In Oklahoma, there is no rule for naming an oil well.  Many companies use the name of the mineral owner but there is no law that says you have to.  Because of this, the well name is whatever the operator wants to give it and this has resulted in some whimsical monikers through the years.

Toward the end of the last oil boom there was a Kansas operator named Wild Boys Land Cattle and Oil Company, and they were often more whimsical than most when it came to naming their wells.  Here are some of their well’s names:

Face the Fire #2

Rock Salt Blues #1

Nose to the Wind #1

Slapping Leather #1

Muddy Streets and Dollar Baths #1

Against a Crooked Sky #1

Rawhide #1

Out on Bail #1

It’s Just Crude #1

Saddle Sores #1

Shotgun Rider #1

Fistful of Dollars #1

Shootout in Lake City #2

Having a Few Beers #1

On the Rocks #8-C

Riding Thunder #1

Whiskey Hills #1

Snake Bite #1

Riding into Hell and Back Again #1

Hell Ain’t Ready for Us Yet 2-2

Eatin’ Dust and Drinkin’ Whiskey #1

And my own personal favorite:

Holdin’ Five Aces #1

Oil drillers are generally a superstitious lot and some say it is bad luck to use any name other than that of the mineral owner.  There may be some truth to this superstition as many of the above wells were completed as dry holes.

Maybe, but what I’ve always heard and believe to be true is never name a well after your wife, your mother, your daughter or your girlfriend.  Why?  I haven’t a clue.

http://www.ericwilder.com

The oil business is either the world’s worst addiction or an incurable disease.  There is nothing that hurts more than learning that the prospect you tried for a year to get drilled is, in fact, a dry hole.  Conversely, there’s nothing more viscerally satisfying than hearing oil pour into a frac tank after perforating a zone you had doubts about.

During the last oil boom, my wife Anne and I had a mom and pop oil company.  We had leased enough acreage to drill a single well but had taken options on the offset leases just in case we were successful.  The problem is our options were ready to exercise before we managed to raise the money to drill our first well.  When we finally raised the money, we had a week or so to make a decision that would cost many thousands of dollars if we guessed incorrectly.

We were looking for two elusive zones, the Misener and, or, the Skinner Sand.  Either zone a company maker, we had a lot riding on the well’s outcome.  We finally drilled the well and it was late at night when we pulled the final electric log to the surface.  Anne and I were heartbroken when we learned that the Skinner was structurally low and nonproductive, the Misener nonexistent.

We set pipe anyway because there is a massive carbonate in the well called the Mississippi Lime in the well bore that almost always produces, albeit sometimes in less than commercial quantities.  A full moon lit the sky as Anne and I drove away from the location late that night.  Anne was sobbing softly.

“I can’t believe our first well is such a disaster,” she said.

“Don’t give on her just yet.  You never know what a Mississippi well will do until you frac it.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she said.

Maybe I was.  Still, when we fractured the well a week later, it began producing 400 BOPD, along with lots of natural gas.  The well was a monster and we needed four oil tanks to handle its rate.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t believed my own hype and had let the offset options expire.  Another company picked them up and eventually drilled four wells as good as ours.

We went on to drill thirty more successful wells in Oklahoma before the oil bust finally caught up with us.  Our first well continued to produce, as did the others we drilled, but Anne and I were already on the outside looking in.

Somehow we managed to survive and I have drilled many more wells since then.  I’m still just as blown away when I drill a dry hole and just as elated when I hit a big one.  I don’t really know if it’s an addiction or a disease but I do know that I have a bad case of oil fever, and there is no known cure.

http://www.ericwilder.com

The protagonist of my first novel, Ghost of a Chance, was Oklahoma cowboy detective Buck McDivit.  A mysterious lake in east Texas was the backdrop for the novel that highlighted lost Confederate gold, Indian artifacts, the ghost of a girl, and murder.  I’m presently working on a sequel to Ghost of a Chance, this time with the action occurring in Oklahoma.

The working title of my new book is Panther Stalking and the story involves modern-day cattle rustling, a compound populated by female pagans, and of course, murder.  I’m about twenty thousand words into the novel.

