Mexico is working hard to replace produced petroleum.

Bloomberg.com: Energy.

http://www.ericwilder.com

I began watching Steve McQueen on TV in the 60s.  He played bounty hunter Josh Randall in the series titled Wanted: Dead or Alive.  McQueen was one of a kind.  There has never been another leading man before or since that could portray his depth of emotions with little more than a blank expression that conveyed more depth in silence than any other actor can summon forth with every word and gesture they have.

McQueen never appeared in a bad movie but my favorite is The Great Escape.  He has the courage to defy the Nazi’s and escape from the concentration camp on a captured motorcycle.  When he jumps the tangle foot wire, the evil Nazis in hot pursuit, you know without being told that this is a man of substance.  Hopelessly tangled in the wire, he awaits the hoard, still defiant, playing with a baseball, the silent symbol of American resolve.

Tonight I was listening to Dusty Springfield, my absolute favorite diva.  She was singing her cover of Windmills of Your Mind from McQueen’s film The Thomas Crown Affair (watch the original and not the remake).  The song is pure poetry with words and music by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman and Michel Legrand.

Here are the lyrics and I beg you to listen to Dusty’s version.  If you’re not yet a fan, you will be.  Hey, and please take my advice and catch a few old McQueen flicks.  You’ll be hooked too, I promise.

WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND

Like a circle in a spiral,
like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it's own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that I said
Lovers walking along the shore,
Leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And a fragment of this song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
As the images unwind
Like the circle that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And the fragment of this song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

http://www.ericwilder.com

This is a very interesting comparison between the price of gasoline and the price of ethanol.

MarketBeat : Kernels From AAA Show Ethanol's Costs To Drivers.

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This is a very interesting and informative article.

MarketBeat : Big Oil and the Big Three.

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While browsing through a local used book store I came across a cookbook titled Simply Creole Cajun by Floyd J. Babineaux (Cookbook Publishers, Inc. 1986).  The lucky find was signed and inscribed by the author and it contains many wonderful recipes.  Chili might not seem like a Cajun dish but I assure you that it is eaten all over Louisiana, and this recipe might just change your mind about its origin.

CHILI MADNESS

(Original bowl of blessedness)

Whenever I meet someone who does not consider chili a favorite dish, then I've usually found some one who has never tasted good chili.  No other food has inspired the passionate following that this dish has.  Chili lovers come from every walk of life.  This recipe is straight from the Cajun and a very proud chef who modestly claims it is the world's greatest.  It is unusual, containing no onions (you may add onions, if you care to), but instead ingredients like gumbo file and chicken fat not ordinarily associated with Chili.  Try it sometime, when you are in an exotic mood.

This brew simmers for a total of 12 hours so as the Cajuns say, “You be sure and have plenty of cold beer on hand.  First off, before anything, open yourself, a few beers.  Now you know you can start.  Good luck Neg!

6 lb. beef brisket, coarse chili grind                   4 ground hot red chili

1 Tbsp. ground mild red chili                             1 tsp. cayenne pepper (Rex is the best)

2 Tbsp. dried oregano (preferably Mexican)      8 medium cloves garlic, crushed.

4 bay leaves, crushed                                        1 tsp. gumbo fillet (ground sassafras)

3 Tbsps. ground cumin                                      3 Tbsps woodruff or 2 oz., unsweet chocolate

1 tsp. paprika (you can add more to make        1 Tbsp. salt or salt to taste

chili a darker red)                                            

1/3 c. bacon drippings                                      2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 Tbsp. lime juice                                             1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard.

2 Tbsp. Masa Harina (corn flower).                  4 (12 oz.) cans beer

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce                           1 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. chicken fat                                           Liquid hot pepper sauce (Tabasco a must)

Okay Neg, time for another beer and get the pot out and call the friends.

Combine the beef with the ground chili, carib, cayenne pepper, oregano, garlic, bay leaves, gumbo file, cumin, woodruff, paprika and salt.  Heat the bacon drippings in a large heavy pot over medium heat.  Add the meat and spice mixture to the pot.  Break up any lumps with a fork and cook, stirring occasionally, until the meat is evenly brown.  Stir in the remaining ingredients (including the chocolate), if used, and the chicken fat and liquid hot pepper sauce.  Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, uncovered for two hours.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  (Add onions, if you like. I do.)  Simmer uncovered 10 hours or longer, adding more beer or water and stirring as need.  Skim off fat before serving.

Cajun tips: brown meat to gray-looking before adding any spices.  You can also add a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes.  Talk about good!!

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All geology students are required to take a course called Field Geology.  I took mine near Batesville, Arkansas where I learned how to use an alidade, brunton compass and map surface formations.  The real purpose of the course, I learned much latter, is to immerse aspiring students of geology in the sight, taste, and smell of the earth.

Like every other profession, geology is mostly male dominated.  That said, there are many excellent females in the business.  Geologists are all a weird bunch (myself included) and female geologists seem to take this trait at least one step further.

What I mean is, don’t argue with a female geologist about anything unless you have your facts down pat.  If you don’t, be prepared for an ass kicking.  All female geologists have minds of their own, and beware the fool.  Here is a story told to me by the former head of the University of Missouri geology department that exposes my point.  Well, something gets exposed here.

Missouri’s field camp one summer had twenty-five males and only one female geology student.  The camp was in the foothills of Colorado where the summers are always hot.  Mid-afternoon, all the male geology students would doff their shirts while out in the field, mapping the local geology.

This went on for a week or so and it apparently played on their female counterpart’s psyche.  She must have thought about it because one day when they began taking off their shirts, she doffed her own, bra included.  Did I mention that she was quite attractive? 

The students were spread out across the mountainous terrain, but news of their female counterpart’s topless display spread quickly, resulting in lots of ogling, staring at her through their alidades, and moving their stations closer to get a better look.  Lady Geologist didn’t mind the attention and continued doing her job as if nothing had changed.

Once wasn’t enough but the novelty of Lady Geologist’s nudity wore off with her male counterparts before very long.  When summer camp ended, she had a pretty good tan, and all the male students had new respect and understanding concerning the weaker sex. 

Geologists, as I’ve mentioned, are a strange bunch.  Nothing was ever said, or made, of Lady Geologist’s nudity and none of the professors running the camp reprimanded her for her actions.  They already knew about female geologists and realized that she was just demonstrating that she could do anything that the boys could do. 

 http://www.ericwilder.com

Here are two very interesting charts.  While the graphs only show data into the fourth quarter of 2007, they very clearly indicate the relationship between the price of crude oil and gasoline, and the effect of rising crude prices to the Standard and Poors 1500 Retailing Index.  The source is Reuters.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Oil prices can’t seem to find a ceiling, or a floor.

