...We were fully integrated into the community of young men of Electra. I discovered that Texans were welcoming to newcomers, and I soon felt right at home.
Anyone who has seen the movie ''The Last Picture Show'' or read the book might recognize Electra, Texas. The Larry McMurtry novel was set in this approximate locale at this particular time - 1954.〔Larry McMurtry is a native of Archer City, Texas, not Electra, but Jasper "Jake" Smith, III, son of then Louisiana State Representative Jasper K. Smith, is making a loose comparison. The novel was during the Korean War, which ended in mid-1953.〕 The residents were pretty accurately portrayed in the novel. The main pastime for my cohort group was drinking beer and fighting. Some of the local toughs liked to travel to Wichita Falls to pick fights with airmen from the local Air Force base. I tried to avoid these fisticuffs since it was certain I would get my ass kicked.
Electra was dry and dusty with hardly any big trees. The fields were covered with mesquite bushes, six to eight feet tall covered with two-inch thorns. People outside Texas had not yet discovered that mesquite is a powerful aromatic wood for smoking meat; so this prickly bush was considered a great nuisance, rather than a potential resource. The main assignment for us college boys working in the Electra oil field that year was to cut down mesquite bushes which crowded in on the oil fields. ... We would start whacking away at the mesquite bushes. By the end of the day, most of us were covered with bloody punctures from the sharp thorns. After a few days, these injuries usually became infected, causing one or more of the young roustabouts to visit the company doctor. About midway through the summer, the company decided that this mesquite project was getting to be too risky; so we were given other assignments.