin’ you’re makin’ enough off these rigs to get rich, and I wanna be rich someday.”
Connor laughed. “So that’s the way you got it figured, huh? Well, Mr. Raines, I don’t know anything about you, but for a kid your age that was the simplest, most complete economic overview I’ve ever heard.” He paused to think for a moment, then looked around at his workers pocketing their checks and chatting with one another like brothers. “I’ve done well through the years by trusting my instincts, and my instincts are telling me one day you are going to be something. Let me think about it for a day or two, and then we can talk further. Maybe there’s a way we can help each other and get Mr. Haney paid off in the meantime. Elmer knows where you live and everything, right?”
Street smarts told Tyler this was Mr. Stansbury’s way of brushing him off. He’d heard a similar line before. Though he figured he’d never see Stansbury again, he decided he’d better play along.
Oh boy, was he ever wrong!
~
“Hey, kid, your grades any good?” Connor Stansbury asked one Saturday as his block-long, brand new 1972 lemon-mousse-colored Cadillac convertible pulled to the curb beside the neat and tidy low-income housing project he’d developed a year ago.
Tyler and Sally’s lives had changed dramatically ever since he had met Mr. Stansbury on the drilling rig a few years back. True to his word, Connor had shown up at their shack’s front door a week after their initial meeting, wanting to work something out with Sally so he’d be able to mentor Tyler. “The kid has promise,” he’d said.
After much discussion, Connor had been successful in convincing Sally to leave her job as the local Southwestern Bell switchboard operator and work at East Texas Oil and Gas as Stansbury’s personal assistant. He agreed to double her salary, which wasn’t saying a whole lot, and also add some prearranged bonuses for Tyler’s participation. On top of that, the job would provide much-needed health and dental insurance and summertime employment in exchange for Tyler’s Saturdays during the school year. They agreed that when Tyler turned sixteen, he’d start earning his own money. Maintaining a stiff upper lip until Stansbury walked out of their front door, Sally was teary-eyed for a week over their newfound good fortune.
“Yessir, Mr. Stansbury!” Tyler replied excitedly. “There’s a chance I might be valedictorian next year when I graduate. Why do you ask?”
“You thinking about college?” was all the response he got.
“I’m hoping to follow in your footsteps and go to Texas A&M to study petroleum engineering. That way, I can take over your business when I graduate,” Tyler teased.
Connor laughed. “That’ll be the day, kid . . . That’ll be the day. But good for you for having such lofty aspirations. That’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about this morning. Can you and I make another deal?”
“Mr. Stansbury, you’ve already done so much for me and my mom. The move to this much nicer housing project was way over the top. I can’t imagine you doing anything else,” Tyler gushed.
“Hey, kid, I got money, and you got goals,” Connor said matter-of-factly. “How ’bout this? Let’s trade your college education in Aggieland for your commitment to come back here and run East Texas Oil and Gas?”
Tyler was stunned. “But why would you do that? It’s your business, and you have no idea how’d I’d do as a manager?”
“Ambition, tenacity, and that fire in your eyes tells me all I need to know,” Stansbury replied. “Besides, I don’t have any children who can take over when I’m older. You’ve probably already figured out that East Texas Oil and Gas has a nice but small portfolio of assets that aren’t growing. Heck, some of the wells are beginning to peter out, and I’m too old to drill for more. ETOG has provided me a nice income, but it isn’t keeping up with inflation. Call me foolish if you want, but I’ve got this kid over here with fire in his belly and a nose for a deal. I figure if I can trade you for an education, you’ll come back here and grow the business once I show you how it runs. I’ll have stock in ETOG, we’ll bonus you some stock, and I won’t have to worry about what I’ll be livin’ on in my twilight years. What do you think?”
“Mr. Stansbury, I . . .”
“And that’s another thing!” Stansbury bellowed. “Quit calling me Mr. Stansbury. Call me Connor. I get the whole respect thing and all, but you’re old enough to call me by my first name. Besides, we’re gonna be business partners one day soon, so dispense with the formalities, will ya?”
“Yessir,” Tyler choked out. “And thank you for putting so much trust in me. Can I have a few days to think things over?”
~
Four years later, Tyler and one hundred three graduates of the Texas A&M School of Petroleum Engineering threw their mortar boards in the air as the dean said, “Congratulations, ladies and gentleman! I give you the 1976 graduating class.”
Sally Raines had never been so proud. Connor Stansbury, who was sitting next to her, had never been so excited. He’d just secured his ticket, albeit an expensive one, to a prosperous retirement.
It wasn’t as if Tyler would need to be spending inordinate amounts of time with Stansbury learning the portfolio so he could take over the reins of East Texas Oil and Gas. Diligent as he was, he somehow managed to maintain a 4.0 grade average throughout his four years of college while traveling back and forth to Gilmer, Texas, on the weekends to learn about managing the company. By Christmas of his junior year, he’d already leveraged the company’s portfolio so they could buy a promising block of existing production from a consortium of gigantic companies who no longer wanted to fool with such limited productivity. Immediately, he brought in Longview Well Servicing to work over each well site in hopes of increasing output. Eight of the wells in the consortium’s block had been grossly mismanaged. Outputs were increased anywhere from four to eight times the amounts of the oil giant’s cast-offs.
With as much driving as Tyler had been doing, he couldn’t help but notice gas shortages resulting from the 1974 to 1976 governmental price manipulations. Quickly, he used the company earnings from the successful well workovers to buy down company debt. With a barrel of oil at almost giveaway prices, Tyler convinced Connor to once again leverage the company’s attractively low debt position to begin buying up promising drilling leases from operators hemorrhaging cash. It was the right move. The Iranian oil embargo of 1978 quadrupled the price of oil. At the tender age of twenty-five, Tyler Raines was drowning in money.
Stay Tuned for Part Two of “The Oil Baron!” Subscribe for free to receive Part Two directly to your inbox.
Bob!! This is wonderfully done! A movie! 🎥🍿 Looking forward to Thursday! 🙌🏻