Before starting on Panther Stalking I wrote a Buck McDivit short story to reintroduce myself to a character that I haven’t visited in almost three years.  Prairie Thunder plants McDivit back in his home turf of central Oklahoma.  Moonlighting as an assistant medical examiner, McDivit helps investigate the death of an American Indian artist.  The story leads him to Oklahoma City’s historic Paseo District.

Anyone who read Ghost of a Chance and is interested in reconnecting with Buck McDivit is invited to visit my website http://www.ericwilder.com.  Sign my list and I will email you the short story in PDF format.  Thanks – Eric.

Here is a pic of the Chesapeake Energy campus in Oklahoma City.  Construction is rampant and there are probably more construction cranes in operation (at least twenty) than most any place in the country.

http://www.ericwilder.com

By the time you read this, this story won’t really be news anymore.  Still, it’s a landmark that I personally will never forget.  Maybe more important is the closing price for natural gas, almost $9 per MCF, the highest it has been in fifteen months.

I remember in October, weather forecasters were predicting yet another warm winter, this time because of an impending el nino.  I don’t know what happened to el nino, and the weather forecasters sure aren’t talking about it any longer.

So much for weather forecasters, and the oil and gas prognosticators.  I think at this point in time, your guess is as good as mine – and everyone elses, for that matter!

Thank goodness it’s almost time for NCAA’s March Madness.  At least we all know who will win that tournament!  Oh yeah? Well if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to sell you.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Oil Closes Above $100 for First Time - AOL Money & Finance.

Yesterday's story about my old Triumph TR4 reminded me of another story.  When I quit Texas Oil & Gas, I gave up my company car, a maroon Plymouth Fury that I dearly loved.  I owned the TR4 that I had bought from my friend John, and a Triumph Bonneville 750 motorcycle that I had yet to sell to him.  Neither car nor motorcycle was the picture of reliability.  I left TXO to pursue fantastic riches as an independent oil man.  Being young and naive I only had about a thousand dollars, most of which I had borrowed from Carol, my girlfriend of the moment, to sustain myself until my first big break.

The Triumph served me well around town but I had not ventured far from my digs at the old Woodlake Apartments where I had moved after my first wife and I finally divorced and sold our house.  When my mother got sick and needed a medical procedure, this all changed.  Packing a suitcase, I tossed it in the trunk, threw caution to the wind and headed south.  My mother survived her procedure in the Atlanta, Texas hospital and we enjoyed a good visit.  I was feeling bulletproof when I finally headed toward OKC along winding Highway 1.

Shortly after leaving Louisiana and entering Texas, a sweeping curve appears that you can easily make doing sixty.  I was tooling along at a considerably higher rate of speed when I reached the curve.  How fast?  I have no clue because, like many of the other electronic devices on the Triumph, the speedometer didn't work.  When I hit the foot peddle, I got a very big surprise.  I had no brakes.  The sickly weak peddle went straight to the floor board and remained there.

I thought that I was going to wind up in the ditch.  Instead, the tires on the little car gripped and I ended up accelerating out of the curve, my heart in my proverbial throat.  That was it!  I had no brakes.  Doing what any other testosterone laden young man would do, I decided to keep going and worry about any potential repercussions later.

The Triumph had a strong motor and excellent compression.  When you let off the gas, the car decelerated rapidly.  The car's old tractor engine had enough torque to pull a tree stump and growled like a lion on the prowl.  It made me feel vital and alive.  Don't ask how, but I made it safely back to OKC - 362 miles in less than five hours. 

I made no money during the first five months of my independence.  Finally, I earned a pittance for a consulting job.  On impulse, I bought an expensive Guild guitar with a bright red finish I somehow felt that I couldn't live with out.  It was the last straw for my girlfriend Carol and idiot was the nicest thing she called me that night.  She also called me a hopeless dreamer.  We broke up shortly after the guitar incident but I went on to make more than a quarter of a million dollars before the end of the year.  

