The life of a doodlebugger family. (Photos courtesy of Leon Thomsen)

Fate must have stood by, grinning, on that day so long ago when two of us were discussing what we would like to do after graduation from high school.

Millie said she wanted to travel, go places and see things. “No,” I said, shaking my head firmly. “I’d rather stay put. I want to put my roots down.”

Millie has probably never ventured much out of our home state, but I married a doodlebugger and am just rounding out my 34th move.

My dreams of a vine-covered cottage have, in reality, become a long series of rented apartments, shacks, tourist courts and, rarely, houses. My roses and bulbs have become a succession of hastily planted zinnia beds, and my “roots” trail from California to Texas. All because I married a doodlebugger.

Think twice, all ye starry-eyed damsels who think of a permanent attachment to anyone who has the faintest trace of oil about him. Think twice — and of course, you’ll marry him anyway, if you love him enough and can pack your dreams away in mothballs.

The male doodlebugger is an odd sort of migratory bird who has early, often via a college major in geophysics, decided there was nothing he would rather do than locate oil.

Or circumstances pushed him into the occupation, for few people in their right minds deliberately chart such a course for themselves. The female doodlebugger is one who married one. And little doodlebuggers are in the worst predicament of all, because they have nothing whatever to say about their peculiar circumstances, which finds them suddenly transferred from their pet fourth grade teacher in Houston to some unknown person in Louisiana, and then perhaps again, before the year is over, to Ardmore, Texas.

The modern oil explorer takes his nickname from the doodlebugger of earlier times who claimed occult powers in the matter of locating oil by the twitch of his stick, as water also was located. The most modern equipment has not been able to erase the old name, and doodlebuggers (i.e., members of seismic crews) cling to it with a stubborn affection. When a crew, or party, moves into an area, all concerned know quite well the state is only temporary, only until the powers-that-be are satisfied they know all they need to know for the present about the location of the oil … and that may be within a month or two years. It becomes everyone’s business to outguess the party chief (who is also guessing) just how long it will be, and just where the next location will be. Then, somehow, that “certain feeling” gets in the air. A few cautious souls buy 5 lbs of flour instead of the usual 10 and hurry to finish their laundry. Things can go on in a state of suspended animation like this for a month or so; then, suddenly, when all the rumors have quieted down, the transfer order goes out.

This order is usually accompanied by the word to keep everything “top drawer secret” so that any other oil companies in the area will be unaware of the move or the next location. Whether anyone is really fooled by all this is yet to be learned but, of course, the distaff part of the crew enjoys going about being very mysterious.

When finally M-day finally comes, and with as much dispatch as the Arabs silently folding their tents, the crew packs up its precious maps and records, its dynamite and drilling mud, its pots and pans, its dogs, cats, raccoons, hamsters, children, and portable fences, and is off for the next location.

Some doodlebuggers buy and sell homes as casually as most people buy a winter coat, but most families, after the children begin to arrive, acquire the minimum housekeeping requirements and rent unfurnished quarters.

The techniques of packing constitute a whole story in themselves. First, there is “how.” I executed one move while being visited by my brother, who commented, “I can tell you have done this before.” One gains a certain skill at wrestling with roasters and rocking horses. A resourceful party chief beat the game by having several chests on casters which just fit into his baggage trailer and, presto, they could be rolled from the house up a ramp onto the trailer, and he and family could be on their way before you could say “geophysicist” (or at least spell it).

On the other hand, few of us could manage without dynamite boxes, those wonderfully sturdy wooden boxes that dynamite is packed in. Just as in Mark Twain’s day, when the wealth of a German farmer was judged by the size of his manure pile, a doodlebugger’s status is somewhat judged by the number of dynamite boxes he has been able to wrangle, and the ingenious uses to which he puts them. Not only are they useful for packing things, but they’re indispensable for kitchen and book shelves, toy cupboards, tool kits, stools, or window boxes. Even during our longest “permanent” periods, I stand weak in admiration before a stout cardboard carton, which undoubtedly would be excellent to put something in; I am totally unable to resist the temptation of a wooden box of any description, and I react fiercely if anyone tries to separate me from my barrels.

My own most staggering pack-up was managed when we were unexpectedly transferred from Tulsa to Ozona, Texas, when my son was a trifling four weeks old and my daughter 21?2 years old. Being then between cars and during the war, this move involved a major problem in logistics, to transfer the children, bottles, diapers, toys, getting them all there at the same time, via two trains, one bus, and a 40-mile (65-km) auto trip to Ozona, out on the western edge of Texas. A sympathetic manager let me wash the baby’s diapers in the hotel basement, while friends, who had already shaken themselves down in this isolated community, tried to find quarters for us. We finally holed up on the far edge of town, in a three-room shack, complete with chinks in the walls and a kerosene stove in the kitchen.

It was here I came to terms with the wasps lazily circling about the ceilings in the late autumn sun. They told me that they had a squatter’s rights in the old shack but that, considering my predicament, they’d leave me alone if I left them alone. I thought that was reasonable and gentlemanly and readily agreed, especially as I was far too busy to argue. It was here also that I made friends with an old white mare who had long used our yard for pasture and could see no reason for shifting grounds now that the house was occupied.

Wherever we may be transferred, whether it’s an individual or whole-crew transfer, we are almost certain to meet someone we had not seen since way back when: maybe we all went swimming together after the field crew came in on a hot summer afternoon, in the King River near tiny Mendota, Calif.; maybe we had wonderful Christmas parties in Texas; maybe we existed together, as a crew, in close companionship and ignored by local folks, in little towns in Oklahoma and Kansas. We avidly exchange news of mutual friends, and friends of friends, and there exists between us, by virtue of the many adventures we have had together and separately, a bond that no softer
life can destroy.

These transfers, sometimes welcome, sometimes deeply regretted, do have certain advantages, in allowing us a breathing spell in another location; it’s wonderful to be relieved of community responsibilities from time to time. It’s wonderful to be able to make clothes last longer, for the same old rags appear new to new people. It’s wonderful to see new faces, visit new places, make new friends, yet keeping the old, too, in a never-ending chain across the continent. It’s even wonderful to get rid of stuff, the trivia that accumulates with everyday living.

So, you starry-eyed damsels mentioned earlier, have you had all you can take, or can you take some more? Take the word “never,” which you must never use. It is fatal, for instance, to say you would never live in a house surrounded by mud, for as certain as there is oil in Texas, your next home will be that kind. And certainly as you say you will never move the children three times in one school year, you’ll do just that. I had my own comeuppance in this respect, for once during one of our so-called permanent stays in Houston, I announced that I would never leave our apartment until we bought our own home. The next day Erik announced our coming transfer to Kansas. Never say never.

All right, go ahead and marry the man, but don’t say you haven’t been warned. Your memories will not be dull even though your dreams are in mothballs and your bone china stored with mother. From Canada to Venezuela, from California halfway around the world to Arabia, doodlebugging crews are at work finding oil. The next time you drive into a service station and say “Fill ‘er up,” breathe a word of thanks for the doodlebugger, and say a word of prayer for his wife!

Editor’s note
Alice Barnard Thomsen was the wife of Erik Thomsen, a well-respected oil-finder for Stanolind (later Amoco) and the inventor of what is now called bright spot technology. Her son, Leon, is well known for his work with seismic anisotropy, and served the SEG as President in 2006-07. This article was written in 1951.

Acknowledgement
This article was originally published in the May 2005 edition of The Leading Edge and has been reprinted with permission.