The U.S.G.S. has released its assessment of potential oil and gas reserves north of the Arctic Circle.  Read this article and find out what they are predicting.

http://www.epmag.com/WebOnlyJuly/item6968.php

http://www.EricWilder.com

Interesting commentary by one person on what he thinks should be the price of oil.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_lynn&sid=aRoFFE_cjizU

http://www.EricWilder.com

All my readers know that I am a huge NASCAR fan so you may be surprised to hear my comments on last Sunday’s Brickyard 400.  To put it mildly, it was a debacle and I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Goodyear.

The Brickyard is known for the abrasive nature of its track but give me a break!  Thousands of races have been run there, never with the result we witnessed Sunday.  The track is usually rubbered-in as a race progresses, resulting in lessened tire wear.  This didn’t happen Sunday because the Goodyear rubber compound simply blew away like so much dust in the wind instead of sticking to the track as it should have.

To compensate for the tire problem, NASCAR called a competition yellow about every ten laps or so.  What ensued was a bunch of race cars lapping the Brickyard at about fifty miles and hour while half a dozen addled race announcers tried desperately and without much success to keep up the buzz, at least when there wasn’t a commercial running.  The resulting race, the second most important race on the entire NASCAR circuit, was boring with a capital B.

The flubbed race Sunday rests solely on the shoulders of Goodyear.  The tire company mixed up a bad batch of rubber with which to make the tires and NASCAR compounded the mistake by allowing almost no tire testing.

I’m not sure of this but I think the Hendrick group was one of the only teams allowed to test the tires on the track.  They responded in the race by being the only team to change four tires on every stop - and they won the race.  Did they know something the other teams didn’t know?  Did they benefit from this knowledge?  Hmm!

Goodyear should have to repay every loyal NASCAR fan that paid hard-earned money to watch a carnival sideshow that didn’t even hire a clown to lighten the situation.  Hey, and I think we die-hard NASCAR fans also deserve an apology.

http://www.EricWilder.com

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water oil closes $4.58 a barrel higher.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/080730markets.aspx

http://www.EricWilder.com

This is the Department of Energy’s take on the energy outlook for 2008 and the report is very interesting.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/jul08.pdf

http://www.EricWilder.com

I read an Exxon-Mobil ad yesterday on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.  It touted new, proprietary exploration technology they call R3M (an acronym for remote reservoir resistivity).  This new exploration technology apparently gives them the ability to “hear” previously undiscovered reserves in the ground.

As an explorationist, this new method interests me greatly.  Here is an article I found on the web about the new technology touted to be the greatest exploration tool since 3–D Seismic.

http://www.oilonline.com/news/features/oe/20041201.All_at_s.16706.asp

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Here’s a pic I took a week ago in Noble County, Oklahoma.

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Wild oil price ride continues, buffeted by many factors.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a4Fb.ATCPRu4&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

A very dire prediction for oil companies that predicated drilling based on $150 oil.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a1PywHlVNJKY&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

When I was a kid one of my favorite TV shows was Mr. Lucky.  It was about a professional gambler that ran a casino on a ship anchored just beyond the three mile limit to avoid trouble with the Feds.  I remember that Lucky always wore a tuxedo, usually white and he was always suave and debonair, at least until provoked.

Mr. Lucky lasted only one season, from 1959 until 1960.  It was filmed in black and white, probably the reason few fans remember the series.  The thing I remember most is that Lucky was a true hero.  Like the TV characters of that era, as portrayed by Steve McQueen (Bounty Hunter), Richard Boone (Paladin) and Nick Adams (The Rebel), he could only be pushed so far before losing his temper and teaching the bad guys (usually real bad!) a much needed lesson in life.

Like many shows of the day, the music outlived the series.  Click on Eric’s Books page at his website and listen to the theme from Mr. Lucky.  See if you don’t agree with me.

Such TV series are gone, replaced now by endless game, dance and reality shows.  Maybe we need a return of the hero with a flawed past and a heart of gold.  Where are you, Bat Masterson?

http://www.EricWilder.com

Cajun and Creole cuisine is known and loved throughout the world but native Louisianans have a dirty little secret – they love fried foods.  From fried oysters to fried turkey, there is little they haven’t tried to fry.  One of my favorite dishes that my Mother prepared almost every Sunday was fried okra.

Roll the okra in flour then dip in a mixture of egg and buttermilk.  Batter the okra with corn meal and then fry in hot oil until brown all over.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve hot.

My Mother had a large cast iron skillet she used to fry things in.  While my Grandmothers fried with lard (pig fat) my mother began using vegetable oil once it was widely available.  Personally, I prefer the vegetable oil.  Try it and enjoy.

http://www.EricWilder.com

Commodities strategist predicts possible bearish end to 2008 for natural gas.  Stay tuned.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aA_y_.oo7K60&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

http://www.EricWilder.com

Here are diagrams just released by the EIA that illustrates what the consumer is paying for when he or she buys a gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel.

http://www.EricWilder.com

Driving back to the office from lunch today the car thermometer said the outside temperature was 111 degrees.  While I doubt the temperature was that high, it was hot, at least a hundred.  The weather made me think about another hot summer, many years ago.

