# 21 - Rooney Bloom

I had to quit my job at the IGA in order to attend Boy’s State. I still find it hard to believe they wouldn’t work with me. Maybe they were just looking for an excuse to get rid of me, who knows?

When I got back from Boy’s State I took a job hauling mud in the oil patch for an outfit called Baroid. I didn’t stay there long because it was hard backbreaking work. Throwing a whole semi-trailer load of 100 pound stacks of drilling mud was no picnic. It paid well so I stayed longer than I would have liked. Now-a-days the mud comes either in a bulk tanker or loaded on pallets to be unloaded with a forklift. In those days labor was cheaper than equipment.

The fellow who drove the truck and also threw sacks of mud was named Rooney Bloom. He was a salty old character, who’d lived a pretty tough life, by the looks of him. He was probably in his mid-forties, but back then I had him pegged for mid-sixties. He drank and smoked and to my knowledge never darkened the door of a church. He no longer had a wife and didn’t have much to do with his kids either. Rooney’s whole life was work. He loved it. He did little else. Day in and day out he showed up, put in long hours, didn’t complain and hummed a quiet little non-descript tune all the while.

I can’t say we became buddies or anything. He never said much. I’d try to start a conversation on the long drive out to some remote well location, but I always failed. He didn’t seem much interested in hearing me rattle on about nothing, so I took to napping on the road. I was always tired so it all worked out.

One Monday morning I showed up and found Rooney hadn’t come. Somebody else drove the truck. He told me Rooney had to go to the hospital for some surgery. You didn’t ask what kind of surgery in those days. I still have no idea what was wrong.

After a couple of weeks Rooney was back. He looked a little peeked, but seemed ready and eager to get back on the job. We drove out to Natural Buttes and rumbled through clouds of dust to a location overlooking the White River. After we unloaded the mud, Rooney pulled the rig into the shade of some cottonwoods down by the river so we could cool off over lunch. I asked him, “Did they treat you good?”

“Who”

“The folks at the hospital.”

“Yea!”

“What was it like?

“Pretty good actually!”

“Pretty good? What do you mean?”

“Them pretty nurses gave me a sponge bath every day!”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yup, they’d bring in soap and water and lotion. Then they’d uncover me down as far as possible and wash me all up. It felt so good.”

“I’ll bet,” I replied.

“Then , they’d pull the blankets back up, nice and snug and go down by my feet and uncover me up as far as possible and wash my feet and legs. Oooh, that felt good...
Then, I’ll be derned if they didn’t wash Old Possible TOO!”