Oil waffles on competing demand, supply concerns: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Several years ago when my step-daughter Shannon was living with Marilyn and me, she brought home a big black Rottweiler.  She is a sucker for animals and according to Marilyn, was always bringing home a stray dog or cat, or bird with a broken wing when she was young.  She hasn’t changed and now has many dogs, cats, guinea fowl and horses on her eleven acres in Logan County.

The Rottweiler’s name was Chuckie.  He was big and black with white and tan markings.  He was around ten years old and had belonged to an old woman that was going to a nursing home.  There was no one else to take the dog and if Shannon hadn’t come along the only other option was the pound.  Shannon moved to other digs shortly after bringing Chuckie home.  Even though she dropped by regularly to take care of him, much of the feeding fell upon Marilyn and me.

Chuckie was old but he was an imposing animal, weighing in at well over one hundred pounds.  We have a large pen on the north side of our property and Chuckie took to it right away.  I was a little afraid of him and we sort of got off on the wrong foot.  The first week that he was here, I went into his pen to fill his water bucket with the hose.  It was after dark and I’d had a few toddies.  After filling his bucket, I turned to leave the pen only to find my way blocked by the big dog, his teeth barred as he emitted a low-throated growl.

I thought that I was a goner but walked slowly toward him and said, “No Chuck, you sit,” as sternly as I could muster.

Chuck didn’t sit but he did stop growling and let me move past him without tearing my arm off.  I learned the next day that Rottweilers are territorial, and that before being adopted by the old woman, Chuckie had lived with a man that often beat him when he got drunk.

“He doesn’t like men,” Shannon told me the next day as she arranged his food bowl and water bucket closer to the fence so that I didn’t have to go into his pen.

“Thanks for telling me,” I said.

From that point I was determined to make friends with the giant dog.  Every morning when I went for my morning paper, I would stop by his pen and give him treats.  Every day when I got home from work, I would take him treats.  Soon, he would jump up on the fence and let me rub his ears

The first time it rained after he moved in with us, I looked out the window and saw him standing in his pen, getting soaked.  Considering the time that I had spent in the boonies of Vietnam getting rained on, I decided that he needed shelter – the sooner the better.  I had a six-foot length of wooden fence in the yard so I lifted it over the fence and made a quick and dirty lean-to.  I covered the structure with black plastic sheeting to shield it from the rain.  Within minutes, Chuckie got under the lean-to as if he had lived there all his life.

When Shannon visited she would let him out of the pen and allow him to run around in the back yard.  During these times, I improved Chuckie’s lean-to by adding cedar chips.  Before winter arrived I got him a big dog house and he loved it.

Soon, I was comfortable enough with the big dog to let him out of his pen even when Shannon wasn’t there, and I was happy to learn that he was just a big overgrown puppy.  When I sat by the pool, he would rest his large head on my knees and let me rub his ears.  He also liked to swim in the pool.

Shannon often took him with her during the day.  He loved riding in the back of her truck, hiking with her and swimming in the nearby lake.  Chuckie had found a home but that is not the end of his story.

Chuck had lived with us a couple of years when we noticed that he had a tumor on his belly.  We watched it for awhile and could tell that it was growing.  Shannon’s vet finally told her he needed to remove it.  He did and Chuckie was in horrible pain for what seemed like hours.  He wouldn’t lie down because of the pain in his belly, despite the efforts of Shannon and Marilyn to soothe him.  Finally the pain killers kicked in and he fell into an exhausted sleep.

The operation worked, at least for awhile.  Chuckie was more energetic and responsive during this time and I have little doubt that it was the best days of his life.  The tumor stayed gone for around two years before recurring.  This time it was much worse, Chuckie had grown quite old for a Rottweiler and was also suffering from hip problems (a common genetic trait of Rottweilers).

Chuckie’s health soon began degenerating at a rapid pace and it was obvious that he was in constant pain.  One day, Shannon took him for his last ride in the back of her truck to their favorite hiking trail by the lake.  The old dog could barely walk but it enjoyed lying in the shallow water one last time.  Finally, she took him to the vet, gave him one last ear scratch and had him put to sleep.

My big Lab Lucky is also getting old, now eleven.  He lives in a large pen (quarter acre) on our property with Velvet and Patch.  Marilyn and I were considering putting him in Chuckie’s old pen so we had it cleaned out last week and reseeded with grass.  Yesterday, I strolled through the enclosure with my Pug Princess.

The pen is fairly large – twenty by thirty feet, at least.  Several large trees provide plenty of shade, although there is enough sun to lie beneath on a chilly day.  One side faces the road and honeysuckle vines cover the chain link fence.  What I found at the end of the pen was a very healthy clematis plant with eight purple blossoms growing amid the honeysuckle.  The essence of their beauty reminded me what a wonderful dog that Chuckie was and what a comfort he was to have around.

The big black dog was a castoff that had been abused and neglected most of his life.  He was intelligent, had a wonderful personality and had probably dreamed doggie dreams of having a real friend someday.  I am so thankful for Shannon and her soft streak.  Because of her, he got his wish.

Even though Chuck and I got off to a rocky start, I came to love that big black scary-looking dog, and I miss him now.

http://www.ericwilder.com

World headlines keep oil prices high.

Supply concern holds oil above $133 a barrel: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

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Here is a pic I found on the web of Spindletop, one of the largest oil fields ever found.

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Marilyn and I were driving through downtown Edmond when she asked me to stop the car.  She wanted to show me the building where the pool hall and domino parlor was once located.

"Pull into the alley,” she said

The only entrance to the domino parlor was through the alley.  Edmond condoned dominos but not, it seemed, on Main Street.  It was a little different in Vivian, Louisiana where I grew up.

We looked behind the building where the parlor was once located.  It was no longer there, replaced by the back entrance of a gift shop.  Still, it got me to thinking about the domino parlor and pool hall in Vivian.

My grandfather and Uncle Grady were both pipefitters by trade.  The nature of their job often predicated that they were away from home a lot, often in different states, building an electrical generation plant, or such.  When they weren't away from home they could usually be found in downtown Vivian, at the pool hall, playing dominos.

When my grandfather finally retired he spent much of his time in the domino parlor, driving downtown around ten every morning.  He generally stayed there until it was time to eat dinner.

I never saw either Grandpa Pitt or Uncle Grady drink a beer or slug a shot of whiskey.  I think that Grady was a teetotaler but I heard from my Mother that Grandpa was known to take an occasional nip of whiskey.

Grandpa lived to almost a hundred, but he quit driving sometime in his eighties.  It happened abruptly when he pulled out on Louisiana Highway One into the path of an oncoming truck.  Grandpa's Ford Fairlane was totaled.  He was pretty much unhurt except for a few bruises and scratches, but his car was totaled.  By this time Uncle Grady had taken over the reins of family patriarch.  He informed Grandpa that he had seen the last of his driving days and he absolutely refused to let him buy a new car.

Losing his driving credentials did not stop Grandpa from frequenting the domino parlor.  He began walking to town every morning and then back home at night - even until he was almost ninety years old.

