The Beginning of My Retirement

Roll with the punches…

“I’m going to make a lot of money

Then I’m going to quit this crazy scene.”

River by Joni Mitchell

Like most people, I fantasized that my retirement would be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – playing golf every day, drinking Mai Tais on the beach, not a worry in the world! In the long term it may work out that way, but that’s not how my retirement started. We all believe that we have control over our lives but, in my experience, that is an illusion. To paraphrase Jimmy Buffett, you got to “roll with the punches, play all of your hunches, and make the best of whatever comes your way.”

So, let me tell you the story:

How It All Started…

I was the Region Manager and subsequently became the Vice President of Cimarex Energy’s Permian Basin Region from 2005to 2020. The Permian Basin is a geologically defined area located in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico. Cimarex was an “exploration and production company,” in other words, we explored for oil & gas by drilling wells, producing or pumping the oil & gas out of the ground and selling it to refineries so that it could then be sold to end users. Like most of the oil & gas companies that were active in the Permian Basin, Cimarex had an office in Midland, Texas. As its name implies, Midland is located at the midpoint of the railroad between Fort Worth and El Paso – in the middle of nowhere.

During my fifteen year tenure as Region Manager and Vice President of Cimarex’s Permian Region, we invested $7.4 Billion to drill 1,780 wells that discovered 572 million barrels of oil equivalent reserves in the ground and when I retired our Region was producing 180,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day(“Oil equivalent” converts 6 mcf of natural gas to 1 barrel of oil). I am very proud of this accomplishment, and I credit our success to the men and women on our Permian team and the Cimarex executive team in Denver.

The executive management group at Cimarex was getting older. There had been several vice presidents unexpectedly retire, which caused the remaining executives to direct their focus on “succession planning.” In plain terms, a succession plan is management’s way to control the timing of when the older guys get replaced by younger guys. I was an older guy, so I could see that my days were numbered. But that was okay, I was almost 65 years old and planned to retire in the next year or two anyway, so their succession plan could work to my advantage. Sure enough, the succession planners came calling a couple weeks before my 65^th birthday. After some negotiation, I agreed to continue working until March 2020 and then retire. Thecompany announced my retirement on August 2, 2019 – coincidently, that was my 65^th birthday. Happy Birthday!

The Nightmare Begins:

My dad turned 86 in July 2019. He was still active in the oil & gas business, serving on the board of directors for a couple oil & gas companies. He was also an avid golfer and loved to play gin rummy after a round of golf. He was a competitor. It didn’t matter if it was business, golf or gin rummy, he was playing to win, and he wouldn’t quit until he took your money. His nickname at Oak Tree Golf Club was “Moose,” which had nothing to do with Bullwinkle or the animal. The name originated on the golf course: one day, his golf buddies were arguing about how many strokes they should each get, and Dadput an end to the argument when he yelled, “I’ve heard enough of your whining bullshit, this is what we’re going to do…” One of his buddies responded, “Who do you think you are, Mussolini?” and from that point forward, he was known as the“Moose.”

Unfortunately, Dad hurt his back earlier that year while playing golf in Palm Springs and hadn’t been able to play golf since.Being able to play golf with his buddies was an integral part of his life and he was determined to do whatever it took to get back on the golf course. He finally decided that back surgery was the only solution to relieve the pain and allow him to play golf again. However, because of his advanced age, he had to have his cardiologist sign off before they would let him go under the knife.

On August 26^th, I received a phone call from Dad to let me know that his cardiologist had found 98% blockage in his widow-maker artery, and that he was scheduled to go into surgery the next morning at 6:00AM to remove the blockage and to place a stent in the artery. There was no way I could get a flight from Midland to Oklahoma City on such short notice, so I packed my clothes, grabbed a sandwich, filled a thermos full of coffee and jumped in my pickup truck for a 7 ½ hour drive. I arrived at Dad’s house at 2:00AM, so I was able to get a couple hours sleep before my stepmom, Donna, and I took Dad to the surgery center. The surgery was a success and the stent was in place. My brother drove from his home in Austin, Texas and arrived as Dad was being moved to recovery. Later that day, the doctor released him to go home. As we all got in the car to leave the hospital, Dad turned to Donna and asked her if she had any Levi Garrett chewing tobacco in the car. I reminded him that the doctor had said no alcohol or tobacco for at least twenty-four hours, and Dad just laughed and said, “That doctor ain’t here, is he?”