I made and lost lots more than that during the years that followed, but I also spent many of those years at a level of near poverty.  Still, I survived and I had lots of fun along the way.  Carol was a great person and she was there for me when I needed her.  She is long gone from my life but a few things from that era still remain - my Guild guitar, my Triumph TR4, and my hopeless dreams.

http://www.ericwilder.com

When I went to work as an independent geologist in 1978, one of the first wells I had drilled was the Miller well in Garfield County, Oklahoma.  Here is a picture of the Miller, and Carol, my girlfriend at the time.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is an old black and white picture of the Pourteau Cafe in Oil City, Louisiana.  The child is Bertrand Pourteau.  The picture was probably taken sometime in the 30s.

http://www.ericwilder.com

As an independent geologist, I was once on retainer to the son of the owner’s of the Dallas Cowboys.  J.D. Murchison, Jr., son of J.D. Murchison and nephew of Clint Murchison, had started an oil company during the eighties oil boom called Murchison Oil and Gas.  To inaugurate the marriage, my partner John and I were invited to Dallas to attend a playoff game with the Washington Redskins.  Anne, my fiancée and Debbie, John’s fiancée accompanied us.

We were put up in a wonderful hotel and had dinner one night at the Murchison’s restaurant in the Dallas Tower.  I had taken only a light jacket.  By the time the big game started, the weather had turned cold.

We had fifty yard line seats, right behind the Governor of Texas.  Dallas was losing badly, even though Roger Staubach, perhaps the greatest quarterback of all time, was running the show, Dallas was losing badly.  I can’t even remember the exact score, but it was something like 38 to 7.  Finally, seeing me shivering, Anne talked everyone into leaving early.

Before we reached the lower level we heard an imposing roar.  Near the exit, we heard another eruption.  By the time we reached the car, we heard yet another roar.  We soon learned that the Cowboys had not only made a showing, they had come back and won the game, the most improbable come-back in playoff history.

Yes, we missed the ending.  Sometimes that’s the way it happens in life.  John and I went on to drill lots of wells with J.D.  Later, I even drank beer from a boot with Jerry Jones, the present owner of the Cowboys – but that is another story.

http://www.ericwilder.com

My Aunt Dot Pourteau recently published her second cookbook titled All the Foods We’ve Loved Before and I was happy to see recipes from my uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmother, and yes, even my own mother.  Dot is a wonderful person as well as a wonderful cook.  She was married to my Uncle Bertrand for many years before his untimely passing.  Bertrand grew up in Oil City, Louisiana.  He was of French extraction and his parents owned a cafe in the fabled oil town of Oil City.

To say that the Pourteau’s could cook is like saying the sky is blue.  Here is a recipe from Aunt Dot’s wonderful cookbook.  This is a very rare recipe that I don’t believe you will find anywhere else.  It was perfected by a family of French descent that catered to the ravenous appetites of the oil patch.  Try it if you get a chance and I’ll give you my Oklahoma guaranty that you won’t be disappointed.

1        large fryer (or equivalent in breast and thighs), cut up

1 1/2   medium onion, chopped

1         large bell pepper, chopped

5         cloves garlic, chopped fine

4         cubes chicken bouillon

3/4       teaspoon poultry seasoning

3          tablespoons cornstarch

            rice

            file

            olive or canola oil

Clean chicken and remove skin.  I use a Dutch oven to cook this dish in, spray bottom of pan with Pam to avoid sticking, put in the chicken skin and cook the fat out until skin is crisp.  (This fat that is rendered out of the skin helps give it a little bit mor chicken flavor).  Besides, Penny, our son Steven’s dog that is making a home with us at the time, loves chicken cracklings.

