Here I sit at the end of another New Year’s Day and wonder if it sets the pattern for what I will be doing all year. I’ve watched so much football there is a blur of red, orange, white and other colored figures running before my eyes. I had told Mary that I would shell pecans while watching the games, but forgot it until too late.

 

We did have our traditional black-eyed peas and hog jowl for dinner, so maybe Good Fortune will smile upon us anyway.

 

We wish for each of you a 1982 that is full of happiness, good health and good fortune. Should misfortune or sorrow come your way, may the Good Lord give you grace to bear it.

 

 

We had a wonderful Christmas. Part of the time we were out at Odessa and Kermit with Mary’s sons and families. The grandchildren are getting so large now that some of the Old Santa thrill is gone.

 

The recession and high interest rates have hurt the building industry around here, but you don’t notice it out there. There are worlds of new homes, apartments and condominiums being built in both Odessa and Midland .

 

The oil crisis is causing a lot of activity out that way and people are flocking in so fast there is not enough living space available. It is reported that some workers even sleep and live in their cars. The oil business is so good out there, one could say that the country has gone from rigs to riches.

 

We drove out to see the Wink Sink, or as some call it, the Kermit Hole. It is that sib sink hole or cave-in that happened all at once out there last year; and it makes a pretty good site to se.

 

It is a big round pit that is 300 feet across, so is nearly as large as a city block. It is about 75 feet down to the water which is said to be several hundred feet deep, so you see it is quite a cavity. The banks are nearly straight up and down now, but there are large cracks back 100 feet or more now, so in time more of the banks will fall in and gradually fill in some of the space.

 

The Kermit-Wink highway is about 200 yards from the sink and the Shell Oil people have a large tank farm about the same distance in another direction. The Gulf Oil Co. had a 30 inch water pipe line nearby that had to be moved, but there are already some cracks in the earth near the new location.

 

We came back by Robert Lee where we visited with Mary’s girlhood friends, the Finis Harmons. Finis is in the sheep and cattle business, so I got to give him some good advice from my past experiences. Don’t know how much of it he will use.