As you can see from the photos here, John's days weren't going by nearly so quickly as mine. There were no parties, no days off. Unless you were a hard core gambler or closet drug user (there are some stories there to be told) for three weeks straight you got up, you went to work, you went to bed, you got up, you went to work, and so on. John did say the food was good and plentiful. It had to be, since meals were the only thing the guys had to look forward to. If Tiny ever slacked off on the food, he ran the serious risk of inciting a mutiny and getting tossed overboard, regardless of his hefty size!
I think our friend Tim thrived offshore, but then, he was a former firefighter and paramedic who was used to spending his days yukking it up with the guys at the firehouse. John was more the solitary type. He did OK though, with Tim to look out for him. I believe I mentioned earlier, didn't I, that all the guys offshore were given tough-guy nicknames? One was called Tex, and another called Bullwhip. The guy in that last photo was called Blue I think, and of course, Tim was called Toad. What did they call my hubby? Well, he can thank Tim for that as well. Probably the very first night that he crawled into his bunk bed, Tim called out to him "Night night, John Boy!" Of course, their other roomie Tiny picked right up on that, and well, you know how it goes. I guess John didn't mind too much, or they wouldn't have become such good friends.
Speaking of friends, there is one other thing I should probably mention. When I talk about the friends we made overseas, and then mention friends we've made in Dallas, Houston, and Midland (all places where we happened to have family nearby), I'm talking about two completely different species. I come from a large, closely-knit family. When you have two sisters, a mom and a dad, a little brother and more than a dozen cousins your own age all living in the same town, you don't really need girlfriends. I always had plenty of people around to do things with and depend upon for help. However, the people we grew close to when were living on some little island or offshore platform halfway around the world, separated from each other and with no family at all to depend upon, well, they weren't just our friends. They had become our family!
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