My good friend Rod and I visited the den of iniquity one weekend when we were both home from college.  The place reeked of stale beer and cigarette smoke.  Old men sat at the table's playing dominoes and they didn't bother looking up when we entered the door. 

Red paint on the floor was almost worn away by decades of work shoes and oilfield boots trodding across it.  The pool tables were probably mahogany but the wood had so many cigarette burns that it was hard to tell.  Red velvet tops were stained almost black.  The two teens with arm tattoos and cigarettes in their mouth didn't bother looking up as Rod I gave the place the third degree.

My grandfather died when he was ninety-seven years old.  He continued playing dominoes until he became a little senile and I think that he finally forgot how to play.

While Edmond is growing - now the third largest town in Oklahoma - Vivian is in decline.  There are no new businesses to speak of, except for the Wal-Mart on Louisiana Highway One.  Main Street Edmond is growing while Main Street Vivian is largely a row of empty buildings.

I doubt that most teens today have even heard of dominos, but I bet Grandpa Pitt and Uncle Grady are playing right now with the angels in heaven.  I don't know if they have old Fords there, but if they do Grandpa probably drove one to the parlor.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Oil is very much a global commodity and keeps trading even during the dearest U.S. holiday.  The price is also affected by events happening around the world, not just in the U.S.  Hang on, because of this we are in for an even wilder ride.

Oil prices rise above $133 a barrel in electronic trade: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Much technological advancement to the science of drilling and completing oil wells has occurred since Colonel Drake brought in the first commercial well in Pennsylvania.  Perhaps the most important was the development of the electric logging tool.  This long, slender device is lowered into the borehole on a cable.  It transmits various signals out into the formation as it is raised from the bottom of the hole and the return signals are recorded on linear graph paper.

By studying this graph known as an electric log, geologists and engineers are able to precisely determine the depth of a formation from the surface, how thick it is and whether or not it is likely to contain recoverable quantities of oil and gas.  This study is called log analysis because, with all the advancements that have taken place since electric logs were first implemented, they still only hint at what a company will find when they actually perforate a possible oil and gas producing zone.  To this day, the most important tool is the geologist’s knowledge of the area and his visual examination of the sample cuttings as they come out of the borehole of a drilling well.

There is no tool that informs a company without reservation that a formation will be productive.  As a result, zones that would be productive are often overlooked and go untested.  In the real world, this is the rule rather than the exception.  I am often asked, why re-enter an old plugged hole?  Didn’t the company that drilled it know there was oil there?  Well, sometimes, apparently not.

One such mistake occurred in Coal County, Oklahoma in 1937.  Conoco, then Continental Oil, drilled the Daniels #1.  The company had originally drilled the well because of information derived from a seismic study and surface mapping.  The resultant well was drilled and subsequently plugged as dry.  In April, 1949, someone had a different idea.

J.A. Roberson, et al re-entered the Daniels #1 in 1949.  The company perforated zones known as the Basal McLish and the Oil Creek and completed them for 203 BOPD and 2 MMCFGD.  This became the discovery well for the East Oconee Field that has since produced more than 4 million barrels of oil.

Two companies had arrived at very different conclusions after careful analysis of the exact same data.  The company that committed the multi-million barrel mistake was none other than Conoco, not some fly-by-night mom and pop organization.  It was, in fact, a mom and pop oil company that made the correct interpretation of the data and brought in the discovery well.

Big oil may rule, but it is the little independents that keep the bulk of the oil flowing in the heart of America.  As in the case of the East Oconee Field, one man’s trash became another man’s treasure.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a pic taken near Trees City, Louisiana.  It shows several old metal derricks through the undergrowth.  These derricks were built specifically to drill one and only one well.  They were left standing over the well after it was completed and used for any subsequent remedial work (parted rods, repair downhole pump, etc) that needed to be done.  Such structures are still commonly seen in northwest Louisiana, but they are no longer used to drill a well.

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High gasoline prices are finally beginning to change America’s driving habits.

Bloomberg.com: Energy.

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Gas advances, following the lead of crude oil, and the indication that we aren’t filling storage fast enough to meet winter demand.

Bloomberg.com: Energy.

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Demand is weak but supply is tight, constraining growth in developing countries.

Oil hits $135 a barrel on new supply concerns: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

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I found this report on the Department of Energy website.  Read it and you may be shocked.

www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf

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Another commentary on fault finding.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/18396/Oil-Crisis%3A-Blame-Failure-of-U.S.-Leadership%2C-Not-Big-Oil

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Natural gas prices follow as oil rises over $130 a barrel for the first time.

Bloomberg.com: Energy.

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http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080520/oil_prices.html

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Many memorable characters searched for black gold in early-Oklahoma, but none more colorful than Tom Slick.  Slick came from the oil fields of Pennsylvania to drill for oil in Oklahoma.  He was a true “wheeler dealer,” finding new and innovative ways of securing leases from reluctant mineral owners and raising money from investors.  Most of all, he had a special knack for finding oil.

Tom Slick, Sr. earned the title, King of the Wildcatters, when he drilled the discovery well for the giant Cushing Field in 1912.  He died at the age of forty-six, but not before selling his Oklahoma holdings to Prairie Oil and Gas Company for – what was at the time – a vast sum of money.  He left fifteen million dollars to his son, Tom Slick, Jr., who by all accounts was perhaps even more colorful than his father.

Tom, Jr. also led an interesting life and knew many celebrities on a first-name basis.  Among them were Howard Hughes and Jimmy Stewart.  During his life, he founded Slick Oil, Slick Airways, Texstar, Transworld Resources and two research institutes.  His passion, however, was the study of cryptids – creatures unknown to science.

Tom, Jr. financially backed expeditions to find Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, though perhaps his search for the Abominable Snowman is the most bizarre.  He financed an expedition to Tibet, supposedly in search of Yeti.  The expedition coincided with the invasion of Tibet by the Chinese and the ouster of the Dalai Lama.  Supposedly, Tom, Jr. worked with the CIA and helped spirit the Dalai Lama out of Tibet before the Chinese could capture him.  Tom, Jr. died in a plane crash in 1962 after losing most of his fortune.

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A pic of Eric Wilder and Velvet.

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An almost frightening report issued by the Centre for Global Energy Studies.

Bloomberg.com: Energy.

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I ran track in high school and continued for a while during college.  When I returned from the Army I kept doing it.  As I got older my running was more like jogging but I kept it up – at least until the oil boom and bust of the late seventies, early eighties.  It was then that my weight ballooned past two hundred pounds.

This pattern continued and I did little or nothing to correct the situation.  By the time my little oil company went belly up, I weighed two hundred and forty pounds.  Fiscally broke and mentally broken, I languished through the days and nights, searching for motivation to open my eyes and get out of bed in the morning, and get off the couch during the day.

