Obituary - Fred Bailey

I really enjoy obituaries particularly those in the UK newspaper "The Daily Telegraph." It's not a morbid thing rather the opposite - I think it's a celebration of life - explorers, doctors, jockeys, farmers, ballet dancers, and even dictators and whores at times! it's life! Sometimes you recall a person and think yeh they should have an obituary and so here's one for Fred Bailey.
I worked with Fred back in the late 1960s; we were with Sammy Collins a madcap Texan who dredged for diamonds off the Skeleton Coast and was one of the first entrepreneurs in the offshore oil industry. We were based in Ras al Khaji, a wadi on the Saudi Kuwait border.
I don't know when Fred was born, I guess sometime about 1910 or thereabouts in Kentucky. He was a real "good ole boy drinking whiskey & rye" - a real red neck bozo you might say. He made being non-PC an artform! He referred to a gay person as "a Goddam morfradite!" - his version of hermaphrodite I guess! He often used "Bears' Ass!" as an expletive. All this was uttered in a voice that sounded as though it was condensed from gravel and whiskey. He's got to be dead now - his life style was not condusive to old age!
Fred was your quintessential North American engineer - he cut his teeth on Ford pickups, and Oshkosh rigs- he could fix anything that had an engine. He understood sidebooms, backhoes, cranes, draglines, and all the wonderful machines only Americans can make - he would make Bob the Builder look like a real beginner.
I worked with Fred smuggling equipment back out of Iran behind Kharg Island, sorting a rig snarled by a violent katabatic wind at the head of the Gulf and so on. It was only natural that Fred should come with me to the Gulf of Mexico to Morgan City on the Atchaflaya River to bring two small supply ships to the Middle East via Barbados, St. Helena, Cape Town. and finally Jazirat Shaik Shouab with a crew of Arabs but that's a story for another day.
Fred's arms were terribly scarred with burn tissue that flaked powder. I found out that he got these scars saving a young Arab lad from as ashphalt fire when building an airport runway in Saudi. It turned out the lad was one of the sons of Big Jaloee, the Lord High Executioner for the Saudis. [It's rumoured he uses a Crusader sword but stories do get embellished at times...] But one thing for sure Fred didn't know who was the lad's father - he was a poor unfortunate boy who would have died but for Fred.
So this is Fred's obituary and when you read this just say a little prayer for my old redneck friend. Posted by Picasa

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