The RIde Group

During all this period of marrying Jean, having a family and doing the things associated with that, I was of course working at Shell. Living where we did I had an easy commute to work — the distance was not more than six to seven miles and there were several alternative routes, so that if the freeway was slow because of the traffic problems, there were several city-street paths to reach Emeryville.

When we were first married I simply was a paying member of the group that rode in Elmer Anderson’s old green Chevrolet. The Andersons lived up the hill back of us somewhere so he just picjked me up on the way. Later it became a ride share group which, after a period in which there was a frequent turnover of membership, settled down to four people, myself in chemical, later process engineering, John Illman a couple of blocks away from 411 Bonnie Drive, and John Pezzaglia, farther away down by the El Cerrito high school, who were both chemists in product of Process development, and Hank Gillette, who was a technician in instrumentation.

This four-member group was in existence for a long time; all the members had been “typed” I think as to their potentiality in the Shell organization and weren’t likely to be transferred away from Emeryville — I think there was a tacit recognition of this by the four individuals. Because it was a four-member group one of use would have to drive twice eery fourth week, but riht now I can’t recall what day of the week this extra day fell on. I do remember that Pezzaglia always wanted to drive on payday — he always went to the bank with his paycheck. So sometimes there was some switching of driving days.

The Pezzaglias were sort of nominal members at Epworth; Jean and I sort of joked that Phil might show up a couple of times a year like at Easter and Christmas. When Shell moved to Houston, I lost touch for the most part with the ride group; the three other members did not go to Houston. I guess they were all old enough to qualify for retirement and Shell didn’t regard them as worth the transfer expense.

I’ve completely lost touch with John Illman — he had been in detergent research and went with Shaklee. Pezzaglia was close to 60 years of age and stayed on at Emeryville, helping to attend to the last details of closing out the place. He probably continued working for Shell a year or so after the move to Houston. We’ve seen them infrequently over the years at such events as the Shell Christmas party.

Similarly with Hank Gillette. Hank never married; during much of the time I knew him his mother lived with him in a small house down on Everett Street. He had ridden with me to work when I lived at 931 Seaview, so I knew him for a long time. A rather quiet personality, a quite capable worker in his way. He walked with sort of halting step — not really a limp — as he had injured a foot sometime and I think the gait he adopted to accommodate the hurt persisted after it had healed. He would usually come to the Shell Christmas party so I would see him there when we changed to attend; we also saw him once when we house-sat the Art Sanford house on one occasion when they were off on a trip.

Art was the janitor at Epworth and we knew him and his wife from Epworth. How we happened to set up the house-sitting I don’t recall. Their home was in the same vicinity as Hank’s house and we saw him when we were out for a walk.

The Sanfords had a dog that we were supposed to take for a walk, and that is the reason we were out walking. Taking the dog for a walk at the Sanfords was quite an experience. During most of the time the dog was confined either to the house or then fenced-in backyard. He liked to be out for a walk and when he detected the least movement toward someone taking down his leash he would come bounding. How he would detect this when he was asleep on the rug several rooms away is beyond my understanding.