Anne and I took a trip to Vivian for a family reunion and one of my cousins filmed the affair.  During a question and answer session, he asked Anne what was the one thing that she wished for.

“I wish Eric would lose some weight and get his old spirit back.”

The words hurt but I knew that they were true.  Upon returning to Oklahoma City, I started jogging again.

I was grossly overweight and none of my running clothes fit me anymore.  We didn’t have a lot of money to buy togs that fit so I made due with a tee shirt and pair of cut-off blue jeans.  First I started walking laps through the house.

Eighty-five circuits through the kitchen, den and dining room equaled a mile, as best as I could determine.  I was soon walking a mile a day, and then two.  It was then that I took to the hard pavement.

Oil was selling for twelve dollars a barrel and no one was drilling for it or buying prospects.  I had drilling ideas but no one to sell them to.  The years that followed were bleak, but Anne and I managed to make ends meet – somehow.  Along the way, I got physically and mentally stronger.  I was running three to ten miles a day and my weight down to one-hundred-seventy pounds.

Oh yeah, I was going to tell you about running my first ten K.

It was the Quail Classic 10K in 1986.  By this time, Anne and I had lost our house to foreclosure and we were living in a rent house in Quail Creek.  Okay, not much of a come down for those of you that know Oklahoma City real estate.

I finished the race in about sixty-six minutes and everyone along the way was supportive.  This was much different than a few months before when a car filled with teens passed and yelled, “Don’t have a heart attack fatso.”

I kept running 10K’s, finally getting my time down to around fifty-one minutes.  I would always run alone on Memorial Day to remember and commemorate my fallen friends and comrades, and all the heroes that continue to battle cancer and other dread diseases everyday without a whimper.  I quit running when Anne lost her battle with cancer.

Late last year I made it back up to two hundred and forty pounds.  Since January I have cut my calorie intake drastically but I have only managed to drop down to two-seventeen.  Anne died ten years ago and I am finally finished grieving. 

Tomorrow I am going to start walking laps through the house and weekend after next – Memorial Day – I promise, as I live and breathe I’m going to run a mile on hard pavement to commemorate once again all of those that have gone before me.  I don’t know if my body will make it back down to one-seventy again, but I’ll bet my brain will be rejoicing.

http://www.ericwilder.com

2007 was the rainiest year in recorded Oklahoma history.  This year is also stormy and the Edmond Sun reports that local weather expert Rick Smith, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, predicts a continuing stormy weather pattern in 2008.

According to the article, Smith says that Oklahoma has an average of fifty-three confirmed tornadoes every year.  We have already had forty this year, including the one that severely damaged the ailing town of Picher, and it is still only May.  Eighteen of these tornadoes occurred in May.

Not only are these storms dangerous, they often adversely affect business.  Last year, many oil and gas projects were put on hold, waiting on the weather.  This year is already proving to be more of the same.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a slightly doctored pic I took while in Noble County, Oklahoma last week.  All the creeks are currently filled with spring rain but they are usually dry during the long months of summer.  The root system of this tree has grown disproportionately large because of seasons of prolonged lack of rain, and is twisted like masses of wrestling boa constrictors.

http://www.ericwilder.com

We have heard all week about the cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China.  Death tolls have exceeded 133,000 in Myanmar and as many as 50,000 in China.  Still, these staggering numbers have little meaning until someone puts a face on the tragedies.  Tonight, as I drove home from visiting my father, I listened to a report on National Public Radio that ripped my heart out.

Melissa Block, an NPR reporter, was in China at the time of the “big one” and has been reporting on the catastrophe ever since.  She was on the ground of a Chinese city whose name I can’t remember when she encountered a married couple leading a bulldozer to the site of a wrecked building where they had left their two year old son just before the 7.8 magnitude earthquake.  Block’s voice quivered with emotion as she delivered the story.

Two days had passed since the quake and the couple had been trying the entire time to get heavy machinery to dig for their son and parents.  The man spoke good English and stated firmly that he believed his son had survived.  When they reached the building, he couldn’t contain himself and began digging through the rubble with his hands.  When he reached a dangerous overhang, his wife begged him to wait for the heavy equipment.

Like the results of many earthquakes, the destroyed building sat alone amid others that had received little or no damage.  Chinese military police arrived and began digging, looking for survivors.  Soon, one of the policemen returned to where a large crowd of people waited.  Accosted by the smell of death, he held his hand over his face.  Two other policemen emerged from the wrecked building, carrying the body of a dead person.  The couple shook their heads, realizing it was a neighbor of their parents.

A woman appeared through the crowd and put her arms around the distraught Chinese mother, hugging her in a useless attempt to ease her pain.  Then she gave her a white sheet.

“I know your family is alive, but if they aren’t, cover their faces with this.”

An obviously shaken Block reported that the Chinese believe the living should not look upon the faces of the dead.  A military policeman finally returned from the wreckage of the building with news for the couple.  They had found a child, along with an old man and woman.

The old man had the child in his arms, the old woman one step behind.  They had not survived.  The policeman nodded when the woman asked him if the child was a boy, about two years old.

“Maybe he just fainted,” she said.  “Did you call to him to see if he was alive?”

The policeman just shook his head.

The couple didn’t just cry, they began to wail, loudly, leaving no doubt of their pain and loss.

“He didn’t want me to leave him.  He begged me to take him with me to work,” the woman said, her voice wracked with guilt and pain.

Near tears herself, Melissa Block concluded the story that had no happy ending.

I wasn’t near tears as I listened, I was crying.  The story brought back memories of the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Building where far fewer people had died.  Still, like Oklahoma City, every person that perishes in China and Myanmar has brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.  It doesn’t matter to which nationality you belong when you lose a son, a father and mother - it still hurts just as bad.

 http://www.ericwilder.com

An update on an earlier prediction by Goldman Sachs.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aBgHsyAv_E9Q&refer=energy

An update on an earlier prediction by Goldman Sachs.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aBgHsyAv_E9Q&refer=energy

Natural gas was discovered in northwestern Louisiana in 1870.  A water well drilled in Shreveport caught fire when a worker noticed a strange wind escaping from the hole and struck a match to get a better look.

Oil explorers began drilling wells in 1904, searching for black gold.  What they found was a little oil along with huge flows of natural gas.  For years, millions of cubic feet of natural gas were either flared or vented, in order to recover small amounts of oil.  Legendary oil men, Mike Benedum and Joe Trees, knew there must be a better way.

There was.  Producers had already begun using steel pipe to “case” oil wells.  The problem is that boreholes are not uniform in diameter from top to bottom and neither are they always vertical.  Wash-outs and deviations are the rule rather than the exception.  With water wells, wash-outs and deviations presented no problem.  When large flows of natural gas were present, they often blew-out, uncontrolled.  Joe Trees’s father suggested a way to cure the problem – the use of cement to bind casing and formation.

