Close Call

By: Andrew Selsky

Spring, 1981. I am working with a CGG crew based at Lake Viva Naughton, near Kemmerer, Wyo. Every day, we fly to work over the border in Idaho where we are shooting a line. On my first flight, the helicopter’s battery is dead, so someone walks over with another battery and we get a jump start.

I buy a tent from a departing juggie for 20 bucks or so. It rains a lot. The rain puddles inside the tent from leaks. The ground is a field of mud. There are cabins nearby from a rustic resort. During the winter, some juggies, lacking firewood, smashed the wooden furniture up and burned it all up.

Another crew is having a party under a huge tent, complete with a belly dancer and kegs of beer. Come one, come all, so of course I go, and have a great time.

During one flight back to base, I think aboard a Lama, we are overcome by a rain squall. Visibility quickly turns to zero. The Plexiglas surrounding us in the chopper may as well have a gray curtain drawn around it. You can’t tell up from down, but fortunately the pilot does. We hover, rain streaking the bubble. After a few minutes the squall passes, and we proceed.

After a few weeks, I’ve got well over $1,000 saved. I need to go back East for a personal task, so I quit my job and hitchike into Jackson, Wyo., my wallet bulging. In town, I order food at Mountain High Pizza, then go next door to the liquor store for some beer (back then, the pizza shop didn’t have a liquor license). I buy a sixer of beer. Incredibly, I leave my wallet behind (what’s that saying about a juggie and his money are soon parted?).

At Mountain High, I am digging into my pizza and washing it down with beer, when the owner Bill Field (at least I think it was Bill) comes up and tells me they’ve got my wallet next door. I instinctively jerk and reach for my pocket where I keep my wallet. It’s gone. Before I even realize it was missing, someone has found it and tracked me down to return it.

The guy running the cash machine at the liquor store was the one who found my wallet. He looked inside it and saw my Wyoming drivers license. He checked the phone book for my last name, and found my brother Paul, who lived in town. Paul told the guy I may be next door at Mountain High.

I went back to the liquor store, so GRATEFUL that I hadn’t lost my money. I remember the worker’s name was Chick. He absolutely refused to take a reward. Refused. Wouldn’t take anything. All he said was that I should do the right thing when I have a chance to. How’s that for a really good person, and a role model?