These days, International air travel is met with a host of controls since terrorists look for soft targets, air travelers being a good example. But, in the 1950s, the restrictions on air travel were minor to the traveler. The limits were mostly about your passport with the appropriate visa and your international health record- your shot card. Leaving the country of Saudi Arabia was very easy in the old days, particularly if one worked for ARAMCO or if that person was a dependent child of an ARAMCON. They did not search our outbound bags; the traveler simply walked through a maze and into passport control, where the passport was taken. Just before we boarded the plane, they called your name and as you went through the door, there was your passport. They did not search our bodies.
One returning student, Mikey, decided to take something out of the country that looked like a weapon but it was not. It was a blank gun. I came down to the airport to see my friend off and we had a nice chat that included some things like see you next summer. Yeah, I’ll write, here’s my school address. As we were heading for passport control, my friend suddenly wheels and clandestinely forces this thing into my hand. “I’m too chicken to walk this through,” he says. I look down in my hand and it’s a GUN! I shove it into my pocket and take a quick look around with my school smiley face. Mikey gives me the blanks too.
So Mikey goes off to the States and I go home with his blank gun. No big deal, eh? It’s a cool little silver automatic-looking pistol with these little acorn-shaped charges for blanks. The acorns fit into a metal track and the track gets shoved into the back and it comes out where the barrel should be. After firing a clip, the track is sticking out. You just pull it out the rest of the way, knock out the used blanks and put in a new row of charges. I played with the little gun until I used up the blanks.
Fast forward to my freshman year of college at Iowa. My mom, sister and I have come to college together. My sister has never been to school in the States and my mom thinks I need supervision. She is right. My high school grades are average. We settle into a routine of my mother taking us to school, picking us up, and spending the year getting used to living in the States, a quiet, tree-lined street, with neighbors who work for different companies, a quiet flowing river just two blocks away- quite a different experience from Dhahran. My dad is coming here in June and we will drive to California, home leave, the summer of 1957. We start getting our things ready to pack.
One day while I am at class, mom is working in my room, looking through the clothing for the trip west. As she works through the hangers, she feels something in one of my jacket pockets. She reaches in and pulls out the GUN! When she picks us up that afternoon, I get the grilling of my life about the GUN. What am I doing with that GUN? The biggest question- why is it hidden in my jacket pocket? I tell her I forgot all about it being there. I haven’t worn the jacket in a long time. It just slipped my mind. Besides, it’s not a real GUN, it’s a blank gun. This does not appease my mother for one instant. She tells me to get rid of it. The next day I take it to the river and throw it in. I keep thinking I’m innocent; it’s Mikey’s blank gun. Maybe he’ll come back to Dhahran and want it back. But, there is no way we are taking a gun of any kind back to Arabia. I let it slip into the water and forget about it.
After college I do not see Mikey again for years, but one day the telephone rings and it’s Mikey. He is in Houston and wonders if we can get together. The company I work for has business down there and on our next trip down, I get in touch with Mikey and we meet for dinner. He’s driving a maroon Cadillac. He’s wearing a maroon suit and his shoes match the gold stripe on the Caddy’s tires! True fact! We get through dinner and spend most of the evening at a little lounge talking about those early days in Dhahran. Mikey’s folks have retired from ARAMCO; so have mine. We both miss Dhahran a lot. We talk about parties, friends, scout trips, taking a dhow for a fishing trip, desert hikes, and Gulf experiences. I tell Mikey I was in Chicago a few weeks earlier and in the hotel restaurant I hear a family at the next table talking about going back to Dhahran! I told him how I introduced myself and said I used to live in Dhahran. They smiled and said they were catching a plane the next day. I wanted to go with them. Mikey and I agreed that we would probably never get back to Dhahran. I bring up the blank gun and Mikey just nods when I tell him I put it in the river. He says he barely remembers the little gun.
Little do either of us know that in the near future Mikey will be working for ARAMCO Services Company in Houston and I will be traveling back to Dhahran as an ARAMCO employee.