Chapter 7

A cat cracker here. A cat cracker there...

On the first day of school we always had to fill out a form that gave away personal stuff about our family. You know, address, home phone number, name of your doctor, name of your Mom and Dad, how many brothers and sisters… stuff like that. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do that when we were in the first grade. I couldn’t do anything with forms back then, but maybe scribble on ‘em and put paste on ‘em. Maybe wad ‘em up and toss ‘em at somebody. I wasn’t all that bright back then. Oh, I knew my colors, a few numbers and most of the letters of the alphabet but I couldn’t write to save my rear. I think most kids today can write by the time they go to school. Problem is, too many of ‘em don’t improve a whole lot by the time they get out of high school. What’s that got to do with Dad, not much, but I’m going somewhere with the part about filling out a form.

When I was old enough to write almost legibly, the teacher let me fill out my own information form. Before school, I’d ask Mom for all the information I thought I’d need. I had to know Dr. Dawson’s phone number and my birthday and what color I was. In an emergency who were they supposed to call if Mom weren’t home? I was to either write Lynda or Larry’s name and number. If anybody at school ever called either of ‘em, they would’ve freaked.

One bit of information that I had to ask several years running was the one that went next to the question “Father’s occupation:” That was a tough one. I would’ve asked Dad, but he only told me about his job a few hundred times. -– “Anyway, Red Kearns told the shift foreman that he was all gungho to…” I seldom knew what Dad was talking about. But, rather than hurt his feelings by asking him what his job was and have him, either give me the long story or feel disappointed that I didn’t care enough to remember his accounts of work, I always just asked Mom. Mom could condense stuff pretty good. She’d say, “He’s a Jr. Stillman.” I had no idea. In fact, I spelled it “Steelman” till my senior year.

When I filled out the form, I always worried about somebody checking up on what I wrote, and having ‘em yank me outta class to go the principal’s office. – “Okay, Mark, you put ‘Steelman’ down here, and it’s really ‘Stillman.’ What have you got to say for yourself? Do you know how important these forms are, Kid? Do you?!”

Even after Mom told me Dad’s job title, I still didn’t know what he did. All I knew was that he worked at Crown Refinery, and came home smelling of chemical pollution and chewing tobacco. A horrible combination, but it was how my dad smelled, and I liked it. I had a dream a year or so ago, and Dad leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I could feel his beard stubble and smell the refinery and the tobacco on him. I didn’t see him, but I felt him and smelled him. It was one of my best dreams. – But, I’m really getting ahead of myself.

By the way, Dad usually referred to Crown Petroleum Corporation as “The Plant.” I never knew why. “I hafta work overtime at The Plant.” – “We had trouble at The Plant.” – “I’m sick and tired of The Plant.” I think “Plant” was short for something. Factories, refineries, places where they make things are generally called “plants.” I doubt six people in the world know why.

Something else my dad threw around a lot was “control room.” There was always something happening in the control room. “Blacky walked into the control room, and he didn’t know the shift foreman was standing behind him and he said…” I was smart enough to figure out that the control room was where they controlled stuff in The Plant. A bunch of Buck Rogers’ stuff that you flip on and off, and it causes stuff to happen outside. It all happens in and around the ol’ cat cracker.

I wish I had a dollar for the number of times “cat cracker” was mentioned when I was a kid. Dad was always cat cracking this or cat cracking that. Did a lot of cat cracking.
A real live cat cracker

Like I said, the control room was mostly associated with the cat cracker. If you got a bad reading in the control room, you’d have to go outside and climb up the cat cracker to turn on or off a valve. When it was real cold you didn’t want to be on the cat cracker. When it was hot, no one enjoyed climbing the cracker to turn a valve or take a sample of gasoline or jet fuel or whatever.

Dad worked at a refinery during the time they put lead in gasoline. I don’t know why they did that. Lead obviously gave off more pollutants, but, fortunately, we were really into pollution back then. Couldn’t get enough. Gas was cheap and cars were huge. In elementary school if we had to draw a picture of a car, we’d have a swirl of smoke coming out of a pipe at the rear of the car, because every car there was had smoke trailing it. Oh, those were the days.

