We’ve all gone to school for endless years but it’s rare to remember a certain day when you actually learned two things. In 1952, I went to Dhahran Kindergarten in the portable that later became the infamous Teen Canteen. In First grade, I went to the portable close by that eventually became the Hobby Shop. What a great place. Anyone could come in and use all this marvelous equipment: drill presses, table saws, grinders, belt sanders and the like.
It was November 18th, 1978. Two years earlier I had started a video electronics business in Jeddah that serviced video equipment, installed closed-circuit TV systems in hotels, hospitals, and compounds, and distributed the only legitimate video programming in a country awash in bootleg videos.
With the end of World War II Aramco was finally able to ramp up production and start shipping a decent volume of oil after waiting a dozen years for a chance to get a return on the investment of tens of millions of dollars sunk into the Arabian venture since 1933.
The next morning, Wednesday, July 26th, 1978, my 50th birthday, Keith Kaul drove me to the Dhahran Airport on the new divided highway that had just opened recently. The sand dunes along the way all looked so undisturbed and pretty. I tried to relish as much of the old, familiar desert look of Arabia as I could as we drove along, with my eyes and my camera.
It was a Friday in January 1979, my only day off each week as a contractor to Aramco, and I was ready for an adventure. My American friend, Rob, drove from Al Khobar and arrived around 6 a.m. at the door of my single room in the Abqaiq contractors’ bachelor camp.
Wednesday, July 5th, 1978, we started out at the King’s with our group. There was another dance and entertainment by Cody Marshall in the school gymnasium that we all went to afterward. On Thursday morning, we ate breakfast in the Dining Hall before going to visit with Sheila.
At the beginning of next week, we were assigned a packing date of July 18th and made reservations to leave July 26th on a British Airways flight to London. Oran would stay one night, then fly on to Dallas, and I would stay 4 more nights as a concession for our not stopping in Athens again, which I had wanted to do. I started getting organized in earnest for the packers.
On Wednesday night I went to a dance in the gymnasium with the Kings, Yates, and some others to see a group called "The Blue Notes". My week alone went by really fast and Oran returned from the U.S. on a British Air Flight from London on Friday, June 9th, 1978, arriving at 6 p.m. Wouldn't you know it, his flight back and overnight in London were very nice.
So we made arrangements, and on Wednesday, May 31st, 1978, I flew by myself first class on a Swiss Air flight from Dallas toward New York on the first leg of my trip. But we couldn't land in New York because of a storm, so had to fly to Washington, D.C., land, and sit on the plane there until the weather cleared in an hour or so, then flew back to New York City.
Four days later, on Wednesday, April 26th, 1978, we left on our vacation at 12:20 p.m. on a Swiss Air flight to Athens, Greece. We were finally going to see Athens, and it was worth the wait. A beautiful, modern, yet ancient looking city greeted us as we drove in from the airport.
Three months prior to the end of my "tour of duty," I met a young man from Syracuse, New York, named Charles Felice. This was his second assignment to Arabia and he worked in the Accounting Department. He had a little sports car Singer that he drove around camp.
After working a year with ARAMCO you were entitled to a short leave of absence. Reservations, itinerary and plans were always made in advance for this welcome occasion. It was the fall of 1952 and I had made plans to visit Cairo, Rome, Switzerland, and Istanbul.
The secretary “pool” was in a building in Dhahran. One day a tall, handsome man came in and said that I was to be moved to his office in Abqaiq, forty miles into the desert where a community of many families and homes was built around a water separation center. I later discovered that this man was Jack Symons, Superintendent of the Exploration Engineers Department.
It was the desire to earn and save enough money to buy a car that convinced me I should answer an ad in the Phoenix Arizona Gazette for secretaries wanted in Saudi Arabia with The Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO).
So our impending departure was the reason I felt like I had to turn down Art Spitzer's offer of a full-time job when I returned to work. Kay Hays, in Work Orders, was leaving and he needed to fill that position. I felt like I should be honest with him, so he could find someone who would be a permanent replacement.
It was the winter of 1952. Aramco had just produced its 300 millionth barrel of oil. The Administration building was so new that the parking lot is still unpaved.
So life went on. Sandy and Jack Adams had asked an Arab friend, Ahmed, to come to their condo one night to fix an Arab style dinner; so on Thursday, March 16th, 1978, Sheila, Keith, Oran and I, and a few people Sandy worked with, joined them to enjoy that.
As Ken and Mildred Webster wrap up their long leave over the summer of 1955 – having completed a month-long tour of Scandinavia before returning to Ken’s hometown of Greenwich, Connecticut, to visit relatives and friends for the summer...
That same Friday, February 17th, 1978, there had been the first tournament at Udhailiyah's new golf club, Wadi Al-Saeed Country Club. Although things were going full steam ahead there and he had no more problems with the government, Roy Steindorf had decided he had rather go back to the States than move down there permanently.
In retrospect, I’d have to say that Aramco’s school system was superb. The company was fully committed to education even though it was very costly. I admit that I didn’t always pay attention to my teachers, but a few of them made a big difference in my life.