In the early days before Halliburton, no one knew how to cement a well.  After much experimentation, cementers learned they could put the cement directly down the borehead – they did this with shovel and elbow grease – and that the weight of the cement would cause it to u-tube out of the pipe and up the backside, cementing the casing and the borehole.  Later, cementers learned they could employ heavy fluids to displace the cement out of the casing, raising it hundreds of feet.

Using this technological advance, monster gas flows in the area were soon contained, allowing for deeper drilling and the recovery of oil that early explorers had long known was present — oil otherwise unrecoverable, except for a simple sack of cement.

http://www.ericwilder.com

When compared with the price of crude and heating oil, natural gas is a relative bargain.

Bloomberg.com: Energy.

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Disaster in China seems to be prodding the price of crude oil upward.

Oil pushed above $127 a barrel for first time: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

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Possible trouble brewing in our own hemisphere is affecting oil prices.

Bloomberg.com: Energy.

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Here are a couple of pics taken in Noble County, Oklahoma while acidizing some shallow wells there.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is another excellent article from Bloomberg.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=afaY5Iyah3N8&refer=energy

http://www.ericwilder.com

Crawfish pie is a Lousiana dish immortalized in the Hank Williams song Jambalaya.  I found this recipe for crawfish pie in the French Acadian Cook Book published in 1955 by the Louisiana Acadian Handicraft Museum, Inc., Jennings, Louisiana.  The person submitting the recipe is Gene Knobloch of Thibodaux, Louisiana and he offers this expert advice:

This is a basic recipe.  To be a good Creole cook you must be original and you must have a good imagination.  So throw in anything your good judgement tells you, even the kitchen stove if necessary.

P.S. – If you do not eat crawfish (shame on you) you may substitute shrimp.

3 cups cooked crawfish, tails and fat                 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

3 cups cooked rice                                           4 yolks hard boiled eggs

1 ¼ cups of water                                             2 or 3 slices, well buttered bread

¼ cup minced celery                                         Olive oil or other shortening

½ small green pepper, minced                           Salt, black pepper, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, pimientos

1 bunch shallots, chopped fine                          1 bay leaf

Saute in olive oil or other shortening, celery, shallots and sweet pepper, about five minutes.  Add crawfish tails and fat, saute about 5 minutes longer.  Salt and pepper to taste, add a few dashes of Tabasco sauce.  Mix this with cooked rice, add water, mushroom soup, bay leaf.  Add a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce.  Test for salt and pepper.

Pour entire mixture into a greased baking dish.  Grate egg yolks of the top.  Remove the crust from the slices of bread, cut each slice into four triangles.  Arrange triangles in a circle on top of mixture.  Sprinkle with paprika.  Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes, until mixture is toroughly heated and bread is toasted.  Garnish with pimientos.  Serves about eight.  Present with gusto.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Bertram Picou is a character in my novel Big Easy.  Like many Southerners, Bertram Picou served in the Army and did his basic training at Fort Polk in Leesville, Louisiana. The Fort is the subject of Tigerland, a gritty but powerful movie starring Colin Farrell. It’s probably the best movie Farrell ever did and you might want to check it out. Anyway, the place was a hell hole and some say the chances of becoming killed or wounded were greater there than in Vietnam.

Rutted dirt roads, tracts of heavily forested land that had never seen a chain saw, miles of seemingly endless rifle ranges, and swamps so murky and misty that they looked like the backdrop of a Lon Chaney horror film, comprised Fort Polk. Alligators, armadillos, water moccasins and frightened, pissed-off young G.I.’s, soon to be bound for Vietnam, populated the musty old Fort where fever and meningitus were everyday occurrences.

And it was hot and humid! The World War II-vintage barracks had no air conditioning in the summer and little insulation in the winter. A soldier’s day started at 4:30 AM with thirty minutes of physical training before breakfast. This was followed by more PT, a one to seven mile hike to the rifle range, orientation, target practice, a one to seven mile hike back to the barracks, more PT, then bed. Bertram lost forty-six pounds in six weeks at Fort Polk.

Some of the drill sergeants were mean, some practically psychotic. Nice wasn’t in their vocabulary. Bertram is the personification of the term laid-back, but two words can still evoke memories of distress and instantly raise his blood pressure and heart rate. Those two words — grease trap! If you ever spent any time in the Army, you probably know what I mean.

Food in the mess halls was simple but filling. All you could eat in fifteen minutes or so. They served red beans in abundance, and rice. Problem was, not together. Army regulation said you can’t have two starches on one plate. Good idea for the Army, bad idea for Bertram Picou who thinks RB&R should be part of the Government’s food pyramid (or whatever shape it is now!)

Bertram breathed a large sigh of relief when he finally got out of the Army. He cooks RB&R almost everyday at his bar on Chartres Street in New Orleans French Quarter and here is his personal recipe.

1 ½ lbs. dry red beans                          2 stalks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed             ½  green pepper, diced
1 red onion, sliced                                ½  tbsp. oil
10 c. water                                           1 veg. bouillon cube
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper                        1 ½  c. rice
3 c. water for rice

Soak beans overnight. Saute garlic, red onion, green pepper, celery in oil in large pot. Add 10 cups of water, vegetable bouillon cube, and beans. Let cook on medium flame until soft. Cook rice separately. When rice is done, serve topped with red beans.

I’m a political junkie and Tuesday I sat glued to the television, enthralled as I watched coverage of the Democratic presidential primaries from North Carolina and Indiana.  I’ve lived through eleven presidents and even though this year’s election isn’t my first rodeo, I readily admit that I understand the politics of a presidential race little more than I did fifty-six years ago.

Harry Truman was the president when I was born but I have no memory of him as a lad.  My first recollection of the political process is when I was six.  It was at my grandparent’s house in Vivian.

Jim and Lela Pittman were good Americans and had strong views on how our country should be run and who should run it.  I don’t remember much about their views except that Grandma and Grandpa Pitt often supported different candidates.

The Dwight Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson race is the first campaign that I remember, not vividly but subliminally.  I do recall sitting in their bedroom – that is where they always held court – and listening to campaign speeches on their old upright wooden-bodied radio.

The Pitts had six children and one thing that I do remember vividly is that all six sibs usually had very different opinions on almost everything.  The grandparents loved it, in fact encouraged everyone in the family to think for themselves.  If one of the siblings would declare something as the gospel, Grandpa Pitt would always interject a little doubt, just to shake that belief and make sure it was real and not just subterfuge.  Because of this, any discussion by the Pittman family usually sounded like a full-blown argument to the uninitiated.

The family had widely divergent opinions on many subjects but they always stood together.  What I mean is that despite what often seemed like extreme polarization, especially when it came to politics, the family still loved each other deeply and always respected the opinions of others, even if they didn’t always agree with their own.

If I live until 2009, I will see the inauguration of my twelfth president.  Even though I don’t understand every nuance of politics, I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.  There is room for diverse opinions in this country.  We should embrace our differences because that is one of the things that makes us strong, and continues to keep us that way.

