So now, after the hiatus to do the research on the Limerick O'Connor genealogy I feel like I need to get back to picking up the threads of the career journey. And so off we go to New Orleans.
I don't quite remember the travel from Indonesia to New Orleans, but I was certainly looking forward to time in the Big Easy. I had visited a couple of times before, once with Colm, Catriona and Liz when we did the "drive around America", ending up meeting Dermot in Chicago and again in the mid-70s when I was sent on a course to Exxon in Houston. This time was definitely going to be different. It started with a bang. I was picked up in a classic pink convertible of some 50s/60s vintage with the biggest tail fins I had ever seen by the son of my boss in Indonesia who also worked for Mobil. Nepotism is so useful! We drove straight to an oyster bar in the French Quarter where we spent a very pleasant afternoon eating oysters and drinking beer. Bill, my new friend, was very attuned to the social life and so subsequently there was no shortage of fun things to do.
Of course, the job was a bit daunting. It was very much a big promotion with a lot of responsibility. All of the other Producing Managers in Mobil were in their 50s and I was thirty eight. I was responsible for all of Mobil's production facilities across the Gulf of Mexico, which led, while visiting offshore oil platforms, to amassing a ton of helicopter miles. I was also very conscious that my predecessor, a highly regarded manager, had been fired because some underling had dumped a load of drilling cuttings somewhere he shouldn't have. I managed to disguise my early fumbles and gradually came to grips with the extensive responsibilities.
The work was, of course, leavened by the fun times to be had. We rented a lovely looking period house which admittedly was a little tired inside. But it did have the merit of being close in to the city. We had a nanny, a nice girl of Irish extraction, whose father, Redmond Clancy Walsh, had been a friend in Abu Dhabi, right up until, completely plastered, he drove his car one night across one of the few grassy roundabouts in Abu Dhabi. He was promptly thrown in jail where outsiders had to bring him food! I think he was expelled upon his release. Anyway, Roisin, his daughter and our nanny, didn't have a visa for the US and coming back from vacation after maybe a year with us, was twigged by US Customs on her way back in and was peremptorily sent packing. So on our next vacation in Ireland we recruited a young wan from the blue collar Northside of Dublin. Not alone was she useless but she was constantly a troublesome handful. I'm amazed to this day that the children survived somewhat intact with just a series of contusions and abrasions from her lack of child minding ability. Although I find it hard to believe, Liz tells me that she ultimately married a wealthy American. Anyway, for us it was good riddance when she left.
Mardi Gras was a great occasion in New Orleans, although after a while we learned that the natives chose the week of the parades to get out of town and go skiing. In my job I was fairly frequently given "treats" by contractors who hoped to get work from Mobil. One of the best was an invitation to the Ball for the King of Mardi Gras. This was a glittering affair with the evening's entertainment provided by Fats Domino. It was fantastic. Of course we had too much to drink and driving home around 2 in the morning I was stopped by the cops for sobriety testing. Neither Liz nor I could pass, so the cops parked the car and drove us home. Very considerate, New Orleans. The next morning, when I finally woke up, I had to call the cops to ask where my car was parked! On another occasion we were wandering through a nearby park and came upon an open-air concert by The Righteous Brothers.
New Orleans where we were was very much a well-to-do society surrounded by a great majority who were barely getting by. Hurricane Katrina bared this side of New Orleans for all to see. It was also discreetly a racist society. Our landlady, of old stock, felt she had to enlighten us about not having anything to do with the majority populace. Our street was not that long, maybe 40 houses in all, and there were some families with kids of somewhat similar age to ours. We were also friendly with a couple who were very nice and who had a young boy and girl. I remember an evening at their club where we had a basin of crawfish plunked in front of us (as did all the other diners) that we spent hours topping and tailing and devouring. The kids walked to school locally and soon developed a "Gone With The Wind" southern accent, fortunately only temporarily.
On occasion we drove to the Florida panhandle to enjoy a few days on the beautiful white sugar beaches. I joined a golf club and we also toured the area and visited the old plantation homes. Of course we had our share of hurricane alarms. This meant a run to the supermarket to buy what was still available after the experienced ones had been in first. One time I was at a Mobil meeting in a hotel along the gulf coast in Mississippi. The speaker was droning on and I was daydreaming looking out of the big picture window at the Gulf of Mexico. I noticed what seemed to be a procession of boats all heading in the same direction. Next thing there were workers outside nailing up sheets of plywood to the windows. Somebody finally raised their hand to ask what was happening — we found out that a hurricane was rapidly heading our way and we were to speedily evacuate. By the time I drove home all the roads heading north from New Orleans were jam packed like parking lots so there was no sensible way to leave. Fortunately we were not hit. Most of the time the climate is warm and sticky, but there was one exception. We were sitting down to Christmas dinner when an unexpected freeze froze our water pipes, which are predominantly above ground because of the high water table. So out I went with an extension cord and a hairdryer and saved our dinner.
The Big Easy certainly had a way of doing business that was friendly, easy and connected as between the oil companies and their local suppliers. I was invited to the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge to meet the governor, Edwin Edwards and his brother. They wanted Mobil to contract with them for the supply of drilling materials. Needless to say I never did anything about the entreaty. However, the FBI must have been keeping tabs on callers to the mansion, because some time later I was visited in my office by two FBI agents who spent a lot of time quizzing me about my interaction with the Edwards people. Luckily for me, I suppose, that I was as innocent as could be. That was probably 1984. Governor Edwards was in lots of scrapes subsequently and the government finally nailed him in 2001. He served 8 years in the penitentiary.
One of the strange career things that happened in New Orleans was that I was asked to take on the role of Planning Manager, a downgrade of 2 ranks in the Mobil hierarchy. This was so unusual a request that it was pitched to me by a very senior person who came down from New York headquarters just to twist my arm in person. I presumed that this was just a rotation to round out my career experience, but in fact it turned out to be preparation for my next assignment, even though I didn't recognise it as such. The job was responsible for running all the economics for the investments the New Orleans business advocated and for then putting together a budget. About this time we got a new General Manager, Bob Mills, with whom I had worked in both Libya and Indonesia. Each year in September the GMs and Planning Managers from all the Mobil companies around the world met in Scottsdale, Arizona to sort out the mashed-together total budget for the Corporation. This was a gruelling experience with a myriad of changes to the budget numbers as the quart of requests for funds were squeezed into the pint pot that corporate allowed for the E&P Division. Numbers were re-run each night after the day's reviews and then I re-wrote the script for Bob to read to the Directors the following day. The reviews were harsh and more often than not bad-tempered. None of us Planning Managers escaped frequent criticism — totally undeserved, I might add, but a learning.
Finally, the reason for my rotation to Planning Manager became clear. In late 1985 I was appointed General Manager of the Mobil affiliate in the Netherlands. This was exciting on a number of fronts. We would be close to Dublin, I would be my own boss — though of a small business — and it seemed like a number of the people I knew from Abu Dhabi who had joined Shell would be in The Hague at the same time. And so in January 1986 we packed up for the move. On the final day of packing the removal van we had just a few items left, including the still plugged-in TV, when we saw to our horror that the space shuttle Challenger had just exploded. It was January 28, 1986.
