Standing Into Danger: Enjoy Every Minute You Can

Friday, August 29, 2025

Enjoy Every Minute You Can

This week didn't go as anticipated, which is why I'm posting a short, late post.
It's all good though!

Yesterday, I spent the day with a special friend I hadn't seen since before the pandemic.

Cathy and I met over 43 years ago when I was hired by KRM Petroleum in Denver.

We were two of the very few women in the industry who actually worked on oil rigs.

Cathy and I the Morning of Her Wedding

She, Her Sister Diane, and I had been up very late and very exited during the night.

Boulder, Colorado, USA

March 17, 1984

Driller Jack Taylor and I in the Doghouse

DNB Rig, Western Kansas Oil Patch, USA

February 1982

Cathy moved away from Denver when she married in 1984,

eventually landing in Seattle,

but we have remained close friends ever since.

Sometimes we fall out of touch with each other for a year or two here and there,

but when we get together, it's like we've never been apart.

I wish Seattle weren't so far away!

Cathy arrived at our home yesterday at 10:40 am,

and we talked nonstop until 8:00 pm

when we reluctantly hugged each other goodbye

and she climbed into her rental car to return to her sister's near Colorado Springs.

Unfortunately, I forgot to get a photo of the two of us. 😵‍💫

Terry was my prince!

He took great care of Cathy and me throughout the day,

bringing us water, coffee, and snacks,

making us lunch, cleaning everything up after lunch,

and making us margaritas

which he served us on the deck late in the afternoon.

He joined in our excited talking throughout the day.

It did my heart good!

A Photo of Terry and Me That Our Friend Jon Altered

to Reflect an Earlier Time

Couldn't he have edited out my wrinkles? 😂

August 2025

When Cathy moved away, following her husband and his job,

she left the Oil Patch and became a technical writer producing videos.

She has worked as a writer with a number of companies and the military ever since.

Her sister Diane is also a writer and has published at least two books.

When the Oil Patch crashed in the mid-1980s, I left it.

I went into teaching, becoming part of the eighth generation

of teachers on the MacBeath side of my family,

and the third generation on the MacDonald side of my family.

It wasn't just the crash that prompted me to bail.

It was hard being apart from Terry four or five weeks at a time while sitting on a well.

Cathy and I promised each other that we would stay in more frequent touch

Neither of us could believe how forty+ years had passed so quickly,

and we both recognized that we likely don't have forty years left.

Cathy brought me the perfect gift, seven geological mysteries,

written by another woman who was in the Oil Patch at the same time we were.

I can't believe I never stumbled across author Sarah Andrews!

(I gave Cathy a treasured map weight from our time at KRM.)

Cathy's Gift

I have lots of reading fun ahead of me.

Aurora, Colorado, USA

August 29, 2025

Sarah Andrews published twelve novels and several short stories

before she and her husband and son were killed in a plane accident in 2019.

Andrews has won a number of awards, including the 1997 Journalism Award

from the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists (RMAG).

Both Cathy and I were active members of RMAG during the early 1980s,

but we didn't overlap with Sarah because of slightly different timing.

The first mystery Tensleep opens with a female mud logger on a well drilling in Wyoming.

When the well-sitting geologist is killed and replaced

by a female geologist, things get very interesting!

I have been both a mud logger and a geologist sitting on a well in Wyoming,

not to mention being on a couple of fossil digs

with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Wyoming!

I am loving this book!

Driller Don Foster on the DNB Rig

I learned so much from Jack and Don when I worked with them in the Kansas Oil Patch.

Hodgeman County, Kansas, USA

February 1981

I plan to post next Friday about our time with our friend Jon

who you may remember is on a quest to visit all the casinos in the US.

We visited Central City, Black Hawk, and Cripple Creek with him the week before last.

Jon and Terry

Aurora, Colorado, USA

August 22, 2025

I want to return to Cripple Creek with Terry when the aspens turn to gold,

and I hope I am not too late in the season for an underground mine tour.

The richest gold deposit in Colorado is being mined in Cripple Creek,

and the bonanza gold deposit has magmatic origins.

I love volcanoes!

Cathy is much more interested in more complex, longer lasting, geological processes.

But the gold deposits of Cripple Creek have a fascinating origin,

complicated enough to engage both of us.

Gold after calaverite lining fracture in phonolite from the Cripple Creek Diatreme

The gold has taken on the crystal form of the original calaverite mineral.

Early Oligocene, 32 m.y.

(Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum, Golden, Colorado, USA).

Source: jsjgeology.net

I'm so grateful to be alive and to have the good fortune

of a wonderful husband, awesome friends, and endless things to learn and to experience.

Enjoy every minute you can. Life flies by so quickly!

Terry and I are celebrating our 41st wedding anniversary on Monday.

Mr. and Mrs. Terry Barbour Leaving the Church

Parker, Colorado, USA

September 1, 1984

Happy weekend!

Till next time ~

Fundy Blue

Standing Into Danger https://selkiegrey4.blogspot.com

My next post will be

Wednesday, September 3, 2025 🤞

Standing Into Danger

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Friday, August 29, 2025

Enjoy Every Minute You Can

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