No matter who wins in September - man, woman, black, white, republican or democrat, we will all survive and prosper, and the United States will still be the most wonderful country that ever graced this old green globe.  My grandparents taught me that.

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As a freshman in college during the sixties I joined a precision marching group called the Fusileers.  The college I attended required two years of ROTC and the national paranoia concerning Vietnam hadn’t yet begun to set in.  Besides, we got to do some neat things like take trips to Mardi Gras and march in parades.

In 1965 I went with the Fusileers to New Orleans to march in the Venus parade.  Although I didn’t know it at the time Venus is one of the older krewes, or carnival clubs.  Our group spent the night at Jackson Barracks, an old army post on the Mississippi River named after Andy Jackson.

The night before the parade most of us left the barracks on foot in groups of five or six and made our way toward Bourbon Street.  My group stopped at a neighborhood bar and drank Regal Beer for twelve cents a glass and sampled the gumbo.  We made it to Bourbon Street around dark.

Much time has passed since then and even the best memories fade.  As I remember it, open containers of alcohol were legal.  I bought a fifth of Early Times at a drug store a block or so from Bourbon Street.  Most of us got separated in the throngs of people crowding the French Quarter.  John T, the last member of the Fusileers that I’d arrived in the Quarter with disappeared down Conti, towing a college girl he’d just met.

I found my own college girl but we were separated in the massive crowd pushing shoulder-to-shoulder in two directions, up and down Bourbon Street — though not before a jealous suitor sucker-punched me and broke my only pair of glasses.  Somehow I made it back to Jackson Barracks before the midnight curfew and stayed up all night reading the Terry Southern classic Candy. 

Mardi Gras that year was my first taste of Carnival, crazy and surreal, and I lapped it up, maybe because I viewed it through tired, near-sighted, hung-over eyes. Even though my feet hurt like hell after the seven mile parade that lasted six hours or so I would gladly have done it again.  Soon after the trip, things got worse in Vietnam.  John T dropped out of school, was drafted and dead within the year — one of the war’s many victims.  I didn’t sign up for a third year of ROTC and quickly forgot my childhood dreams of becoming a soldier.  I had my face rubbed in my childhood dreams when I was drafted shortly after graduation and I quickly learned the truth about the old saying, “don’t wish too hard for anything.  It might come true.”

As a longtime geologist, I’ve heard many oil patch stories, some true, some likely false.  Here is a story I heard about the discovery of the El Dorado Pool, the largest oil field in Kansas.  Believe it if you will.  I don’t know the truth, just the story.

As I’ve mentioned before, many of the early, giant oil fields were found by mapping formations at the surface, then using the surface geology to interpret what is happening in the subsurface.  During the early days of Kansas oil exploration, citizens in the town of El Dorado, a small community in the south-central part of the state, hired a University of Kansas geology professor to do a geologic survey around their town.  What he mapped using surface geology was a huge anticline.

Excited by the results of the study, residents of El Dorado pooled their money and drilled a deep well at the site proposed by the University of Kansas professor.  The test well was drilled and, to the dismay of El Dorado citizens, was dry as a proverbial bone.  They sold the leases for pennies on the dollar to Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company, the predecessor to Cities Service Oil Company.  The Kansas professor, like so many would-be oil finders after him, became the reviled scapegoat.

ITIO had geologists of their own at the time and was unconvinced that the dry hole was a legitimate test of the huge surface feature.  They risked their money, bought the leases and drilled a well of their own — the result the discovery well for the giant El Dorado Field.

The El Dorado Field is the largest oil field in the State of Kansas and has ultimately produced more than 40 million barrels of oil.  To this day, the only dry hole in the field is the original well drilled there by the citizens of El Dorado and the hapless University of Kansas geologist.

What happened? — An extraordinary stroke of bad luck.  The people of El Dorado drilled down a vertical fault plane — the only place they could have drilled and not hit a producer.  Fact or fiction?  Like all history, I suspect, as my Grandmother used to say, that it lies somewhere between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

http://www.ericwilder.com

U.S. crude sets record high of $125.98 a barrel - Yahoo! News.

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A while back, I serialized a short story about wolves and panthers in northeast Texas.  The story is whimsical and a work of fiction.  There are no wolves and certainly no black panthers in east Texas.  Or are there?

The answer is – well maybe.  Northeast Texas remains an under populated part of the state.  A region known as the Big Thicket extends north from Beaumont.  The Big Thicket is a vast pine forest that stretches for hundreds of miles.  This large forest, by anyone’s count, contains more wild animals than humans, many of which moved up from Mexico, or south from the huge Ouachita forests in central Arkansas.

The Big Thicket, by definition, doesn’t extend into far northeast Texas.  In reality, however, the vast forest comprising the Big Thicket continues into northwest Louisiana and even into Arkansas, all the way to the Ouachita Mountains.  Anyone that has ever visited the area knows if you stray very far off the main highway and follow a winding blacktop or dirt road, you’ll soon find yourself surrounded by a sea of green often called the “pine curtain.”

Behind this curtain of trees and vegetation lies a world as mysterious and haunting as the day the first white man visited it.  If you take this road, don’t be surprised if you hear the howl of a wolf, or the low throaty growl of a panther – yes, maybe even a black panther.

While growing up, I often spent the night at my Grandmother’s house in the piney woods of Cass County.  They still had no electricity when I was young and burned coal oil lanterns at night for illumination.  People went to bed early in those days, the smoke, soot and acrid odor of burning fuel more than most people could tolerate for very long.

Wolves were very much a part of east Texas in the 1950s and I still remember their mournful howls when we finally snuffed out the lanterns for the night.  Don’t believe me?  They had a bounty on their heads and were hunted into near extinction.  I recall seeing the carcasses of an entire pack hanging in a row by their hind legs on fence posts.  I was probably ten or twelve at the time.

Are there still wolves in east Texas?  Not likely.  Wolves are social creatures and usually run in packs.  Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if an occasional lobo passed through the area.  Black panthers are a different story.  Locals have reported seeing them many times, although this is unconfirmed and denied by the Authorities.  Have I ever seen a black panther?  No, but I’ve seen bobcats and heard their woman-like screams in the woods.

If you’re still unconvinced, travel south to Cass County, Texas sometime.  Leave the main road and follow a blacktop until it dead-ends.  Hike a mile or so back into the piney woods, maybe until you reach a cypress bayou.  Pitch your tent and then wait for the sun to go down.  But zip the door up tightly.  The howls, growls and woman-like screams you will definitely hear may just raise those tiny hairs on the back of your neck. 

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here we go again.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aepUSnVB_pkM&refer=energy

http://www.ericwilder.com

I lived most of my early years in Louisiana and when I moved to Oklahoma I was quickly taken aback by the weather.  The wind seemed to blow constantly and when we had a storm, there was often mayhem involved.  Still, we only averaged half the yearly rainfall that was normal for Louisiana.