My ex-partner John and I drilled and operated our first well in 1978.  The Kelln, located a few miles north of the tiny Major County, Oklahoma town of Cleo Springs is still producing after thirty years.  Thirty years ago we weren’t so sure how it would turn out.

John and I are both geologists (he is also now a lawyer) and knew little at the time about drilling and completing wells.  We hired a man that did, a geological engineer named Bill A.  Bill had engineered hundreds of wells in the area, mostly for Texas operator T.F. Hodge, and there was little he didn’t know.

Much like today, it was hot and dry when we drilled the Kelln well.  The area north of Cleo Springs is largely agricultural and Bill knew the location of a nearby watermelon patch.

“We’ll load up the trunk,” he said.  “There’s so many out there that the farmers won’t miss a few.”

I was riding shotgun as Bill drove his Chevy field car off the section line road, into the large watermelon patch that stretched as far as we could see.  Following a farmer’s trail, he drove into the middle of the patch and parked beneath the sparse shade of a stunted blackjack tree.  After watching him pop the trunk lid, I followed him down a row lined with huge watermelons.

Bill was tall and had to really bend to thump each melon to determine its ripeness.  We soon chose six prime specimens and loaded them into the Chevy’s deep trunk.  So enthralled were we with our search, we never heard two men in a pickup truck pull in behind us.

“What are you boys doing?” a voice behind us said.

Bill and I turned to see two large farmers, both dressed in sweaty overalls.  Neither man appeared particularly pleased.  I was at a loss for words but not Bill.  Reaching for his wallet, he pulled out a twenty and handed it to the older man.

Bill was as tall as the men confronting us but lanky, unlike the two barrel-chested men with huge arms and farmer’s tans.  With a big Texas grin on his face Bill never missed a beat.

“We were just coming to look for you two boys,” he said, purposely adopting the local drawl in his speech.  “Is twenty enough for these melons we bought?”

The big man nodded and took the twenty without answering or returning Bill’s mile-wide smile.  Glancing at me and cocking his head toward the door, he signaled me to get in the car.  He slammed the trunk shut and followed me, not bothering to say bye to the two farmers.

They watched us drive away, mopping sweat from their heads with their worn out ball caps and ignoring our dust.  Bill didn’t say a word until we were about a mile down the road.  That’s when his infectious grin appeared again on his expressive face.

“I’ve been stealing melons from that patch for years.  Guess it was about time I got caught.”

By this time he was laughing and I joined him, wondering as I did if stolen watermelons tasted better than ones you purchased.  As we continued down the road in a trail of dust I decided that was information I didn’t need to know.

http://www.EricWilder.com

The first large storm in the Gulf in 2008.

Texas, Mexico prepare for Tropical Storm Dolly - Yahoo! News.

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“Not enough oil is being produced to meet world demand and this has been the case since the middle of 2006.'' – Centre for Global Energy Studies

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aI2BEuhvqldA&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

Fewer miles being driven and more fuel-efficient cars equates to lower demand.  Lower prices should follow.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a8rmpQwkyINE&refer=energy

http://www.EricWilder.com

Here is an incredibly easy meal to prepare that is often eaten on Louisiana hunting trips in front of an open fire.  It is hearty and very tasty.

1 can Lima beans                                              1 pkg. Spaghetti

1 large can tomatoes                                         1 lb. cubed beef or pork, cooked

1 can whole corn

Cook spaghetti, drain and rinse.  Add other ingredients and salt and pepper to taste.  Serve hot over toast or biscuits, using part of juice of meat for liquid.  Serves six.

http://www.EricWilder.com

The following commentary was written by Michael Gilbert.  Michael is from Colorado Springs, Colorado and is an active player in the energy industry.

Everyone is running around concerned over energy, energy, energy.  Oil this, gas that, ethanol maybe, hybrids for sure and everyone agrees that nuclear is the answer, except none of us want it our back yard.

Oh and did I mention the cure all for those of us whom are so inclined to go completely green, solar powered and wind driven homes…While I’m not sure how green batteries are, a viable solution for those who live in a predominantly sunny, windy area.

Pretty cool if the area is built for it off the cuff.

Anyway let’s get down to the facts (or at least how I see it).

First and foremost we have all been conditioned with higher prices through the technique of sticker shock.

In other words smack them (us) with crazy outrageous costs, get us to gasp and scream in outrage, then offer us a discount and tell us how lucky we are.

(Please review gasoline prices over the past few years and the trend they have followed.)

