Volume 1, number 8, August 1999 Hammer-on Ron It was August 14th, 1992. I was piled into a Chevy Suburban with three others traveling north on the Steese Highway. The Suburban made a wicked thumping noise and shuddered badly enough to throw itself off the highway or into the oncoming lane whenever it was going over 80 mph, which we were currently doing. We were headed for another 12-hour night shift chained to a drill rig, looking for gold. As usual we were late. We met the day shift which was tired and hungry but grateful we made it at all. If we hadn’t, they would have had to go back up to the drill rigs for another 12 hours, which is nothing anyone would look forward to. We had our usual brief conversation, mostly concerned with where the drill rigs were and how to get there. The night shift then split into two crews, one for each rig, and headed up the hill in separate trucks. One crew was headed toward Mitch-the-Witch’s rig. Mitch was a short, stocky man who had a lot of drilling experience and was quick to let you know if he didn’t like what was happening. He had a beer gut to be proud of and chewed so much tobacco that his lower lip stuck out like a gorilla’s. If you got right back into his face during a confrontation he would eventually back off and then later treat you with some respect. It certainly didn’t hurt to carry something blunt and heavy when talking to Mitch. My crew was headed towards Hammer-on-Ron’s rig. Ron was a skinny-tuff-cowboy-coward with a chip on his shoulder who always had something to prove. He had little experience as a driller but tried to make up the difference with an evil mean streak manifested by an odd patch of white hair on his head where horns could sprout. There was no arguing with Hammer-on Ron. The guy was a freak and it was best to just stay out of his way. I let out a sigh of despair when I saw Ron’s rig. By chance Mitch’s rig was just 100 feet away on the pad next door and neither rig had started their holes yet. It was going to be a race, which translated into a lot of hard work for everyone. Both holes were headed for 800 feet, and neither driller was going to accept being last. They hated each other. It was old age and treachery versus youth and (in Hammer-on Ron’s case) insanity. As soon as the truck stopped Hammer-on Ron threw the air lever down and the dust started flying. My sampler and I had about 45 seconds to get our act together before the first five feet were drilled and a sample needed to be collected. While hustling I glanced over at Mitch next door. He was just emptying a brand new can of tobacco into his lower lip and waiting patiently for my counterparts to get ready. Mitch knew it was going to be a long night. He had the advantage of knowing what he was doing. Ron didn’t chew tobacco; he ran on pure hatred. The first twenty feet of every hole was lined with steel casing to prevent blowouts, so soon after the drilling started it stopped temporarily. My sampler and I were finally able to get ready and were busy mentally preparing ourselves for the rest of the evening while the drillers were both busy stuffing casing down the hole. At the top of the holes, for the first several hundred feet, the rock is dry, so when the drilling commenced the air filled with dust. Both rigs were shrouded. Everyone was wearing respirators and struggling to find their way around. The driller’s helper and sampler (who were typically shanghaied the night before from a local bar) worked at a feverish pace, a tempo dictated by Hammer-on Ron’s routine at the control panel: drill, shut off the air, disconnect the pipe from the hydraulics, add on more pipe, hit the air and keep on drilling. No one would know which rig was ahead until they got into groundwater. After several hours of choking dust, the air finally cleared when a huge gush of water came out of the sample hose of Ron’s rig. That big gush meant we had a pretty wet hole and Hammer-on Ron was going to have some problems. Drill rigs always have a hard time with a lot of water because the air pressure has to lift all the water as well as the rock. Next door Mitch was still hidden in dust. Hammer-on Ron was probably slightly ahead, but instead of taking the time to switch to a bit that could handle the excess water, Ron just kept adding steel and advancing the hole. Not long after, Mitch hit water too, but it was just a trickle, nothing to worry about. He looked over at Hammer-on Ron’s rig and noticed the geyser flooding the pad. Even a hundred feet away with both compressors going full blast, I could hear Mitch laugh. Confidently, he crammed another wad of tobacco into his lower lip. Ron knew he was still ahead, and