Boloney: roughneck round steak. No cheese, just one slice of meat with a smearing of Mayo smashed between two pieces of white bread. A roughneck can clench this sandwich in his teeth, throw the chain, make his tongs bite and pull the slips without losing the meat. Can’t do that with a chicken salad sandwich or leftover turkey.

I’m just a dumb old Texan, but I wonder about Oscar Meyer. Go into Piggly Wiggly and ask ‘em where they keep the boloney. You’ll find yourself in the Bologna section. Where did he get Bo-log-na? Look it up. It’s pronounced boloney. Huh? I’ll bet Italians don’t call their city “Boloney.”

I’m just saying.

I grew up on the stuff. Boloney, Spam, and Vienna Sausage, properly pronounced Vī-ēnna by any true Texican. Long i and long e. My dad used to put an er on the end. They come 5 or 6 to a tin. Thankfully I forgot how many.

Though, there was a time or two early in my oilfield career I wished I’d packed my suitcase with Bologna and Vienna Sausage instead of clothes. When the “chef” on my rig in India cooked chicken, he battered up everything but the squawk, and the pieces he served were unrecognizable. No legs, no breasts, no wings or thighs, just pieces of pieces cooked with other pieces. A battered beak still looks like a beak.

Saudi and Yemen were about the same. Come to think on it now, we had Indian cooks there, too, so …

I know of a worm roughneck who pulled out a juicy fried chicken breast his mama had prepared for him. He gnawed and smacked and sighed until he drew the undivided attention of the driller and 3 roughnecks he worked with. When he noticed them staring at him, he leaned over to peer at his driller’s round steak sandwich and said, “Wow! I can’t wait until payday. I’m going to buy me some boloney!”