The next step is to remove the discount and reintroduce sticker shock.  (Continue with this trend until outrage overcomes the discount).

Now obviously there are other factors (some real others… well, imagined, or otherwise)

However there is one thing that is absolutely clear.  A higher price (for everything that is energy related) is here to stay.  Demand is not going to decrease and reliable and legitimate alternatives are years away if not longer… and we all better get used to it.

So, I‘ll ask you a question, what do we do….no seriously I mean it what do we do?

And please don’t throw cliché answers at me.  There are no all inclusive wholesale immediate answers where we will wake up in the morning and it will all be better.

If you have a suggestion please make sure you have thought it through with a very realistic timeline that includes how and why big business would get involved.  (Remember it doesn’t happen without big business and they won’t do or institute a damn thing with out huge profits to offset huge profits)

In a time when change is the thing maybe we can be the ones who truly pave the way for it.

http://www.EricWilder.com

Up one day and down the next.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080718/oil_prices.html

http://www.EricWilder.com

I’ve never run a marathon but I have competed in a half marathon, a 15 K and more 10 Ks than I can count.  I was overweight and out of shape when I ran the half marathon.  I didn’t win the event but I didn’t finish last either, well at least not dead last.

Oklahoma City inaugurated a yearly marathon event several years ago to commemorate the heroism and sacrifice of the people of our City, and others that lent helping hands during the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing.  Before that there was only the yearly running of the Jim Thorpe Half Marathon around Lake Overholser.

I ran track in junior high and kept up the practice through most of my life.  Even so, I never ran a 10 K until the oil crash of the eighties when my little oil company went belly up.  It was a strange time in my life.  I had a bloated body and a deflated ego.  I needed something to regain my self esteem and somehow decided that running was the ticket.  Since I was too fat to run I began walking laps through the house.  Soon I was jogging through the neighborhood at what I thought was a healthy clip.  Feeling better than I had in years I entered my first 10 K.

To the uninitiated 10 K is short for ten kilometers, a distance of six-point-two miles.  My first was the Red Bud, a yearly Oklahoma City running event that recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary.  I finished the distance in less than sixty minutes and I was hooked.

It was during my first 10 K that I learned I wasn’t the only busted oilie that had turned to jogging as therapy.  Hell!  Half the oil community was competing, and finding so many kindred spirits only bolstered my desire to continue running.

Many events followed but somewhere along the line I quit training and did nothing as my weight ballooned back up to one-eighty-five.  I had made excuses for the past three Jim Thorpe’s and decided that I couldn’t live with myself another year without at least attempting the distance of a bit more than thirteen miles.

I arrived for the event late and unregistered.  Only the convincing of some of my oilie brethren got me registered and I was still filling out papers when the starter pistol fired.  It didn’t matter because I hadn’t come to win, only to compete and prove to myself that I still had the goods, even if they had shrunken slightly.

Months had passed since I had entered an event and word began trickling down through my group of friends.  Amazingly, many waited on me, or dropped back in the pack to pat me on the back and offer encouragement.  Before long I felt like a fat Forrest Gump, surrounded by friends determined that they were going to will me to finish the race.

Somewhere near the halfway mark I convinced my friends both male and female to run their race and that I would run mine.  One by one they broke away, disappearing into the distance, leaving me alone in a pack of twenty or so very slow runners.  It was then that I realized that I desperately needed to go to the bathroom.

Lake Overholser is a City Park and I soon spotted a bathroom.  Breaking from the pack I headed straight for it.  When I finished my business there were no runners around and I was, I realized, really bringing up the rear.

I somehow continued trudging forward, although I was already spent.  A Seven-Eleven convenience store marked the three-quarter mark.  Having a few dollar bills stashed in my shorts I stopped for a cold drink but once inside I settled on an ice cold Coors instead.

“Why not?” I told the clerk.  “I’m so far behind that I can do no better than last anyway.”

“No way,” the pretty cashier told me.  “At least ten runners just left here.  They were all drinking beer.”

My dim hopes suddenly bolstered I slammed the Coors, gave the pretty girl a confident wink and hurried out the door.  The potty and beer breaks were what I needed.  I soon saw a group of runners ahead of me and could tell that if I continued my pace I would catch them before the finish line.  With that goal in mind I began moving at a rate I soon realized I couldn’t maintain.

Most of the runners ahead of me continued their pace and when I reached the last turn before the finish line there was only one runner still ahead of me.  I was out of shape but I wasn’t particularly old at the time.  The runner in front of me looked at least ten years older than me and about the same weight.  It didn’t matter because I could see the finish line in the distance and she was somehow managing to pull away.  Closing my eyes tightly, I made a wish, took a deep breath and started to sprint.

Don’t ask me how but by some superhuman effort I managed to overtake the old lady and beat her by a foot or two across the finish line.  My efforts didn’t impress her as she just frowned and shook her head as she walked past me.  Everyone, it seemed, had already gone home and not even the scorers were left to welcome us to the finish line.

