Sam Allen almost always hitched a ride to work with his best friend Floyd. The plant was only a 10-minute drive from his Deer Park home across Texas Highway 225, but he liked to save on gas.
Theirs was the graveyard shift, starting after supper and running until 6 a.m. The smell of sulfur hung in the air as they approached the chemical complex. A chorus of cicadas hummed from beyond the parking lot fence as Sam strapped on his hard hat and respirator. Above, a canopy of metal pipes bloomed in all directions; within them, deadly substances raced.
Sam, my grandfather, worked as an operator for most of his nearly four-decade career. He started in 1959 at Diamond Shamrock, one of many
