Interviewer(s): E. Bernier. Cut Off, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I received R.J. Cheramie's name from Raymond Dupre. Mr. Dupre seemed hesitant to give any names but then decided that the President of the Exxon Retirees Club would be a good person for me to talk to. R.J. was skeptical at first as to what our future purposes were for the information we were going to be gathering. After I explained that the interviews would be for posterity's sake for a large part, he agreed to the interview wholeheartedly. He lives down in Cut Off and is familiar with the "down the bayou" families such as the Cheramies and the Chouests. R.J.'s house is filled with furniture and pictures from the Orient. It is strange to see such foreign objects in a house in southern Louisiana. R.J.'s wife is pleasant but left us alone down in the den.

R.J. is from south Louisiana. He went to the Marine Corps out of high school, returned home and went into shrimping, and then went to work for a contract drilling firm. He then got a job with Exxon and when the company got rid of its drilling rigs in the mid 1950's, he was transferred to the production department. He worked for Exxon for 37 years. Seven of these years were spent overseas in Burma and Singapore. He is extremely loyal to Exxon and says so several times during the interview. He insists that he was railroaded into becoming the Exxon Retiree's Club president but has enjoyed his duties.