After four weeks of recovery, Dad was scheduled to have back surgery. Dad was an eternal optimist, so he was excited to undergo the back surgery because he was certain that it would get him back to normal so that he could play golf with his buddies. It sounded like he might need some assistance after his surgery, so I packed my bag and drove back to Oklahoma. After his surgery, the doctor came to the recovery room to let Donna and me know that everything went well and that the nurses would be bringing him to the recovery room in a few minutes. They brought Dad to the recovery room and transferred him from the gurney to the hospital bed and hooked him up to the IV and monitors. He was conscious and appeared to be doing okay, then suddenly he started to spasm in pain and his blood pressure monitor started flashing. The nurses were scrambling. It was horrible  to witness Dad in so much pain. I tried to stay calm, but in a loud, but calm voice I asked the nurses, “Can’t you give him some pain medication? His blood pressure is off the chart!” One of the nurses responded that she would have to get the doctor’s approval, then I yelled in not such a calm voice, “Then get it!” It seemed like forever, but they finally relieved his pain and got him calmed down. Little did we know that the nightmare wasjust the beginning…

Donna spent the night with Dad in the hospital room while I went back to their house to get some sleep. The next morning, when I returned to the hospital, the physical therapist had Dad up and walking! After yesterday’s experience, this seemed like a miracle. But the miracle was short lived. By the end of the day, Dad’s back was in pain and he was losing the feeling in his right foot. The next day, things got worse, his back was in more pain and now he couldn’t move his right leg. They performed an MRI and determined that he had a large blood clot in the area around his incision, and they thought the numbness in his leg might be caused by the clot putting pressure on the nerves in his spine. Back to the operating room for another surgery to remove the blood clot. After the surgery, the nurses brought Dad back to the recovery room, and it was Déjà vu all over again – he started to spasm in pain, blood pressure monitor flashed, I yelled at the nurses to get him pain meds, and the nurses waited on doctor approval. What a clusterfuck! Lucky I’m not in jail for killing someone!

Dad spent a couple more days in the hospital recovering from the second surgery, but he couldn’t walk. The hospital had to release him because they needed the bed. He couldn’t go home in this condition. After several stressful hours on the phone, Donna was able to get Dad into a physical rehab facility where he spent the next six weeks trying to relearn to walk. During theentire ordeal, Donna stayed by my Dad’s side while my brother and I tag teamed – my brother would drive from Austin and stay for a week, then I would drive from Midland and stay for a week. I won’t go into the details of Dad’s rehab, but I will say that the physical therapists were very professional; however, the managing doctor at the facility was an idiot. At the end of the six week physical therapy, Dad went home in a wheelchair. Any faith I might’ve had in the medical system was lost.

A Short Reprieve: 

It was the first week of December and this would be my final company Christmas party. After everything that had happened with Dad, I was ready for a blow out! The party was held in the ballroom at the local country club. Everyone got dressed up – men in coats and ties, and women in their finest dresses. The real purpose of the Christmas party was for the women to get dressed up to impress each other and for the men to get drunkand act stupid. After dinner, I called for our traditional “safety meeting” at the bar in which a few of the fun loving employees would gather for a round of tequila shots with their boss, me, to celebrate another successful year. As I recall, that was the first of many safety meetings that night. We had some good ol’ West Texas fun, two-stepping the night away! But good times don’t last long…

The Nightmare Continues:

A few days after the party, I received a phone call from my mom asking if I could drive her to her doctor appointment the next day. Mom lived in Altamont, Illinois and her doctor’s office was about ten miles away, in Effingham. Mom was a stoic – when faced with adversity, she would grit her teeth and never complain. So, if she was asking me to help drive her to see the doctor, then something was seriously wrong. I jumped on the first plane to Saint Louis, grabbed a rental car and drove ninety miles to pick up Mom and take her to the doctor.

In 2006, at age 71, Mom was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and the doctor gave her twelve months to live unless she had a stem cell transplant. Like most of us, she had heard about the horrors of a stem cell transplant – the procedure takes you to death’s door and if you’re fortunate you might be graced with an additional three to five years of life. Her initial response to her doctor was that she would rather cram her bucket list into the next twelve months than go to hell and back with a stem cell transplant. Her doctor explained to her that during the next twelve months she would experience hell with no hope of coming back. Her doctor’s explanation was convincing, and shechose to have the stem cell transplant. She knocked on death’s door but fought her way back and went on to live another fourteen years and was able to witness the birth of her two great grandchildren.

On the drive to her doctor’s office, I asked Mom to tell me what was going on, because I knew that she would never ask for me to drive her to the doctor’s office unless it something serious.She said that recently she had been feeling very tired and wouldoccasionally fall asleep during the day. That didn’t sound serious until she went on to say that last week, she had fallen asleep while driving to her doctor’s office but woke up before the car went into the bar ditch. Okay, now I got it, something is seriously wrong!

Her doctor had been treating her ever since she was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma and had also supervised her maintenance chemo treatments for all these years. Based on recent testing, he believed that her multiple myeloma was under control and thought her recent symptoms might be the result of an iron deficiency. However, to be safe, he scheduled her for a battery of tests, including an MRI. By the time I got her home, she looked frail and worn out. I had to help her get in bed. I wasn’t sure if she would make it through the night.