Two years ago the state was in a persistent drought and I wrote about it many times in a series of articles titled Oklahoma Burning.  Now the pendulum has swung.  Last year, Oklahoma had more rainfall then it has ever had.

As I write this article I am glancing out the window at my backyard.  Rain is falling, and not a gentle rain.  Yesterday we were only two inches behind last year’s record rainfall.  Today, we may surpass the record.

I took some pictures in the front yard of water pouring down the street in rivulets.  The ditches were full, water white capping and looking for all the world like a wild river.  My bare feet sank into earth already soft from yesterday’s rain.

Last year’s rainfall practically shut down oil and gas exploration in Oklahoma.  Heavy equipment can’t maneuver in soggy wheat fields and there was often more rain before the ground had time to fully dry.

Glancing out the window again I just shake my head and sigh.  The gas wells I need to complete in Noble County may have to wait until August.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a pic of an old well located near Northwest Expressway and Classen Boulevard in Oklahoma City.  There is no nearby pipeline to take the natural gas so it is flared, a throwback to the time when the City skyline at night was lighted by the eerie glow of hundreds of wells being flared.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Troubling news from several oil producing countries combine to raise oil prices to a new record.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices

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Like all Okies, I love Mexican cooking (Tex-Mex, at least).  Here’s a recipe that I found on the net to help celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

Shrimp Burritos
California Milk Advisory Board 1997 Calendar

Real California Panela
Cheese tid bit ~ This fresh cheese has a flavor similar to Cottage Cheese. Use it in sandwiches, salads, with fruit and in cooked foods.

2 T each soy sauce, lime juice and water
1 LB med. shrimp, shelled and deveined
6 lg. (12") flour tortillas
4 C cooked rice preferably Basmati rice
1 Can (15oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
8 oz California Panela, * crumbled (2C)
2 oz California Queso Fresco, * crumbled (1/2C)
Cilantro Leaves (optional)
Fresh Salsa (optional)

* May substitute California Jack or California Cheddar

Combine soy sauce, lime juice and water in large, heavy plastic bag. Add shrimp; marinate in refrigerator no longer than 30 min. Grill or broil 6-8 min. until opaque throughout. Warm tortillas in oven or microwave. Top with shrimp, rice, beans and crumbled cheeses. Add a few cilantro leaves and salsa , if desired. Roll-up and serve. Makes 6 servings.

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I took this pic of the full moon as it was rising just over my neighbor’s house.

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I graduated from college in 1969 and took a job mudlogging for a Texas company named Core Lab. The second well I sat was near the south Texas town of Weslaco. The well was a joint venture between Shell and Texaco and on its way to a depth of 13,500'.

Since this was only my second well, a senior mudlogger, Jack Bowie, was assigned to show me the ropes. Jack was as colorful as his name and show me the ropes he did. I would work the well site from seven in the morning until seven at night. Jack would usually spend the day doing other things and would check on me around quitting time when another mudlogger spelled us for the night.

Weslaco was very close to the Mexican border town of Reynosa. Usually Jack and I would leave the location and drive to Reynosa where the food, fun and drink were cheap. We often stayed out until the wee morning hours before returning to our motel rooms to clean up and then go back to the drilling well.

The well was a wildcat. That means it was more than a mile from the nearest producing well. The well was wild for more reasons than that. We were drilling through an extremely thick sequence of alternating sand and shale called the Frio. As close as we were to the Gulf of Mexico, the stratum was unconsolidated and we penetrated 300 feet or so ever hour. And there was gas, lots of gas, coming up out of the hole.

The gas and unconsolidated strata had caused problems on the well since the day it began drilling. The hole was crooked, dog-legged we called it, and there had been problems cementing the intermediate casing. Two drilling supervisors had already been "run off" and a crusty old tool pusher promoted to finish the hole.

I can’t remember the tool pusher’s name so I’ll call him Mike. Mike was of average height and build but he had a badly bent nose from some past altercation. He also had a resolute expression that caused the wild Texas roughnecks to take his directions seriously. He was a former World War II fighter pilot and it only took one look at his dark eyes to know he was likely good at it.

One hot July day found me more tired than usual from the past night’s cerveza drinking and senorita chasing. Jack was no where around and I reclined on the couch, "just to rest my eyes for a moment." I awoke to a sound peculiar to the giant drilling rig: silence. Awakening instantly, I rushed outside to see the backs of every man on location running as fast as they could, through the dry Texas cornfield, away from the location that had suddenly gone deathly quiet. Every man except Mike, that is.

Ten feet from me, he was moving faster than I had ever seen him move, twirling and closing valves, pulling levers, throwing switches. Finally, the diesel engines coughed, then sputtered, then again began circulating mud in the well. Seeing me looking, Mike grinned and walked over to the trailer door. As I stood with my mouth open and hands in my pocket, he pulled an old Zippo out of his pocket, fished a cigarette out of the pack in his shirt pocket, put it in his mouth and lit it. After a long, satisfying pull he looked at me and said, "Another thirty seconds and you and me would have been blown straight to hell."

Mike didn’t elaborate but Jack did when he finally returned to location. "The gas pressure’s so high that the mud’s not heavy enough to contain it. As long as the mud pumps are working, it’s cycled out of the hole. If Mike hadn’t restarted them, the pressure would have blown ten thousand feet of drilling pipe straight up into the air and all over this corn field. It wouldn’t have been a pretty sight."

Jack didn’t bother telling me how stupid I had been not to follow the roughnecks off the location. He didn’t have to because I’d already figured it out. That night Jack and I drank an extra Tecate for Mike, yet another unheralded oil patch hero that I’ve met, somewhere along the way.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Those that have read any of my New Orleans short stories know that Bertram Picou is the owner of an eclectic little bar on Chartres Street, in the French Quarter. He cooks some of the world’s best gumbo and always has a pot simmering in back for his regular customers.

Everyone in New Orleans makes gumbo, some tasting better than others. The best gumbo is like ambrosia, a gift from heaven itself. It’s now made all over the world but one thing is sure. You’ll never find better gumbo anywhere in the world that tastes as good as the worst gumbo from New Orleans.

Some say that Bertram’s gumbo is the best in the Big Easy. Don’t believe me? Next time you’re in the French Quarter, stop by his place and give it a try. The bar’s a little hard to find, but keep looking. Below is Bertram’s recipe, told in his own words.

Bertram Picou’s Mama's Gumbo

"First thing is make the roux. Pour some oil in your big cast iron skillet and put it on the fire, medium heat. Add some flour and start stirring. Whatever you do, don’t leave the stove, even to chase Ol’ Shep, until the roux cooks to a pleasing shade of brown, maybe a little darker if you’re taste buds are more Cajun than most. Be careful now. Don’t burn that roux cause it’s the most important part of the gumbo! If it starts to smoke and curdle up, you done screwed up! Throw it out and start over.

