Chicken Man
By David Marks

It was Spring 1981 in Ocean Springs Mississippi.  Petty-Ray Crew 6032 maybe?  After 26 years the numbers start to get fuzzy.  The Party manager was Ken Palmer from Lucedale.  Ken was an ex-Observer with no apparent math skills.  That meant he hated surveyors.

One day Ol' Ken [Kenny Overstreet from Jackson Alabama named him "Chicken Man"] was asking the drillers what was holding them up.  They didn't have the balls to tell the boss that they ate breakfast every morning and ignored the survey crew's sketches, maps and instructions.  Instead, they told Palmer that the surveyors were moving too slow.  This was partly true.  The terrain was mostly under water at the time.  It was nasty dangerous work.  But we kept a steady pace and we stayed ahead of the drills.

Palmer came up to me in the morning meeting in front of everyone and said that the drillers told him they couldn't work because the surveyors were going to breakfast every morning and not getting any work done.  Of course, the drillers were already gone.  I told Palmer that we never stopped to eat breakfast, but like the others we stopped at Hardees drive-through often.  I told him the drillers were lying and that they were the ones who went to breakfast every morning.  I was telling the truth.  Palmer still did not believe me and warned me, in front of everyone, to not take the crew to breakfast anymore.

On that note, I called out to all the survey crew, "Load up the trucks boys!  First we're going to breakfast down at Hardees!"  Instead of the Hardees in Gautier, near the lines, I directed everyone to the Hardees close to the office on Highway 90 in Ocean Springs.  Palmer followed us.

The boys asked, "Are we getting this to go?"

I said, "Hell no!  We're eating here!"  And so we did.

Ken Palmer walked in and sat down.  I walked over to his table.  He said, "I just told you not to stop for breakfast!"

I told Palmer, and Greg Bennet, the other surveyor there, "I never took the crew to breakfast before!  But the drillers eat here every morning!  And don't you EVER accuse me of that shit again!  Or we will eat breakfast here every time you do!"

Then I finished my other steak biscuit and we went to to the field.  Hope Chicken Man Ken is doing all right.  After all, I really was telling the truth.  Poor bastard.  <grin>