The next morning, Mom seemed to be doing better. My wife, Jaime, and my brother arrived later that day so we could all meetwith Mom’s doctor to review the test results. Her doctor met us at the door, and we could tell it was not going to be good news. After we sat down, the doctor explained that it didn’t appear that her multiple myeloma had become significantly worse; however, the MRI indicated that she did have significant cancerous tumors throughout her body and that she probably had only a month or two to live. Mom remained stoic as she listened to thedoctor deliver her death sentence, while tears filled the rest of our eyes. After the doctor left the room, Mom told us to wipe the tears from our eyes before we left the room because if anyone saw us crying as we walked out, they would know that she had received bad news.

We moved Mom into a nursing home and arranged for Hospice care. My brother, my wife and I spent the next six weeks, including Christmas and New Year’s, at a motel in Altamont, and we spent each day at the nursing home with Mom. It was horrible watching her slowly wither away. The Hospice caregiver tried to prepare us for the time when we would have to make the decision to administer morphine to ease Mom’s pain, but the finality of making that decision was heart wrenching. It was like giving up. The memory still brings tears to my eyes.

Mom passed away on January 4, 2020 in Altamont, Illinois a small farming community in Southern Illinois with a population of 2,200 people. A couple of hours after Mom passed away, I was scraping ice off our car’s windshield when one of the motel employees walked up and said that she was sorry to hear about my mother. I was surprised that anyone had heard, so I asked how she knew about Mom’s death, and she said that she had heard it on the radio during the “Farm to Market Report.” Obviously, news traveled faster in this small town than it could have ever traveled on Twitter or Facebook. A few days later, our family all met in Altamont for Mom’s funeral and we buried her in Effingham, the town where she was born, next to her mother and father. I was blessed to have such a wonderful mother.

Adios & Vaya Con Dios:

My final day at Cimarex Energy was Friday, March 13, 2020. My retirement was official – COVID lockdowns had just begun, toilet paper was in short supply, the stock market was in freefall, and zombies were about to take over the world. After all of this, some people might think I would be a pessimist, but actually, I’m an optimist hiding behind a veil of pessimism.

This was my final email to my Cimarex family:

I guess it’s appropriate that my last day at Cimarex is Friday the 13^th!! But no worries, I’m not superstitious, just cautious. So, I tossed salt over my shoulder and grabbed my rabbit’s foot as I began my journey into retirement.

I want to thank each of you for all of your hard work in making Cimarex one of the most successful companies in the Permian Basin. But no matter how hard we worked, it required TEAMWORK to achieve success, and I can’t tell you how proud I am that I was a member of the PERMIAN TEAM.

Rest assured that I will miss the Region Meetings, the team meetings, the prospect meetings and all the other meetings! But most of all, I will miss YOU. At the end of the day, it’s all about the people you get to work with, and I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to work with some of the best people in the oil & gas industry.

I’ll leave you with a final thought as we experience a downturn in our industry: Warren Buffett said, “You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” So, hopefully y’all have on your swimsuits, otherwise HR will come knockin’. Seriously, the tide will always go out, and when it does, it’s time to clean up your mess and look for opportunities, because you need to be ready when the tide comes back in – and it will! Keep up the hard work.

Now it’s time for me to head to the beach for a safety meeting! If you happen to be in the neighborhood, you’ll find me with “my toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world and a cold beer in my hand. Life is good today.”

Adios & Vaya Con Dios,

A Tragic Ending:

A couple weeks after my official retirement, Jaime and I sold our house in Midland and moved all of our worldly belongings to Sandestin, Florida. Closing on houses and working with the moving company during COVID lockdown was a challenge, but somehow, we got it done. Fortunately, the beaches and restaurants were closed, so we didn’t have anything to distract us from getting everything unpacked and making Sandestin our new home. Just when I thought everything was moving in the right direction, I got the phone call. It was my stepmom, Donna. She was crying. My dad had passed away that morning. He had a heart attack. This couldn’t be happening! I had just talked to him on the phone a few days earlier, he seemed to be okay, andhe had encouraged me to enjoy my retirement. Three months after losing my mother, I had lost my father.

The COVID lockdown made it almost impossible to get a flight to Oklahoma City. Fortunately, one of my dad’s friends owned a private plane and arranged for it to pick up Jaime and me at the Panama City airport and fly us to Oklahoma City to be with Donna, my brother and his family. Jaime and I went with Donna to the funeral home to say our final goodbye to my dad. It would be five more months before we could have my dad’s memorial service so friends and family could also say goodbye. Even then, there were a number of friends and family who were unable to attend the memorial service and say their final goodbye due to COVID. It was tragic.

Final Prayer:

Sometimes, I think we forget that life is impermanent, and we fail to appreciate that each moment of our life is a gift. I doubt that my dad realized that the round of golf he played in Palm Springs would be the last round of golf he ever played, and I doubt that my mom realized that the flowers she planted at the nursing home to honor her best friend would be the last flowersshe ever planted. But I have not doubt that they both found joy in that moment, even if it was their last. I pray that I can follow in their footsteps and find joy in each moment that I have remaining.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. Your comments are welcome.