I do remember when they started converting over to unleaded. It cost more to not put lead into to gasoline than it cost to put it in. I never understood that. Thanks to the EPA, the newer cars used unleaded, so when you drove up to the filling station, the guy would ask you, “Leaded or Unleaded?” That doesn’t happen anymore. No one asks you what type of gas you want, because no one fills your tank anymore. “Service Stations” are as rare as non-tattooed NBA players.
A service station with leaded gas, even

Well, you let me get off topic there for way too long. You need to watch it. All of this came from a discussion about Dad working at Crown. I want you to know that I don’t blame Dad or Crown for the lousy attitude we had concerning pollution. We just lived in a society that rewarded polluters. There was no money to be hand in cutting down on pollution. Crown Refinery gave Dad a good paying job that he hated. And, that job took care of his family.

Dad showed us the cat cracker the first time we drove by Crown. It was the most distinguishing feature of the whole place. It was like the Eiffel Tower in France, only without the restaurant at the top. Both Eiffel and the Cracker are metal monstrosities. The Cracker has tanks standing up on the vertical and a menagerie of pipes running up and down and thither and yon. All of the metal stuff services a purpose. The Eiffel Tower serves a purpose, too. It’s used to hold up that restaurant on top.

Dad explained how oil goes into one of the tanks on the cat cracker and it gets heated up. Vapor goes up and some of it condenses into another tank and turns into naphtha. Naphtha is what you use to clean your hands when you get oil on ‘em. I don’t believe it serves another purpose.

The vapor keeps going up and some of it condenses into Kerosene, and then gasoline, then jet fuel… In other words, it’s like a giant still, where they make booze. Get it still? Stillman? You caught onto it so much sooner than I did. I was outta college before the “Stillman” title registered with me. What an igmo.

One thing about Dad’s job at The Plant that registered quick, real quick, was the fact that Dad hated his job. It just wasn’t what he had in mind to do for the rest of his life. But, he knew he had to take care of his kids. Once we got all grown up and out of the house, Mom and he could maybe do stuff they both liked to do. It was a dream… a dream a few 100 million people have.

“Mark, whatever you choose to do for living, try to do something where you’re your own boss.” Dad told me that a few times. He didn’t like being somewhere he didn’t want to be, doing what he didn’t want to do. It’s the stuff of life… even for a lot of bosses.

One part of Dad’s job that he hated was working shift work. I don’t mean to insult your intelligence, but “shift work” has to do with working days for a week, and then evenings for a week, and then nights for a week. Graveyards is what they called nights. Dad left for the graveyard shift at 10:00 p.m., and came home at about 6:30. When you worked graveyards you got a few cents more an hour than if you worked evenings, and if you worked evenings, you got a few cents more than if you worked days.

This kind of work schedule, too often made Dad an enigma at home. Only one week out of three was he home and awake when we got home from school. The other two weeks he was either working or sleeping. “You kids had better be quiet! You’re Daddy’s trying to sleep!” Mom yelled that in a whisper maybe 600,000 times during her life. Nobody wanted to wake Daddy up when he was home from working the graveyard shift, but we sure did it a few times. Got carried away is what we did. We got yelled at pretty heavily a few times for waking Dad up. But, he never spanked us for that. He mostly spanked for lying or for being sneaky. Dad couldn’t tolerate sneakiness in his kids. Who can blame him.

I never sympathized nearly enough about Dad and his job at Crown until I worked there for a couple of weeks during the Christmas break. I was home from Stephen F. Austin State University at the time, and Crown was trying to help out families by hiring some of the sons of employees. I thought that nice. And, heaven knows I could use the money.

What an experience. The noise, the smells, the grunge… Did I mention the noise? Furnaces and blowers (whatever they are) are roaring constantly. I was walking out by the cat cracker behind a foreman who was gonna show me what to do. When you don’t know what to do at a refinery, you can really mess something up. Like maybe a whole city. Anyway, we were walking along and this whistle went off, no idea why. It was the loudest whistle in the world. A deep whistle. Sounded like it was sitting on my shoulder. Scared the pee outta me. Literally. I’m here to tell you that the foreman didn’t even flinch. Nothing. I don’t know if he was anticipating a whistle, so was not surprised, or if he was deaf as dirt, but the guy didn’t react at all. At the moment I told myself that I never wanted to adapt so well to a place that I would never react to something that’s loud enough to make ears bleed. My dad heard that whistle everyday. I have no doubt that he barely noticed it.

