Chuck Hassler

I used to work at this here paper a long time ago. Dave Bonner gave me a shot which I’m sure he regretted more than once during my 12-year tenure, but for me it was the best job I ever had. I was in my 30s and had cast about the oilfield, enduring the boom bust cycle, so sitting at a desk and tapping out streams of consciousness stuff on the keyboard seemed a real improvement on pulling slips on a drilling rig floor or running tubing on a workover rig, or digging a ditch with my old friend, the shovel.

My kids and wife needed me to make a steady income and provide some stability and the Tribune did just that. I was amazed that people would read and actually like what I had to say. The people I worked with were remarkable in their patience and tolerance. They put up with my mercurial temperament and frequent errors, my rebellious nature, all of it. I owe a debt that can never be repaid to Scott Hagel, Dennis Davis, Milt Ontiveroz, Terry Baker, Steve Moseley and Judy Tipton. I know for a certainty I was a pain in the ass. I still am.

But the paper became an extension of my family and not just the write staff, all of them. That goes back to Dave. He captained the Good Ship Tolerance, and I was the chief beneficiary.

The stuff I wrote about is the stuff I’ll write about on this go round. You could call it my redemption tour. The world is a helluva mess now, but it was then too. We human beings seem to have a talent for that. But maybe we can share a laugh or cry together and make it a tiny bit easier. That’s what I hope to do.

A week or two back I read Tim Harvey’s obituary and felt the all too familiar sense of loss that accompanies getting old. Tim and I were classmates and later roughnecked together. Still later he was my ditchrider and frequently stopped for coffee. I knew his family pretty well too, having worked for his dad on a workover rig and roughnecking with his gentle giant brother Bill.

In the late 70s Tim and I were working on Manning Rig 17 in Little Buffalo Basin. It was fast hole drilling to 4,000 feet and we were rigging up and tearing down every two weeks. It sucked because you were always cold when the boiler wasn’t running and making heat. So as soon as you could you wanted to fire the boiler.

On the particular morning I am thinking of, Tim and another guy were attempting to get the balky thing fired when something went wrong and it blew. I was some distance from it and when I turned toward it, the door blew open and Tim, a large man, was running. He was wearing one of those cheap foam lined orange hoods you could buy at War Surplus and it was ablaze. Man on fire. I can’t remember if he dropped and rolled or if somebody tackled him, but the fire was put out. His eyebrows were singed off but he was alive. He had another 50 years of living before his time was up, and I’m grateful for that because he was my friend.