I was so sore that I could barely get out of bed the next morning and I had difficulty walking up the stairs.  Still, I had a grin on my face that didn’t disappear for the rest of the weekend.  Maybe I had beat out an old woman just to keep from finishing dead last but at least I had finished, and it came flowing back to me why I had begun running in the first place.

I learned a good lesson in life that day.  No matter how bad you feel just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  And, maybe more importantly, before giving up, stop, slug an ice cold Coors, then regroup and get after it again.

http://www.EricWilder.com

Just as the weekly oil on stock in the U.S., so goes the weekly prices.

Oil prices tumble again on US surprise supply jump: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

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When it comes to oil prices no one really knows the top – – – or the bottom.

Oil prices plummet $8 on spreading economic fears: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

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A very interesting article about the future price of oil.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10426456/1/why-we-may-never-see-80-oil-again.html

http://www.EricWilder.com

I left Texas Oil & Gas in 1978, intent on becoming a successful independent oil man. Practically broke, I had little more than the false bravado of a young man that had never tasted defeat. Well, maybe a few defeats. My recent divorce following a seven year marriage had left my ego slightly dented. I was either too young, or too stupid - maybe both - to worry much about failure.

My first six months as an independent oil man I went through every penny of my savings, meager though they were. I got by, somehow, with a mortgage on my motorcycle - a Triumph Bonneville - and a thousand dollar loan from my new girlfriend. To say that I succeeded because of perseverance would be a lie. My departure from paycheck security exactly coincided with the Arab Oil Embargo of 1978. Before 1979 had ended I was rolling in dough and firmly convinced that I was the smartest geologist there ever was

Do I have stories about the last oil boom? Well, let’s just say I could write a book about it. Here is just one story:

John, my partner from Mississippi, and I spent our mornings drawing maps. At lunch, we would go to a watering hole named Over the Counter. We often stayed until three or four in the afternoon drinking scotch and whiskey. Yes, we were living in that kind of world. One such day after leaving OTC we found a man waiting at our office door.

"Someone told me you boys are prospect generators. I’m going back to Florida tomorrow and I need a deal. Can you help me?"

We both shook our heads. In those days you never had to show a prospect more than three times before someone would buy it.  That’s how desperate oil people were to drill wells.  We quickly informed him that we had no prospect at the moment.

Please, I’m a desperate man. Surely you have an idea, or something."

John reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a crumpled napkin.  In his distinctive Mississippi drawl, he said, "Here’s an idea I was telling Eric about at lunch." He showed the structure map, drawn in faded ink on the napkin, to the stranger from Florida. "This prospect is in Grant County. This dry hole had two feet of porosity and this dry hole had a show of oil on a drillstem test. I think you’ll find oil right here," he said, pointing to an X near the center of the napkin.

The stranger pulled out his checkbook and wrote us a check for a thousand dollars. "If this lease is open, I’ll give you another four thousand and drill a well. If it hits, I’ll assign you a 3.125% override."

With that, he disappeared, with the napkin, down the hall to the elevator. A week later we received a check in the mail from the man for four thousand dollars. His company drilled the well and it came on for a hundred and forty BOPD, ultimately producing around sixty thousand barrels of oil.  Our new acquaintance ultimately bought another dozen or so deals from us, drilling most of them.

This is a true story and such was the rock and roll world of the last oil boom. We thought that it would never end, but it did. I was a multi-millionaire by thirty and dead broke by forty. I came though the ordeal bent but not broken.

John became a lawyer. I stuck it out, continuing as an independent geologist, sometimes making a big kill, but mostly barely surviving. Along the way, I began putting my thoughts on paper, at first just to vent my frustrations. I soon learned that I had a passion for the pen that has never abated.

Yes, I lived the last oil boom. I can tell you stories you would not believe, and maybe someday I will.

http://www.EricWilder.com

I moved to Oklahoma City thirty-five years ago.  Having already survived a tour of duty in Vietnam and almost two years of graduate school in Arkansas, I was unprepared for what awaited me in Oklahoma.

My new job with Cities Service Oil Company closely coincided with the first Arab oil embargo that occurred in 1973.  Oil that had sold for three dollars a barrel for decades quickly jumped to twelve.  This seems miniscule when considering prices this year that have approached one-hundred-fifty dollars a barrel, but a quadrupling of price in 1973 resulted in what could only be described as an explosion of drilling activity.

As a fledgling geologist with less than a year’s experience, I recommended the leasing of more than a million acres in Kansas.  Yes, Cities purchased the leases and soon drilled half a dozen wildcat wells.  I lasted a little more than two years with Cities Service before another company tripled my salary and hired me away.

