In ancient times, I was slavishly loyal to the products and services of the people of the Humble Oil Co., and they to me. I gave them my 31 cents a gallon, filling up the Volkswagen for three bucks; they washed my windshield, checked my tires, gave me Green Stamps.

Where I lived, we thought Humble was a local brew, like Budweiser in St. Louis. Its oil came out of the ground just northeast of Houston, near the eponymous town of Humble. The locals knew that Humble (the town) had been named after an Englishman named Pleasant Humble. He didn't pronounce the "H" in his name, so the town and oil company were pronounced 'umble.

Also, Humble (the company) sponsored the radio broadcasts of Southwest Conference football games. Humble stations gave away glasses and pennants and decals celebrating Southwest Conference schools, one free with each fill-up, collect 'em all.

I was horrified when Humble stations changed their name to "Enco" in the early 1960s. But by 1972, when Enco changed its name to Exxon, I'd been exposed to American history without the Texas filter. I'd learned that Exxon's lineage could be traced to John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust.

The next year brought the Yom Kippur War, the Arab oil embargo and long lines at gas stations. For most people, this was a shock. For others, it was an opportunity.

About the time that Humble was turning into Enco, the company hired a young chemical engineer for its research office in Tulsa, Okla. His name was Lee R. Raymond. He would do well.

By 1972, when Enco turned into Exxon, Raymond was the company's chief planner for international operations. By 1984, he was a member of the company's board of directors. In 1987, he became the company's president.

In 1989, when one of Exxon's tankers, the Valdez, hit a reef and spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, Lee Raymond became the face of the company.

It was not a happy face. Raymond oversaw the $2.1 billion cleanup and helped settle a $900 million civil suit brought by the state and federal governments. But he continued to resist paying $4.5 billion in other damages awarded in other suits, preferring to put the money in the bank and drag out the appeals process.

Yes, he said, the company has a social responsibility. But let's not be ridiculous about it.

Exxon rewarded his performance in the Exxon Valdez case by making him chairman of the board and chief executive officer in 1993. He continued to do well.

He called global warming a hoax. He acquired Mobil Oil in 1999, when oil was selling for $10 a barrel. He exercised corporate social responsibility by investing in politicians. He was one of the first guys Vice President Dick Cheney invited in to discuss energy policy. He was one of the founders of the American Enterprise Institute, the neo-conservative think tank that helped cook up the Iraq War.

Over the course of Raymond's chairmanship, the stock price of Exxon and its successor, Exxon Mobil Corp., rose an average of 14 percent a year. If you had bought $1,000 worth of Exxon shares the year Raymond became chairman and reinvested your dividends, your shares would be worth $5,200 today.

Last year, on the strength of a world-record profit of $36 billion, Exxon Mobil supplanted Wal-Mart as the largest corporation in the world. "Raymond has got to be remembered as one of the best executives in many, many years — one of the best of all time," fund manager Craig Hodges told the Bloomberg News Service.

Last week, Exxon Mobil's board of directors decided to send Lee Raymond into retirement with a total compensation package worth $398 million. That brought his total compensation during his 13 years as chairman to $686 million. That works out to $144,573 a day, assuming a seven-day workweek.

Executive compensation experts say that if anyone ever was worth $144,573 a day, it's Lee Raymond. He actually produced for the shareholders, and that's where a corporation's responsibility lies.

Critics, including some Democrats in Congress, say it's just another example of oil company price-gouging and greed. With gasoline selling at retail for around $3 a gallon, how do you give a guy who helped put it there $686 million? They say this is the Exxon Valdez of excessive executive pay.

Me, I'd like to see corporations tie part of executive compensation to corporate responsibility.

I'd also like free glasses and pennants with a fill-up.