A driller is a paradox! He is an overall executive, a master mechanic, and a meteorologist, required to accurately predict weather changes at a moment's notice. He is a personnel director with grease under his fingernails and a witcher with extra-sensory perception for locating all dangers and minerals buried below the surface of the ground. He's a doctor of medicine, specializing in treatment of hay fever, poison ivy, chapped skins, small bruises and lacerations. And, finally, he's a chemical mixologist, who combines large quantities of mud, polymers, and resins for the purpose of dedying the laws of gravity.

A driller manages more capital equipment than most doctors, lawers and businessmen in the city, and he performs all these functions within 100 feet of the back of his truck, while wearing a hard hat, gloves and steel-toed boots.

He likes sunshine, cool breezes, good food, auctions, state fairs, his collar unbuttoned, quiet running engines and above all, a solid level spot from which to work.

Drillers are found in fields, on hills, in valleys, along roads, near bridges and sometimes at welding shops. They auger, wash, bore, mud, core, ream, grout, bail, lift, tug shovel and...learn to curse at an early age. Farmers are sympathetic to them, geologists confuse them, engineers underestimate them, salesmen wait to detain them, wives love and tolerate them, children look up to them, weather can delay them, but it takes GOD to stop them.

A driller is Faith and Fatalist. He must maintain faith to constantly meet the challenges that are pressed onto his shoulders, amid an ever present possibility that an Act-of-God, such as torrential rain, deep snow, electrical storm or soft ground can bring his business to a standstill. You can confine his ability, but you can't constrain his ambition.

He's not much for deep ditches, tall weeds, pesky insects, muddy fields or helping with the housework.

Thus, one might as well put up with him ---he is your friend, your competitor, your customer, your neighbor, your fellow-worker, a denim dressed, business wise, fast growing statesman of stature.

So when you next meet at the favorite watering hole, recognize him and recharge his spirits by lifting your glass and saying, "This one's for you".