My new job as a development geologist took me to downtown Oklahoma City with a rising energy company called Texas Oil and Gas.  TXO had nine or ten geologists on staff (I can’t remember the exact number).  My first day on the job, the chief geologist took me and another geologist to lunch at a restaurant called Over the Counter.

A former stockbroker owned OTC, along with another restaurant named Bull and the Bear.  When I ordered iced tea, the waitress, a German lady, informed me that TXO geologists had mixed drinks for lunch – at least three.  “You look like a Wild Turkey man,” she said.  From that day on, whenever I entered OTC, Gerlinda would bring me a Wild Turkey and water – a very strong Wild Turkey and water.  She kept them coming until I had drank at least three.

I soon began engaging in what I now call “rock and roll” geology.  There was a company joke that each geologist generated a prospect per week, or risked losing their job.  The joke wasn’t far from the truth.  We had a Friday prospect meeting that usually lasted all day.  After creating pencil-drawn structure and isopach maps, taped and pasted cross-sections and a rudimentary economic projection during the week, we would present it to management on Friday where it would likely be accepted and added to the drilling agenda.

After the Friday meeting, every geologist would adjourn to the nearest bar (and there were many to choose from) to drink away their stress.   During my two years in the pressure cooker I had ninety-nine wells drilled and probably consumed a barrel or so of Wild Turkey and water.  With my liver screaming for help, I left the company and went “independent” in 1978.  The seventies oil boom was just beginning and excitement filled the air.

http://www.EricWilder.com

Marilyn and I live on the east edge of Edmond, a section of town that is still largely undeveloped all the way to our City water supply of Lake Arcadia.  Because of the numerous creeks, draws and stands of trees between us and Arcadia many forms of wildlife proliferate near our house.  The newest addition to our menagerie is a group of four wild ducks.

I use the word new loosely.  The ducks visited for the first time last summer and decided to stay, disappearing for a couple of the coldest months and reappearing along with the robins and daffodils this spring.

There were actually two groups of ducks last year and part of this year.  One group included two males and a female, the other group two lone males.  Both groups returned this spring but something happened to one of the males in the second group.  The lone male in the second group attached himself to the other three ducks and remains so to this day, even if he isn’t well accepted.

The original three ducks allow the fourth to tag along, except when he gets too close to birdseed left for them by Marilyn (they also eat the cat’s uneaten hard food, at least the fish flavored variety).  When Odd Duck tries to claim his share of birdseed one of the two males in the first group lowers its heads and chases him away, at least for a second or two.  This is all strange because Odd Duck is the largest male.  Odd Duck is slightly mistreated but he always manages to get his share of the goodies.

I’m sure you animal purists out there are saying we shouldn’t feed the ducks.  Yes, we have changed the migratory and social pattern of these wild creatures, probably for ever.   Still, altering the lives of four ducks likely has no effect on the species as a whole, or the ecosystem.  The ducks have absolutely no fear of humans.  This trust and total lack of fear is probably the reason our distant ancestors were originally able to domesticate these and other animals. 

The ducks often fly away for hours, probably to Lake Arcadia where hundreds of other wild ducks congregate.  I don’t know where they go but they are in our front yard every morning by seven and every evening by seven.  Hmmm!  Come to think of it I don’t know if we have them on a schedule or the other way around, and for that matter who’s domesticated whom.

http://www.EricWilder.com

Here is EIA’s latest graph showing U.S. oil stocks, and a clue why oil prices are so high.

http://www.EricWilder.com

 While attending college in Monroe, my friend Larry and I decided to hitchhike to the small Webster Parish town of Cotton Valley, Louisiana.  Larry’s grandparents lived in the former oil and gas boomtown and had invited us down for the weekend.  The trip there was non-eventful, the trip home a story in itself.  I’ll save that account for another time and tell you instead about our encounter with a ghost in the Cotton Valley cemetery.

Larry had a twin sister named Leeann that was also visiting her grandparents for the weekend.  Her girlfriend Cindy had a car and don’t ask me why we hitchhiked to Cotton Valley instead of riding with them but it had something to do with sibling rivalry.

Larry’s grandparents, I’ll call them the Bloomers, had a large wood-framed house with many rooms that they had once rented to itinerant oil field workers.  By the sixties Cotton Valley had a population less than two thousand.  Still an oil town it was no longer a boomtown.  All of the Bloomer’s extra rooms were empty and Larry and I had our pick of the lot.

Like her brother Larry, Leeann was tall and dark.  That’s where their appearances diverged.  Leeann had the looks of a young starlet along with a Jayne Mansfield body. Tiny Cindy was as pretty as Leeann but was blonde, svelte and had a deep and lusty voice that belied her size.

I was in my teens and the girls could have both been homely as sin and I would still have had visions of a potential weekend liaison.  Leeann and Larry, as I mentioned, had unresolved family differences and my daydreams were squelched shortly after the girls arrived.  I got my first clue when she and Cindy took rooms as far away as they could get from us on the other side of the large house.