When I worked at Crown, Dad was no longer a Jr. Stillman. I don’t really know what he was. All I know was that he operated the calciner. I got to visit him on the job to see how that thing worked. The calciner was a giant tumbling metal tube. Giant. They’d put some coal-like substance called “coke” (residue from the refining process) into the tube and it would tumble around until the it turned to fine powder. Black powder. Blacker than black. The kind that, if you touch, will end up all over your body. It’ll hit your nose first. I’m speaking from experience here. Anyway, Dad was the lone worker on the calciner during his shift. I think he liked that.

A calciner... not Crown's though. Can't find it.

Each day I walked around the plant, looking for something to clean up, I’d run into some employees who would ask me who I was. Everyone of ‘em had something good to say about Faris Hayter. Dad was well respected at Crown. I was not surprised.

I don’t know how much of the respect was as a result of Dad’s work with the union. He was chosen as one of the workers representatives to negotiate with the company. Seven strikes were called while Dad worked at Crown. Strikes are rare as pet sharks today. Unions have received some really bad press over the years. Seems too few realize how many gains in pay, retirement, health insurance, safety on the job, work hours… are in practice in many places today only because of the sacrifices of those in the union. I was always proud that my dad played a part in that. The strikes really knocked our family for a loop, but in the long run they seemed to help everyone… even those not involved.

A couple of years before Dad retired from Crown an incident occurred that left him quite depressed. I don’t think he ever got passed it. One day while Dad was running the Calciner a fire occurred. It wasn’t a huge fire. No one was hurt, but it did cause some damage to some of the equipment. The cause of the fire was a valve that was not opened when it needed to be. When everything got under control, Dad was asked by a company representative to go home until asked to return. That pretty well crushed him. He assured the foreman that he was not responsible for the fire, but it didn’t look that way to anyone but Dad. I’ve never seen my Dad sadder. He came way close crying a few times. I never saw him so vulnerable. So weak.

Dad had been home for two days when he got a call from the foreman at The Plant. After some investigating it was determined that Dad in fact did open the valve, but a big chunk of coke had wedged itself in such a way that the opened valve had no affect on the process. Pressure built up and the valve blew and a fire started.

I think I was more relieved than Dad was. Dad never recovered from the distrust the company had shown him. How it seemed all his co-workers, for a couple of days anyway, thought he had messed up. I believe it destroyed much of his confidence. And, it messed up his health pretty much, too. It wasn’t long after that he took disability retirement. A year after that he died of a heart attack while in ICU at Southmore hospital in Pasadena.

For too many years my dad, like so many other dads and moms, worked somewhere he didn’t want to work, doing something he didn’t enjoy doing. He lived for retirement, and he ended up dying one year after his retirement. All through Dad’s life, God knew that was going to happen. He didn’t let any of us in on it. Kept it to Himself. And, He didn’t choose to explain the why of it. When does He ever?

Dad after retirement

I think we’ll look at a happier time in the next chapter. There were a lot of them. Really were.

Dad moves us to Pasadena, Texas

A view you would see if you were flying into Pasadena around the time the Hayters got there. We didn't fly, though. A family of non-fliers.

Chapter 6

Dad moved the family from Oklahoma to Texas in, oh, 1948. Late ’48. That’s somewhat of a guess, but I’m getting good at that. Dennis was just a nubbin, and, like I said, I wasn’t yet born. I never heard, but I doubt it was a multi-load trip. It was probably easy to haul everything we had in one vehicle. Mom, Dad, four kids and all their belongings in one vehicle. Sounds about right.

I imagine Dad drove straight to his mother’s house. I do hope he called first. Grandma Pearl lived in Dickenson at the time, a flat, treeless, marshy area between Galveston and Houston. Heat and mosquitoes in the spring, summer and fall. Rain and wind in the winter. “Where are the cowboys and Indians and the buffalo?” I imagine Larry asked Dad that as they drove up to Grandma’s house. Sounds just like a young Larry.

I can only imagine the discomfort Mom felt living in the same house with Grandma, the lady who forged letters in an attempt to get Dad to leave her. Desperation will make you do stuff you never thought you could. You can quote me.

