Reprise: Tom, Edith, Booze

In the seventies, some 25% of all the onshore oil and gas produced in the U.S. was produced within 180 miles of Midland, Texas, the capital of hard drinking, hard living, old fashioned whoring wildcatters. Entrepreneurs to the end. Traveling with any of them was an experience.

Tom was the ultimate hard living oil man. He started his business life as a salesman with a tire company and evolved into a drilling contractor/producer in the oil business. He lived a lot longer (into his seventies) than I had predicted.

He made, lost and remade a fortune. Tom and I spoke a few weeks before he died, and he told me he was happy. "I've lived one hell of a life", said Tom. He taught me a lesson in dying.

Tom's wife at the time, Edith, was a classic, one of a kind Great looking gal but one who had too many face lifts...her face seemed frozen in time. Edith was a terrific drinking companion for Tom with an insatiable appetite for booze. Wine was for sissies.

One afternoon, I was "assigned" to baby sit Edith in the United Airlines lounge in L.A. while Tom was making a call on a stock promoter in a close town.Tom had already made his presentation to a lunch group of L.A. brokers, at the Biltmore.

On our way to the airport Edith told me that her favorite 'starter' drink was Jack Daniels, Black Label and milk. Mixed half and half in a tall water glass. She already had at least two at the hotel before we took the cab to the airport and the Red Carpet Room. I knew when she started rambling, that the day and night would be long. Real fucking long. And they were. Both long and boring.

Once Edith got into drinking motion her taste became simple...chilled vodka martinis without wine (didn't smell, or so she thought). She sipped the vodka through a sterling straw she had custom made for her by Tiffany. When she pulled that straw out of the Tiffany case I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or puke.

When Edith started sucking her martini through that straw, I wanted to capture that moment with a picture. Who would fucking believe it? A martini inhaled through a straw?

The beauty of the internet...images you can find 40 years after the fact...Tiffany Sterling Silver straw.

She was, as was Tom, a high velocity drinker. Edith had put away at least five vodka's in the Red Carpet Room before Tom arrived shouting, 'I'm fucking thirsty', in his gravelly voice. He then inhaled three or four Royal Crowns on the rocks while Edith kept pace with him until our flight was called.

On the flight from L.A. to S.F. (50 minutes) both Edith and Mike inhaled, I repeat, inhaled, at least four drinks each. That night at dinner they had after dinner drinks, by the gulps, but didn't eat any dinner. They then got into a roaring, drunken fucking argument, and we had to go back to the Mark.

The next day Tom and I made a corporate luncheon presentation at the North Beach Restaurant in San Francisco. But before the presentation, Tom had at least two Bloody Marys and then a couple of belts of Crown plus wine at lunch. I was pissing my brains out after consuming what felt like gallons of Perrier water.

Tom stayed, after the lunch, at the restaurant with two of my friends. They ordered "six packs of stingers on the rocks", waiting for the next drink was too tough for them. Their rants of drunken wisdom were too much for me. Really fucking boring and I went back to the hotel.

Edith phoned my room and asked me where Tom was. I told her and she pleaded with me to go get him as she thought she might be drawing her last breaths. So I did, feeling like an idiot. My two friends and Mike were roaring drunk and I took Tom back to the hotel. My two friends followed in another cab.

That evening, we were going out for dinner with some good friends of mine. Edith came down to the lobby lounge looking regal (she was tall) in a white dress. She announced that she felt like hell and only by drinking two water glasses of the milk and bourbon mix was that she able to join us, for the moment. She lasted about ten minutes and went back to her room to collapse.

Turned out that the hotel had sent a bottle of Jack Daniels to the room as a welcome gift. I knew that I was in for a very long night. And it was. But I found a 'diversion' pretty quick.

There was a great looking hooker sitting by herself, sipping wine and I went over and asked her if she was a "working" girl to which she proudly said "yes". She became my companion for the evening (later in the evening she saved Tom's life with the Heimlich treatment at Trader Vic's bar as he was choking on a 'cracker').

The hooker was a school teacher moonlighting as a hooker but giving blow jobs only which she didn't consider as having sex. She was okay, I enjoyed it. How could it be 'bad'?