Friday night and most of Saturday passed without Larry and me seeing much of Cindy and Leeann as they were off in the car and we were on foot.  Cotton Valley had neither a movie house nor any other form of recreation at the time and Larry and I soon grew bored.  I managed to stem my own boredom somewhat by keeping a running journal written in ink on a sheet of paper that I kept in my shirt pocket

The seclusion Larry and I felt had apparently also worked on Leeann and Cindy because shortly after a sit-down dinner with the grandparents they asked us to go for a spin with them in the car. We quickly agreed.

We drove away from the grandparent’s house after dinner, Larry and I in the back seat of Cindy’s Fairlane.  As I glanced over the bench at the half-hidden riches beneath Leeann’s plunging blouse and Cindy’s short skirt hiked high on her tanned thighs my daydreams quickly re-emerged.  They needn’t have.

We soon stopped at a house on the far edge of town and picked up Jim.  Cindy and Jim, it seemed, had met the prior semester at Northeast Louisiana.  After flunking out, he had moved back to Cotton Valley to work in the oil patch.

Cindy’s beau was a tall handsome fellow with a Cancun lifeguard’s tan.  When Leeann climbed into the backseat with Larry and me and told me to push over to the middle of the bench seat, all my sexual fantasies flew out the car’s open window and I could tell by her frown that I should keep my hands to myself.  I thought so when she crossed her legs and pointed them away from me toward the door and knew for sure when she wrapped her arms tightly around her ample bosom

It was just beginning to grow dark as we drove away from Jim’s house – a good thing as I had trouble keeping my gaze away from Leeann’s ample body.  Miniskirts were the vogue at the time and the short garment barely qualified her as fully clothed.  Feeling Larry’s cold stare over my shoulder I somehow wrested my gaze from her gorgeous legs and luscious breasts – except for an occasional stolen glance.

There isn’t, as mentioned, much to do in Cotton Valley and we were soon headed out of town on a stretch of lonely blacktop.  By now it was pitch dark, except for the stars and light of a full yellow moon.  Jim and Cindy apparently had a bit of a tiff earlier in the day.  We didn’t know it at the time but their relationship was near an end.  Luckily for the rest of us, they remained cordial the remainder of the evening and Jim covered up their quarrel skillfully by becoming our local tour guide.

“Slow down and I’ll show you the hanging tree.”  Cindy touched the brakes and pulled over as Jim pointed at a large oak tree on the side of the blacktop.  A single large branch stretched across the road.  Jim told us the tragic story of the rape of a white girl by a local black boy and the resultant retribution performed by an element of the town’s white population.  ‘They buried his body in the cemetery up the road and he supposedly still haunts it, especially on a full moon like tonight.”

“Have you ever seen the ghost?” Leeann asked.

There was swagger in Jim’s voice when he said, “Lots of times.  Once it waved a knife at a friend and me.”

“Did it scare you?” Larry asked.

“No way,” Jim said

As we sat on the side of the road, listening to Jim’s story, a gentle summer breeze wafted the large tree’s leaves and branches causing shadows to dance across warm blacktop.  None of us commented as Cindy applied the gas and started away toward the cemetery.

As I recall the short ride to the suspected rapist’s place of internment, I realize that Jim probably had visions of mending fences with Cindy, and perhaps a romantic connection induced by her anxiety at possibly seeing a ghost.  When we reached the cemetery, I’m sure the visualization we soon saw caused his thoughts of romance to disappear out the open window, along with his phony boldness.

The little cemetery lay just off the blacktop and had a small dirt parking lot.  Cindy pulled into the lot and turned off the car’s lights.  The night was moon bright and it took only a few moments for our eyes to adjust to the relative darkness.  A fence of wrought iron surrounded the cemetery stretching before us like a silent metropolis of the lifeless.

“Hear it?” Jim asked.  “The dead boy’s soul is calling out to us.”

I couldn’t hear anything except semis passing on a distant highway along with a chorus of crickets and tree frogs.  Still, Jim’s words evoked a certain anxiety.  Cindy also felt it as she slid toward the center of the car and closer to Jim.  Leeann uncrossed her legs and grabbed my hand in a firm clasp.  I couldn’t see Larry’s eyes but I knew he must be frowning.  We had all just noticed something that none of us could explain.

Leeann clutched my hand even tighter when Cindy said, “Oh my God!  What is that?”

Before us an eerie blue light rose straight up from the center of the little cemetery, stretching like the creepy luminescent beam of an ethereal spotlight pointing high into the sky.  A slight breeze caused the beam to vacillate like the luminous arms of a ghostly hula dancer.

We all sat in silence, waiting for the image to disappear so our minds could promptly deny what we all had seen.  It didn’t happen that way.