To make sure the stay was brief, Dad bought a house from Sears. It was a build-it-yourself house. Sears does’t have ‘em now. I didn’t know they had ‘em then, because I wasn’t born yet. Y’all are sure making this hard for me. Dad started right off working on the house. I imagine he did it all himself, ‘cause none of the kids were old enough to do more than get his way. Along with the myriad of things I don’t know is the question of the land. I know generally where it was, but have no idea how Dad got the right to build on it. I imagine Grandma loaned him the money for the house, maybe the land was hers. Sounds about right.

Dad had the shell of the house pretty much up, and had tarpaper on the sides and the roof. It was well enough along for the family to leave Grandma’s and move in. Mom would’ve tolerated a partially built house over living with her mother-in-law. Even though the house was never completed, I still learned its location because of a comment that was made every time the family passed the place near Allen Genoa Road on our way to the South Houston Church of Christ. We’d drive by and either Mom or Dad would say, “Well, that’s the place where our house blowed away.”

Dad generally used good English. Usually did. He knew the right verb tenses and all, but he didn’t always appreciate ‘em. When he got mad, he never “came unglued.” He always, “come unglued.” – “Let me tell you, when I saw that, I nearly come unglued.” --Dad was in pieces quite a bit when I was a kid.

Fortunately, we only had one house that went to pieces. That was the one near Allen Genoa. It blowed away. Pieces of boards, tarpaper, clothes, pans, furniture where fairly evenly strewn across the area. It wasn’t a hurricane or tornado. It was just some high wind from a South Texas storm that met a wooden shack on a prairie. It wouldn’t have been enough to destroy a mobile home, but it was sure enough to mess up one of those unfinished build-it-yourself jobs.

The folks were never sure if I was around or not the year the storm took our house. I feel pretty certain I wasn’t. Even if I was just a couple of months old, I think I would’ve remembered our house blowing away. As is, I have no clear image. I have a foggy one only because Dad told the story so well. I can almost see the tarpaper everywhere and the icebox on its side. The roof ended up in a nearby pasture. The barbed wire fence caught some of the clothes. Oh, yeah, I can practically see it, but only through Dad’s eyes.

Dad never tried to rebuild on the site. When God takes away your house while you’re at church, He’s probably trying to tell you something. A man of great faith, might have thanked God for not allowing his family to be in the house when it “blowed” away. I believe my Dad’s faith was at a low point. About a year earlier, God had allowed a nickel to land heads-up ‘causing him to lose his business. Now, God had allowed a wind to take his house… making him have to move the family back into Grandma’s house. No, Dad saw little to be thankful for. However, I’m sure he took things so much better than I would have. I’m not proud to say that, but I know it to be true.

It wasn’t long after the house left us that the family moved into a small-framed, white house over on Spencer Street. Spencer, today, is a six lane major highway running east and west through Pasadena. If you go too far east, you’re in La Porte; too far West will put you on the Interstate headed for Houston to the north or Galveston to the south. Back then there were no interstates, so it’s enough that you know it was a narrow road headed east and west.

Although I have little memory of the place, it was where we lived when I was born. I’m proud to say that I was the first Hayter born in a Hospital. Pasadena General. There was a nurse present and everything. Mom’s only comment of my birth was that I was coming feet first, but the doctor turned me around. Probably used a magnet.

When we moved to Spencer, it was just two-lane narrow paved road that crossed dust in the summer and mud during most of the other seasons. While this account is mostly about Dad, I’ve gotta tell you a non-Dad story, ‘cause it’s cute as all get out. One summer’s day while we were living on Spencer, Mom was the only person in the house. She was ironing. Mom spent 30 percent of her waking hours washing and ironing. This was during the day of the old tub washers with the wringer on top, and of clothes lines strung across the back yard. Great place to hang… a clothes line pole.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, Mom was inside while her five kids were outside on the sodless yard playing, arguing, eating dirt… the usual. I believe only Dennis and I were dirt-eaters at that time. I don’t remember the experience, but I’m sure it happened. Fortunately, there are no pictures.

At some point during the ironing, Mom heard the screen-door slap a time or two, and a lady call out “Hello? Anybody home?” Mom turned to see a lady holding me away from her body. I was in a diaper and covered head to toe in dirt, hanging there just like I had good sense. I wasn’t crying or even fidgety. Didn’t even know I had done anything wrong. From what I remember, guilt never struck me till I went from diapers to underwear. When you get old enough to wear underwear, you’re always thinking you’re gonna go to Hell for something. Don’t know why that is. Rutgers is doing a study.