Salt and pepper chicken pieces.  Fry chicken pieces until they are light brown.  Take out the chicken and set aside.  Add onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic.  Add olive oil, if needed, to saute vegetables until they are limp.  Sprinkle vegetables with a small amount of salt and pepper.  They will smell soooo good.  Add 1/32 cup flour and make a roux.  Do not let the flour get very brown, just a light tan color.  Add approximately 2 1/2 quarts boiling water slowly to roux and four cubes of chicken bouillion.  Taste broth, as it may need to be reseasoned at this time.  Return browned chicken to broth, cook on low heat until tender (DO NOT OVERCOOK CHICKEN!).  Remove chicken from broth.  When ready to serve thicken the broth with about 3 tablespoons cornstarch in about 1/3 cup cold water.  Slowly stir the slurry of cornstarch into broth.  Let broth come back to a slight boil, then you can tell if the broth is as thick as you wish, if so return chicken to liquid and cook, very slowly to avoid scorching, about ten minutes.

TO SERVE: Put steamed rice in individual serving bowl and sprinkle with file, as desired.  DO NOT put file in gumbo while cooking.  Put chicken pieces over rice and ladle gumbo over all.  May serve with a side order of salad.  Lettuce, tomatoes, celery, carrots, and anything else you like.  Garlic bread is also good with this meal.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Happy Super Tuesday to all you political junkies and happy Fat Tuesday to all of you fun junkies.  Politics affects all of our lives and I watch what's happening with the same interest as any other concerned citizen.  Still, when it comes to being a junkie I fall into the latter category more than the former.

Many other cities celebrate the pre-Lenten season with both festivities and frivolities.  Most prominent, other than the Big Easy is Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.  Much of the year's income for many of Rio’s inhabitants is the direct result of Carnival Season.  Fat Tuesday is always the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.  Because this date, like Easter, is governed by the moon's cycles, it occurs on a different date every year.  This year, it is on February 5th, the earliest it has been in twenty years.

An official in Rio wants the date for Carnival to be on the same day every year.  This is because the earlier the event occurs, the less revenue it generates.  My close friend and fellow author r. r. Bryan, himself a devout Catholic, assures me that this will never happen.  r. r. wrote All the Angels and Saints, a novel about a Catholic missionary in Guatemala.

While a devout Catholic, r. r. is also a fun junkie who lived in and around New Orleans for many years.  His son Matt (whose birthday is today, incidentally - he as waited for this day all his life!) didn't believe it when we told him that crowds were often packed so tightly on Bourbon Street during times past that you could literally raise your feet off the pavement and remain suspended in the air.

I find it hard to believe that today is the third Fat Tuesday celebration in New Orleans since the devastation brought by the monster hurricane season of 2005.  While far from full recovery, NO is moving in the right direction.  It was 84 degrees in the French Quarter today and I sit in front of the TV watching the early voting returns, I am wishing I was there instead of here.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Last night on Nightline there was a segment on the world's hottest pepper. The pepper comes from a remote part of India and one restaurant in Chicago uses it to make what they advertise as the world's hottest chicken wings. A Nightline reporter interviewed the chef who informed him they made their customers sign a waiver before serving them their specialty hot wings. This is because the Indian pepper is 2000 times hotter than a jalapeno on the SHU scale, a scale for measuring the caipusun content (the chemical that makes it hot) in a pepper.

The Nightline reporter mentioned that humans are the only creatures that will eat a pepper. Supposedly, not even a rat can be trained to eat one. Why then are hot, spicy foods so ingrained in the diets of many cultures, Americans as well?

A psychologist interviewed by Nightline said that hot wings prepared with the super-hot pepper was probably consumed mostly by young men, often as a challenge and often during a televised sporting event such as Sunday's Super Bowl. Hot spicy foods do have at least one benefit. They cause the release of endorphins and provide the effect of something similar to a runner's high. When couples consume the spicy fare together, they are often more sexually attracted to each other. This, I guess, should make hot wings and other hot, spicy foods the date food of choice.

The report got me to thinking what else that humans do that other creatures don't. For one, only humans run marathons and play team sports, such as football. There is an important connection here that I haven't yet grasped but one thing is sure - Americans, Nightline reports, will consume 90 million pounds of hot wings during the Super Bowl. That's right, 90 million pounds!

That brings me to the Super Bowl tomorrow. The most watched television event of the year has little to do with whether the Patriots or the Giants are the best football team. It's really all about peppers, team sports and sex, and you can bet there won't be a single rat watching the event.

http://www.ericwilder.com