Talk of the ghost had elicited Jim’s desired effect on Cindy.  By now she was practically sitting in his lap, her arms clutched desperately around his neck.  Jim didn’t seem to notice as his eyes in the reflected moonlight were big as proverbial saucers, his own arms gripping Cindy as tightly as she held him.

They weren’t the only ones caught up in the spooky moment.  Leeann clamped my right hand with both of her own.  She couldn’t have drawn any closer without occupying the space where I sat.  What Larry was thinking about the situation briefly crossed my mind.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Leeann finally said.

Larry was having none of it.  “No way, we need to find out what’s causing that light.  I don’t believe for one minute it’s a ghost.”

When no one responded to his statement Larry opened the back door and started for the cemetery gate.  I was more interested in Leeann’s pressing warmth and tender softness than the ghost but it quickly returned to my attention when the door slammed behind him.  Concerned for her brother, Leeann released her grip and pushed me toward the door.

“You’re his friend.  You go with him.”

When I glanced at Big Jim his wide-open stare quickly told me he would be of no help.  Leeann’s frown and folded arms had returned so I opened the back door and followed my friend into the night.

“Larry, where are you?” I called.

“In front of you,” he said in a whisper.  “The light is coming from over that rise.”

The little country cemetery was well kept, grass trimmed around the tombs.  Some of the headstones were large and ornate but most were old and crumbling, many no more than wooden crosses and rectangles of worn concrete.  We had no flashlight but didn’t need one as there were few trees to block star light and bright glow of the full moon.  A graveled path led up the hill toward the gleaming blue light.

Larry and I were in ROTC and both already experienced in night maneuvers.  The ghostly light that continued to beam from the center of the cemetery apparently didn’t frighten my large companion and I was feeling more elated anticipation than fear.  As we crested the slight rise we both saw the origin of the eerie light.

Larry halted in his tracks and held up his hand for me to stop.  Moonlight was shining directly on a large piece of blue foil once used to wrap a flower pot.  The light was reflecting off the foil and onto the polished marble surface of a headstone.  The resultant glow shone like the beam of a spotlight, straight up into the sky.

The light wasn’t all we saw.  In the darkness, just beyond the spot where the little hill began to drop in elevation, an almost indistinguishable shadowy figure came into view.  It remained a moment in one spot before continuing slowly toward us, its amorphous shape wafting in the gentle summer breeze.  Larry took a step forward to investigate but a shout from behind caused us both to turn and look.

“Larry, where are you?”  It was Leeann.  Worried about her brother, she had followed us.  We watched as she picked her way up the little hill.  Just as she reached us she froze in place, put her hand to her mouth and said, “Oh my God!”

A vivid flash of summer lightning accompanied Leeann’s exclamation followed quickly by a clap of thunder that seemed as if it were right on top of us.  Leeann didn’t appear to notice.  She was staring at a spot behind us, still grasping her open mouth with her left hand as she pointed straight ahead with her right.  Need I add how wide her eyes had grown?

Another flash of lightning lit the sky as Larry and I turned to see what she was pointing at.  A sudden summer rainstorm had moved quickly overhead, already covering the stars and moon with dark puffy clouds.  As lightning dissipated only gloom remained, but not until Larry and I saw a shadowy nimbus floating up the hill toward us.

Before either of us could react Leeann grabbed me from behind and screamed at the top of her lungs, trying, it seemed to squeeze the breath out of me.  As she did clouds began unloading with large heavy drops of warm precipitation that lasted for no more than a minute.  Dark clouds passed with the rain, again revealing clear sky complete with stars and full moonlight.  Whatever we thought we had witnessed had disappeared along with the momentary storm.

“Did you see it?” Leeann asked, her long arms still wrapped tightly around my chest.

“I saw something but don’t know what it was,” I answered.

Leeann gave me an incredulous look when Larry said, “It was just a low-lying cloud.”

“My ass!”  Leeann said.  “It was shaped like a man and it was coming up the hill after us.  You saw it didn’t you Eric?”

“I saw something but I didn’t get a good look.  We turned away just as you called to us.”

“Trust me, it was nothing but a cloud,” Larry said as he led us back to the Fairlane.

Leeann had already begun to disbelieve her eyes as she followed her brother down the hill.  I didn’t know what to believe but I was already missing the warmth of her breasts against my back.  We had to bang on the car door for Jim and Cindy to let us in.

“Did you see it?” Cindy asked.

“Yes, just before the rain started.” Leeann said.

“What rain?” Jim asked.  “It’s been clear as a bell ever since you left the car.”

“Well it sure as hell rained on us, didn’t it Larry?”

“For a minute or so,” he said.

Cindy and Jim stared at him, and then at me.  “You don’t look wet.  Are you guys pulling our legs?”

My shirt and pants were almost dry and I could do little more than shrug my shoulders.  By the time we dropped Jim off at his house, talk of the ghost had ended.