Fortunately for me, the part of Spencer we lived on wasn’t all that busy back then. Today, you couldn’t sit in the road if you wanted to. I really didn’t know I wanted to. That’s just where I ended up. Lynda was supposed to be watching me, but I believe she was in the Chinaberry tree at the time. I don’t blame her, ‘cause she probably thought I was sitting on the ground under the tree. I pretty much blended in with the dirt.

Mom was so embarrassed she about died. She assured the lady that her eldest was supposed to be watching me. The lady didn’t seem in the least upset. She more than understood, and was just glad to help. I think she had a bunch of grandkids and knew how stuff like that happened.

While Mom was not at all afraid that any of us would ever be kidnapped, she was a little concerned that we might wander into the street and get run over. Or, runned over. – “If you’re not careful, you’re gonna get yourself runned over!” -- We heard stuff like that a lot. It never happened, ‘cause God was looking out for us. Children and idiots. No telling how many times God has saved us.

I really doubt Mom told that story to Dad till I was much older. No telling how Dad would’ve taken that story. Seems like he didn’t really have time to mess with us much, unless we got into trouble. My first complete sentence as a child was “Please, don’t tell Daddy.”

Shortly after my road-sit experience, Dad got a job at a refinery. He had been doing carpentry work all over the area, but the work was less than consistent. Plus when you did win a bid on a place, the weather could mess you up a lot. In other words, pay checks were seldom as timely as the bills.

So, when Dad learned that Crown Central Petroleum Corporation was hiring, he applied. Crown was one of the oldest refineries on the ship channel. And, it is the place Dad would work for pretty much the rest of his life. Yep, Dad was hired on at Crown, and the job would land him onto another of life’s roads.

A coin in the dust

Chapter 5

I was supposed to be born in Oklahoma. Not sure you knew that. The first four Hayter kids were born in Oklahoma, and, the way the wind was blowin’, so would any future kids. There were to be three more of us. Didn’t make much sense to me, either.

Regardless, I do believe it was Faris and Elsie’s intent that whatever kids they had would all graduate Purple Pirates from Bristow High. None of us had much say in the matter, but what kids do? Truth be known, I don’t think there were supposed to be more than two of us… three at the most. Why would any non-Catholic, non-Morman, non-pioneer couple want seven kids? It makes no sense. But, born I was. And, so were my two younger siblings, Jill and Alan. Only we weren’t born in Bristow… or even Oklahoma. Because of the toss of a coin, we ended up being birthed in Texas. And, we each graduated as an Eagle from Pasadena High. Try to figure.

While I much prefer Pasadena, Texas, to Bristow, Oklahoma, it really wasn’t my decision to make. I believe I said that. Had I gotten a vote, I believe I would’ve put in for Oregon. I’ve seen the pictures. Nice place.

Not, that Pasadena isn’t a nice place. I take that back. Pasadena isn’t. Pasadena sits just south of the Houston Ship Channel, a channel that is rimmed with refineries and chemical plants. Oh, and there’s a paper mill. It was called Champion Paper Mill when we lived there. Don’t know who owns it now. I do know it employed a good number of Pasadenians. But not my dad. Fortunately, not my dad.

The paper mill was just north of Pasadena on the other side of the channel. Don’t know if you’ve ever lived close to a paper mill, but it’s definitely a must miss experience. With the paper mill and refineries sitting both sides of the Channel, and with an occasional wind blowing from the north, east or west, Pasadena’s unofficial name became Stinkadena. Our official logo read “The grass is always greener in Pasadeener.” Wasn’t long before people passing through the city changed it to, “The AIR is always greener in Pasadeener.” People can be so cruel.

But, like I said, because of a coin toss, Dad decided to uproot the family and head south for the City on the Channel. Some would call it bad luck. Some would call it fate, bad Karma, bad juju. Years, after the fact, I tend to think it was a place God wanted the family to be. I never mentioned that to Dad, ‘cause I didn’t know what he might be mad at God. When Dad told me the story of the coin toss, he didn’t sound all that happy about the outcome. I think it’s about time I share the story.

After the war, rationing ended, and people who could, bought new homes and new cars. With the cars, they were better able to move out of the cities and into the suburbs, where they could commute to work. All of this required gasoline, which put an even greater demand on oil.

