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| Texas BBQ is truly delicious! |
On arrival in Canyon I found a golf course. To my great surprise I started off hitting the ball 40-50 yards further than usual. It was not until this updated post made me check the altitude of Canyon, TX: 3,500 above mean sea level. Damn! thought I'd made a breakthrough! Oh well, another day. But I did find a great RV spot on the road to Palo Duro.
Most interestingly that is where I met Bob O. and his wife, Carol. They would head to the same Canyon in the morning. Bob was a retired Air Force Captain who had worked on the Titan 2 missile project as a young officer. Unknowingly, Bob and I had crossed paths years before at the Tucson site, and now again here as we sat and chatted until dark.
More now on Bob and his post-USAF time with Honeywell. As a successful, veteran manager of a Honeywell division Bob and 5-6 other division managers were called to meet by Honeywell Corporate Executives. It appeared to Bob as a shakedown as two managers were roundly criticized for not making their numbers, and having excessive overtime. In a sense Bob was comforted by this because his division had nailed its numbers and had scant overtime. The meeting ended and as Bob and others arose to leave, the lead Executive asked if Bob would mind staying for a few minutes.
Bob was congratulated for his good work, then told that Honeywell had decided to move his division to Mexico. Further, the Mexican division team would soon arrive in his office, and that Bob's staff would be tasked to train the Mexicans in the jobs of every single employee. Bob was offered early retirement, but first he would have to fire everyone of his 150 employees.
This happens every day it seems. Honeywell is a government contractor. And when the political appointee is told to tighten the belt on this or that project, the Honeywell executives are told their funding had dried up... well, we see the warnings of Eisenhower's "military industrial complex" speech. It left Bob embittered with big business but happy in retirement. A kindred spirit Bob is.
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| These photos of Palo Dura State Park, Canyon, TX don't do justice to this remarkable landscape. It ranges 60 miles through the land 30 miles south of Amarillo. |
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| Rocko please identify these dinosaur remains. The University Museum in Canyon, TX provided labels but I thought you might give it a try. |