as near as he could tell he wasn’t doing anything different from Mitch. If everything stayed the same he would certainly win, but the deeper he drilled the more water was coming out of the hole and the rate of drilling slowly decreased. Eventually even Hammer-on Ron realized he had to switch to a different bit and started tripping out of the hole, pulling twenty-foot sections of pipe out, one after another. Mitch instantly started doing the same. Mitch’s hole still wasn’t making much water, but there were still several hundred feet to go, and eventually all the holes start making a lot of water. Ron took this as meaning they were neck and neck and that he still had a chance to win. Once Ron was back on bottom with the new bit I knew right away that he was in trouble again. In the time it took to change the bit, the bottom 50 feet of the hole had sanded in and Ron would have to drill it all out. But instead of being patient, Ron just stuffed the pipe into the hole. The hydraulics began making horrible noises as the torque on the pipe started pegging out. The entire drill rig was pitching back and forth and everyone but Ron took a couple of steps backwards. He was jamming that pipe into the hole so hard that something had to give. The bottom of the pipe, where the bit was, plugged up with broken rock and stopped turning. Then the entire length of drill pipe started winding up like a rubber band until the section still in the mast gave way. It explosively split down the seam and the two halves separated and wrapped around each other in a nasty tangle. Ron stopped torturing the controls of the drill rig and started barking orders at his helpers. In an instant he had jumped into his truck and sped down the hill in a cloud of dust to get a cutting torch. At this point any contest between Mitch and Ron was over. Mitch and his crew were still plodding along, methodically drilling away, getting closer and closer to the total depth. Ron was fighting to save any dignity he ever had. He would have to remove the broken section of pipe, pull the remaining pipe out of the hole to unplug the bit, and then trip back down the hole to try again. It would be hours before the rig started making sample again. Long after our shift would be over. I still had several hours to kill before packing up and going home. It really was dangerous to be around Ron during these times so I wandered over to Mitch’s rig to see how he was doing. Mitch asked me what had happened with "Ronnie" and I told him all about it. Mitch’s only comment was "Hey, you should feel lucky you don’t have to share a room with him." Some time later I was napping in my truck, waiting to go home while Ron was still struggling to unplug the bit. He suddenly walked over to the truck and screamed into the window "Look out!" While I was wondering why, Ron returned to the controls and pulled the air lever. Still half asleep, I looked over at the rig and noticed that the sample hose from the rig was disconnected and chained to a stake pounded into the ground right in front of my truck, with the end of the hose aimed at the windshield. In just a few moments whatever was plugging up the bit was about to fly out of that hose with over 700 pounds per square inch of air pressure pushing it. I shoved my still-asleep helper out of the truck with my feet and then dove out onto the ground just as a cannon ball of rock and mud blew through the cab of the truck, taking both the front and rear windshields with it. Ron’s only response was, "Oops, do you think I’ll have to pay for that?" I said, "Yes, you will pay for that, probably sooner than you think." My helper took my answer as some sort of signal and pounced on Ron, burying him in a flurry of fists. Ron’s helpers were soon huddled around shouting encouragement: "Get him, get him, get that dirty bastard!" I never saw Mitch move faster. He left his rig and ran over on his stumpy little legs as fast as he could. He first body-slammed all of Ron’s helpers out of the way, then grabbed my helper and flung him aside and with fists the size of melons and, spitting chew-laced obscenities, soon convinced Ron that nearly killing the client and beating on their employees was bad for business. That was Ron’s last night on the rig. The next evening he had been replaced by one of his own helpers, who had even less experience but lacked Ron’s apparent infatuation with the Dark Side. Thankfully, the rest of the project that summer was fairly uneventful. I never found out what happened to Ron after he left. He was just another crazy driller from out of state. I don’t really want to know. | ||
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