Once you got the roux done, its time to make the gumbo. My Mama throws in crawfish, shrimp, chicken, sausage, squirrel, deer, or even fish. "Whatever floats your boat," she used to say.

Fill up your big stock pot with water and set it on the stove. Get it to boiling then add the roux. Mama always uses four tablespoons, more or less, depending on the weather, how dark she had let it cook, and how she feels that particular day. Good cooks don’t read recipes. They just sense how something ought to taste. However many tablespoons she used, her gumbo always tasted damn good!

Keep stirring until the roux and water are mixed, then add a couple of chopped onions, a chopped bell pepper, six minced garlic cloves and your chicken, seafood, or whatever. This is where it gets tricky. You need to add salt, cayenne and black pepper and this must be done to taste. Using too much, or not enough, can make or break the gumbo and, unfortunately, practice is the only way to learn how. You’ll have to do this yourself cause Mama can’t go to everyone’s house.

Cook the gumbo on a medium hot flame and keep stirring until everything starts getting tender. Don’t put a lid on the pot.

Finally, boil up your rice to perfection (just about the hardest thing in the world to get right, but that’s another story). Add parsley and scallions to the gumbo, and, if you like, a little file, then ladle it on the rice and enjoy!"

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When oil was discovered in northwest Louisiana, rolling hills, massive pines and a few small settlements dominated the landscape, farming and cattle the two major occupations.  Some thirty years before, Army engineers had blasted and methodically dismantled the natural dam known as the Great Red River Raft that had raised area water levels for decades, perhaps centuries.  What were left were shallow bayous, isolated ponds and Caddo Lake.

Caddo’s coffee-colored water was also shallow, no more than 20 feet at it’s deepest.  Turtles and alligators populated the sprawling lake along with miles of impenetrable cane brakes and mazes of giant cypress trees with water-gorged trunks and branches draped with Spanish moss wafting in a damp breeze.  And it was hot, temperatures rarely below 100 degrees in the summer and humidity through the roof.  The shallow, often stagnant water bred mosquitoes, and many early inhabitants died of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.

Despite the hostile environment, something began drawing oil hunters to the region — news of oil seeps and gentle rolling topography that possibly signaled subsurface closure.  These explorers, drawn by the lure of black gold, pooled their money and drilled a few exploratory wells.  Believing correctly that oil existed far below the shallow depths of Caddo Lake, wooden pilings were driven in shallow water and platforms built on them.  The explorers constructed drilling rigs on the platforms from native timber and began drilling in Caddo Lake.  This was a first, Caddo Lake the birthplace of offshore drilling.

Like the gold rushes of California and Alaska, men and their families began pouring into the area, intent upon sharing in the prize.  Boom towns sprang up — Oil City, Trees City, Vivian, Rodessa.

What explorers had discovered was the giant Sabine Uplift.  This single subsurface feature underlies several Louisiana parishes, and even more Arkansas and Texas counties.  It not only trapped millions of barrels of oil beneath it, but formed the stratigraphic barrier for the Woodbine Sandstone, the primary reservoir of the super giant East Texas Field.

Caddo Lake sits atop the Sabine Uplift.  Even with thousands of wells already drilled in the region, the deepest horizons of this giant subsurface feature still remain mostly undrilled and unexplored.  What are the ramifications of this little-known fact?  Possibly several hundred million barrels of untapped oil that could ultimately help the U.S. ease its dependence on foreign oil.

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During the early days of oil exploration, people had no idea why hydrocarbon deposits were found in certain locations and not others.  The drilling of a well, even a relatively shallow one, often took a year or more to complete.  Because of the time and expense involved, early explorationists began looking for ways to limit the number of dry holes.

A university geologist concluded that oil was trapped in subsurface features known as anticlines — large, inverted U-shaped structures formed when sedimentary strata is folded by tectonic activity.  Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company, the forerunner of Cities Service Oil Company, was the first oil company to hire geologists to search for these anticlines.

Before seismic surveys were invented, the only way to get a hint of what was going on in the subsurface was by mapping surface structures.  The theory is that shallow structures are often propagated into the subsurface.  If you can map a closed structural feature at the surface (and I don’t mean topography), you have increased your odds of finding a closed structural feature at depth.  ITIO hired crews of geologists to map the surface of Kansas and Oklahoma.

One of the fields found by this method was the supergiant Oklahoma City Field.  The OKC Field will ultimately produce just under a billion barrels of oil.  It’s discovery was quite by accident.

25 dry holes had been drilled in Oklahoma County by the late 20’s and many “experts” were ready to deem the County dry.  ITIO had mapped several structures in the area and weren’t ready to give up quite yet.  They had several crews mapping the surface.

Oklahoma County is a large, relatively flat county.  To map the surface, a geologist needs to find exposed rock beds.  In mostly flat Oklahoma County, the only place to do this, usually, is in road cuts and riverbeds.

Today, in Oklahoma, the temperature reached the upper 90’s.  Rampant humidity, raised by an approaching front, made it feel like 102 degrees.  In 1927, there were no air conditioners in Oklahoma, few fans and little relief from the heat.  Mapping generally reached a crescendo before noon.  Crew members would then try to find someplace dark to cool off and avert heat stroke.

During his time in Oklahoma County, one ITIO geologist had become friendly with a widow who had a place just south of what is now downtown Oklahoma City.  After his crew shut down for the day, he began frequenting the widows farm.  Anyone that knows anything about Oklahoma has heard that it is called Tornado Alley.  This is for good reason.  There are probably more tornadoes here than anyplace on earth.  Because of this fact, the widow, and likely everyone else in Oklahoma County at the time, had a storm shelter.

The widow’s storm shelter was dug down into red Oklahoma earth and covered by large timber beams.  She and her new beau would go down into the shelter during the heat of the day and enjoy a nip of corn whiskey and maybe a little hankey pankey.  It was during such a hot, humid and generally oppressive Oklahoma summer day that the geologist made a discovery (no, not that the widow was sweet on him.  He already knew that).  Somewhere in his whiskey-hazed brain, he noticed something that would ultimately change the face of Oklahoma, and the entire world, for awhile.

The Permian-aged rock strata was dipping east instead of west.  I wasn’t there, but I can imagine him getting a big grin on his face, kissing the widow, and dancing her around the storm shelter.  Like spouses of explorationists even today, she probably thought he was crazy (she had likely already figured that out by now).

Shortly, the nearby #1 Foster was drilled, coming in for 5,000 BOPD.  It was soon overshadowed by the drilling of the Wild Mary Sudik #1, a well that blew out at a rate of 3,000 BO per hour, covering every house in the town of Moore with a coat of oil.  The well was reported on around the world.

I heard this story from a geologist whose name I no longer remember.  I don’t know if it’s true, but I suspect it is.  Growing up, exploration geologists were my heroes.  I still haven’t changed my mind.

http://www.ericwilder.com