.Excerpt from the new non-fiction book, Benghazi Journal by Richard Mason
Downtown Benghazi, June 1964
........While
I was downtown with the new employee’s man, he pointed out the Loffland
Brothers staff house where he said you could actually buy a hamburger. I’m
thinking that will be supper, and since it’s not but a few blocks away from the
hotel, I’m going to walk. It’s a little upsetting having to walk most of the
way in the street because most of the building are so close to the pavement
that there’s not room for a sidewalk. I’ve had to almost push my way through a
bunch of eight to ten years old kids who are faking being poor so they can beg.
I’ve been warned so I just try to ignore them. Yes, there’s the Loffland Brothers Staff House. As I walk in, I’m
really not sure what to expect, but after I see a bar and some tables, it’s
really not much different from a beer joint back home.
A big guy, and I mean big is walking
up to meet me.
“You’re new, ain’t ya.”
“Yeah, I’m a geologist for Esso.”
“Well, welcome to the asshole of
North Africa. I’m Big Six.”
I know I look a little puzzled, and
he nods and says, “Naw it ain’t my real name, but that what everybody calls me.
Actually, most just calls me “Six.””
“Well, I’m glad to meet you, Six. I’m
Richard Mason.”
“Do they call you Dick?”
“Not to my face,” I quip.
“Ha, I like that! Come on, let’s go
over to the bar, and I’ll buy you a beer.”
“Okay, but the Esso man told me I
could get a hamburger here. I’m starving so let’s order a burger with that
beer.”
“You got it…Dick!”
Heck, it was hard not to like Big Six
or Six as everyone was calling him, and after the sorriest hamburger I have
ever eaten and two beers, we really hit it off. Buddying up to Six was exactly
like talking to an old river rat down on the Ouachita River in South Arkansas. I
found out more about living in Libya and what not and what to do than all the
employee manuals and company men told me. I left the Staff House knowing I’d be
back and not only for the hamburgers. I really like being around the crews of
roughnecks from the rigs. It made me feel at home.......
