The months passed far too quickly. Pat Holloway immersed himself in business with more preparation than production, sorted through a variety of details that always had a way of becoming tangled up at the last minute. He was not expecting the phone call when it came. The news was devastating. Pat Holloway continued to hold the telephone to his ear long after the brief, somber message ended, and the dial tone began ringing. He had heard the message. He did not believe it. No. He did not want to believe it.
Bill Browning was dead. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Far too young. A man in good health. Everybody said he was. A man in the prime of life. A husband. A father. Wealthy. Respected. A community leader. He had it all. His heart failed while he was jogging in the mountains of New Mexico, and no one even knew it was worn out. He was forty-six years old. Holloway glanced at the calendar. The month would forever be etched in his brain: September. 1976. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He suddenly felt tired and a little worn out himself.
Bill Browning had been more than a partner. Bill Browning was his friend. Holloway poured himself a whiskey and drank to the memory of Bill Browning while the memory was still warm.
By morning, Pat Holloway found himself running a one-man operation with the obligation to buy thirty thousand dollars worth of leases for a bunch of Browning kids so they could beat the government out of an estate tax. He would have rather been working with Bill. He knew Bill. Bill Browning had never been afraid to fight the good fight.
Down in Houston, the officials at Exxon were holding a series of closed door meetings with their attorneys. They had been wronged, they said. Some little upstart oil exploration company in Dallas had stolen their name, and Exxon claimed that their name was worth millions of dollars to them. Their name stood for strength and quality and integrity, and they wanted it back. The trade name of Humble Oil & Refining Company had been on the books since 1917, and it had a revered place of honor in the annals of Texas oil history. Forget the fact that the oil giant had spent more than twelve million dollars in advertising and promotion to announce worldwide that it had changed its name to Exxon. It no longer wanted to employ the name of Humble, but Exxon would fight like a wounded tiger to keep anyone else from using it.
In spite of throwing twelve million dollars at television, in print, and on radio, much of the country still regarded the company purely and simply as Humble. People had grown up with the name and had probably filled the tank on their first cars with Humble gas. They gathered around their radios and went to the games with Humble, listening as the legendary Kern Tips broadcast the top Southwest Conference football clash on those brisk Saturday afternoons in autumn. At least, that’s what Exxon officials claimed, and they weren’t about to let some two-bit lawyer named Pat Holloway, who owned a two-bit oil company, steal their precious and glorious name. In a stern letter, Exxon demanded that Holloway give back the name.
In a letter just as stern, Pat Holloway said, more or less, to hell with Exxon. As far as he was concerned, Exxon had, by its own volition, abandoned the name of Humble. If company officials didn’t believe him, all they had to do was drive around the country and check the name on company service stations. Exxon. That’s what the signs said. Not a damned one of them said Humble. The only place any of the officials could find Humble was on his business card: Humble Exploration Company.
Exxon, trying to avoid a public skirmish, made an effort to settle the problem the only way it knew how. Exxon offered Pat Holloway a million dollars if he would agree to drop his use of the name and merely go away. He was a small fish. Exxon owned a big pond. Company officials decided it was worth a million dollars just to rid themselves of a nuisance. One well could produce a million dollars worth of oil by sundown.
Pat Holloway refused to negotiate. First, he told them, “I don’t need a million dollars.” Secondly, he said, “It would be a lot of trouble for me to go around and change the name of Humble Exploration on all of the wells and lease signs I have.”
“We’ll still give you the million dollars, Exxon said, and we’ll pay for all of the expenses you incur changing the name you’ve placed on your wells and on those legal documents associated with your leases.”
Pat Holloway smiled. “No deal,” he said.
“Humble is not your name,” Exxon said.
“It is now,” Holloway said.
He knew he was bound for court. Had known it all along. Exxon would not stand for someone telling the company no and hell no. Exxon did not like it a damn bit. Exxon had a fight on its hands.
Exxon fired the first volley with a threatening letter, no doubt written by some lawyer who didn’t believe that anyone had enough money to go to battle with a giant. He did not know Pat Holloway. Within legal circles and behind the closed doors of a judge’s chambers, his rambling answer became recognized as a classic. It was pure Pat Holloway. He calmly explained why he and Bill Browning had originally chosen the name of Humble Exploration for their oil company:
When Bill and I decided to go into the oil business, one evening over drinks after temporarily exhausting the subject of women, we agreed that while our many virtues and various attributes were undoubtedly sufficient to assure our success in the oil exploration business, both of us could, in all honesty, be somewhat deficient in humility, and we decided that while this might be no handicap in the pursuit of women, it could conceivably prove to be a detriment in the pursuit of hydrocarbons, particularly since neither of us had any prior experience in that field. We decided that it would be advisable not only to adopt an attitude of humility but also, as an added safeguard, to remind ourselves daily of the desirability of that particular attribute by reference thereto in our corporate name.
Pat Holloway’s letter also addressed Exxon’s grave concerns that the similarity between the names of Humble Exploration and Humble Oil & Refining might result in great public confusion. He wrote:
We were, of course, aware of the former existence of Humble Oil & Refining Company and that it had changed its name to Exxon. To avoid any possible confusion on anyone’s part between our company and the former public identity of Humble Oil & Refining Company (which your company had then recently spent untold millions of dollars changing over to “Exxon”), we did not include in our corporate name any reference to ”Oil” or “Refining” or “Gas” or “Petroleum” or “Hydrocarbons” or “Energy” or any other such word as might conceivably lead to confusion between the two organizations.
The principal reason we chose “Exploration” was because it aptly described our principal proposed (and to date actual) activity. A subsidiary or affiliated reason was that it was most likely to eliminate any possible confusion between us and the former name of your domestic affiliate since (1) the word “Exploration” has never (so far as I know) been included in the name of any of your vast menagerie of subsidiaries or affiliates, and (2) your company, in the years immediately preceding 1974, had not exactly been noted for its exploratory activities in the contiguous United States (where we intend to operate exclusively) except for your domestic exploration efforts offshore.
Pat Holloway fully explained that Humble Exploration was a very privately owned company, with only three shareholders, and no salaried employees. Zero. It does not sell any products or services or deal with the general public in any way. It does not do business with any trade or industry suppliers who could confuse us with you.
However, Holloway was forced to admit, without any hesitation, that one troubling instance of confusion did apparently exist. He wrote:
I must confess that I did receive a call last fall from an irate lady demanding to know (1) what the heck I had done with Kern Tips, (2) did I or did I not intend to broadcast the Southwestern Conference football games on the radio this season and (3) if