In the midst of this big oil demand, Dad and two other Oklahoma roughnecks pooled all their money and bought an army surplus truck and a well-servicing unit-- some giant monstrosity on wheels that fixes whatever is ailing a rig. Dad’s two partners were Crenshaw and Smith. I do not remember dad telling me their first names.

What I do remember is that, after a short while, two of the three entrepreneurs bought out the third. No idea why. That left Dad and Crenshaw. Or, Dad and Smith. No idea. With oil wells going up like cane across Oklahoma, “Three Ninety” was doing all right. By the way, 390 happened to be the company’s phone number. Just as quaint and helpful a name as it could be. Bottom, line, Dad was, for the first and only time in his life, his own boss. He co-owned his own business. Life was good.

There’s a reason I didn’t put a “happily ever after” near the end of that paragraph. Seems things too soon fell into the proverbial crapper. Dad told me that his partner in the well servicing venture turned out to be less than dependable. Dad ended up doing most of the work and shouldering practically all of the responsibility, while Bob (for lack of his real name) partied and drank.

One hot, steamy afternoon, Bob drove up to the rig site way late and somewhat inebriated. It was pretty much the last straw; the way Dad saw it. After a brief argument, the two men sat down at the base of the oil rig and both agreed on a parting of the ways. It was to be a very good parting… for one of them. You see, neither Dad nor Bob could afford to buy the other out. If one of them left, the company would have to be sold to an outsider to pay off the departing partner. Neither wanted that. So, after less than careful thought, Dad suggested a way to end their partnership. He recommended that they toss a coin. If Bob won the toss, Dad would turn over the business. He would end up with absolutely nothing. If Dad won, Bob would be the one losing it all.

I don’t know if a sober Bob would’ve agreed to such a ridiculous parting of the ways, but the tipsy Bob was all over the idea. So, there on that dusty Oklahoma prairie, Faris Hayter pulled a nickel out of his pocket and told Bob to call it. The nickel went spinning into the air a second before Bob called out “Heads!” When the coin hit the Oklahoma dust, Dad looked down, and, with little expression on his face, walked to the rig platform, grabbed his lunch kit and hitched a ride back to Bristow. It didn’t turn out the way Dad hoped, but I can’t help think he wasn’t all that surprised with the outcome. I always viewed my father as a man who learned not to expect.

As far as I know, Dad never told Mom that story. He didn’t tell me until my college years. Mom was told that 390 had to declare bankruptcy. That he and Bob lost all they had. I don’t know if he was trying to distance himself from Bob, or had just had all he could stand of Oklahoma, but Dad told Mom it was best if they loaded the family up and move to Texas. Maybe work in the oil fields for Pearl’s latest husband… whoever that was.

So, move they did. I don’t know how Dad acquired the transportation, but he drove something down to Texas. Dennis was maybe a year old at the time. Lynda was about 10, Larry 8 and Susan 5. Me? I was on hold, waiting to be the first Hayter to be a Texan; to be the first Hayter to be born in a hospital. And, I was waiting to be brought home to an old, wood-framed shack on a dirt road called Spencer.

The events that change our lives are so often small and spontaneous. I’ve never seen the hand of God come down and shove someone onto a different path. I believe His hand is directing, but He is obviously way subtle. If Bob had picked any other day to drive up drunk and late, maybe Dad wouldn’t have been so quick to risk losing his part of the business. Or, if Dad had tossed the coin a little lower and it’d come up tails, or maybe if Bob had over thought and called tails instead of heads. Who can know? We all reach forks in life’s road, where whichever turn we make is a life changer… for good or bad. Or, maybe for good or better. I don’t think Dad had a “for good or better” attitude. Too few of us do.

Listening to Dad tell the story, I could tell that he viewed the outcome as bad for him. He would always wonder how far he might’ve taken ol’ 390. Maybe he would’ve been happier, a better provider for his family and so much more respected. I do believe he felt that way. While I would have loved him to be happier, I didn’t see wealth as being a determining factor in the development of my respect for Dad. I don’t believe anyone who truly loves another, considers wealth to be much of a factor in a relationship. Through all the ups and downs of life, I always loved my Daddy. He provided for his family. He carried us through the good times, and tried to make the bad times a little better than they might’ve been. It’s time we now take some journey’s through some of those times.