I took my wife to the airport this morning (Friday actually) where she caught a flight out to Denver. By tomorrow she and three others in her party will be in Vernal, Utah. A several day rafting trip down the Green River is in her future.

As we drove to the airport I ask her if she remembered that we almost moved to Vernal Utah some fifty years ago. She very much acted as if she had no idea what I was saying.

I went on to explain that a few months after we married, in the middle of 1972, I mentioned to her dad that I wasn’t sure digging ditches the rest of my life was in my future. He offered me a job with him in his chosen profession, which was doing Wireline work in the oilfield. The money was great, even starting out. It sounded like something I could do and enjoy. Madeline gave it a thumbs up.

Next I needed to go tell Nelson, that would be Nelson Lewis, whom I went to worked for a short while out of high school. When I told him of my future plans, he gave me that Nelson Lewis look, a quizzical raised eyebrow look and said “why would you want to do that?”.

I explained that I wanted to do what was best for my future and my new family that I’d just started the previous November. I wanted to do more with my life than what I had been doing.

Nelson thought for a few moments and went on to say “if you are looking for opportunity, why don’t you gather up a crew and I’ll subcontract with you to lay a bunch of these water lines all around Burnet”.

I thought about that proposal for a little while, maybe about ten seconds, and then took him up on his offer. We operated in that fashion for a year or so, then formed a company by the name of Lewis Contractors, Inc. That lasted for about 4 1/2 years and I bought him out in the early part of 1978.

Now all these years later, here I am still digging ditches and burying pipes in the ground.

Do I have regrets? Not many but I always wondered how things would have gone if I’d taken my Father In Law, Ted Jordan up on his offer. I’m sure there would have been adventures along the way, but I can’t imagine that we could be much happier than we are.

Since we never made it to Vernal, I hope Madeline gets some good pictures. We never did get to visit Ted there. Soon he was off to other Wireline opportunities around the world, from Russia and to Scotland and the North Sea and many places around the globe.

Well I’m pretty much a home body and prefer spending time around more familiar places, unlike my adventitious wife. She will be rafting down the Green River on her 70th birthday this coming week while I sit here in the safety of this hot tub. Seems like a good metaphor is built in here someplace that describes our lives.