Cindy and Leeann were already gone next morning before Larry and I ate breakfast.  Larry didn’t want to talk about the ghost except to say it was “bullshit” and I never spoke to either Leeann or Cindy again.

The mind plays tricks and sometimes what you think you see is nothing more than an invention of your imagination.  Still, as Larry and I waited on the edge of I-20, trying to thumb a ride, I reached in my shirt pocket and pulled out the remains of my scribbled journal.  My shirt - we were out of clean clothes and I was wearing the same shirt and blue jeans as the previous night - was damp from sweat, crumpled paper equally moist.  Something prompted me to unfold the soggy journal and look at it and I got quite a shock when I did.

Either rain or sweat had caused the blue ink to bleed on the paper and render my scribbling all but indecipherable – except for one word.  In large blurry letters it spelled out WRAITH.

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Friday is here along with a new oil price high.

Oil sets new record above $147 a barrel: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

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World situations continue to roil energy prices.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=ahx3pbP4E01U&refer=energy

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Crude oil prices continue to see-saw.  EIA reports larger than expected weekly draw-down of oil supplies. 

Oil turns higher on US data, Iran missile tests: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

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Oil posts a large drop for second day in a row.  Has our decrease in driving habits finally had an effect on oil price?

Oil futures extend decline to trade below $138 - MarketWatch.

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The best Cajun cook I ever knew was my former mother-in-law Lily.  Every meal was an experience and always served up in authentic fashion.  One of my favorite side dishes was her famous eggplant dressing that she prepared, like all her other culinary creations, sans cookbook.

I watched her make this dish many times and I’m recounting it now from memory, but I think it is pretty close.

2 large purple eggplants, cubed and diced                    5 slices of bacon

¾ pound ground pork                                                  1 ½ teaspoons black pepper

Salt to taste                                                                  1 large can whole tomatoes

2 ½ cups cooked rice                                                   French bread crumbs

1 ½ cups onion, garlic, sweet pepper, chopped

Cook the eggplants in salted water until soft.  Drain, mash and set aside.  Sauté bacon in large cast-iron skillet and then add onion, garlic and sweet pepper mixture.  Sauté until vegetables are wilted and then add to eggplants.

Cook the ground pork until brown, drain the fat and then stir in the eggplant mixture.  Add the can of tomatoes, salt and pepper and bread crumbs.  Mix well and then simmer on medium-low heat for about twenty minutes.

Pour the mixture into a casserole dish, add the rice and more bread crumbs and then bake at 350 degrees for thirty minutes.  Enjoy.

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Here are two pics I took last time I was in Noble County.

Dead Tree in a Golden Field

Swabbing in a Herington Well

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OPEC’s President blames everyone and everything – except OPEC itself – for ever-expanding oil prices.

OPEC president blames oil prices on ethanol, weak dollar: reports - MarketWatch.

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Trees City was founded by the legendary oil finders Benedum and Trees.  These two wildcatters had moved to north Louisiana after finding large oil fields in Oklahoma.  They discovered the field in far northwest Louisiana for which the town was named.

Trees City quickly became a boomtown complete with churches, honky tonks and a post office.  During the height of the oil boom, twenty-five thousand people lived there.  Today it is little more than a memory.

Thick trees, vines and creepers cover most of what was once a thriving city.  Permanent steel towers, constructed on site for the drilling of a single oil well, still peek up through the tall trees.  Even the post office is gone, located now at the Oil Museum in nearby Oil City, Louisiana.

Benedum and Trees sold their interest in the field to Gulf Oil for a million dollars, an enormous sum of money at the time.  The amount pales compared with the vast riches recovered by Gulf Oil.  It doesn’t matter much now.  Where roughnecks once toiled to recover Mother Nature’s dark liquid bounty, only ghosts wisping silently over Jeems Bayou still remain.

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I remember hearing when I was a student of geology many years ago that there is an undrilled super-structure somewhere off the coast of Florida that contains untold barrels of oil.

The Government was into buying cheap foreign oil at the time (we couldn’t export oil then and we still can’t) and saving our own nest egg until some future time when our country finds itself in a real energy crisis.  Urban myth?  I have no clue.

Companies begin quest for oil, gas off Fla. coast: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

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My Brother Jack was born on July the Third and he and I loved fireworks.  We both wanted to be soldiers and we practiced war our entire childhood.  Because of our obsession my favorite holiday, and my Brother Jack’s, was and is the Fourth of July and the one I remember best is the first one that I can remember.

While growing up in small town Vivian, there were no City ordinances barring the use of fireworks.  Every manner of explosives was sold including M-80s and Two-Inchers.  Jack and I are both lucky to have all our digits as we later experimented with everything we could strike a match too.

My buddy Timmy Jon and I even mixed our own batch of gunpowder and almost burned up the house with it.  The first Fourth that I can remember, however, we made do with firecrackers, bottle rockets, sparklers and Roman candles.

On the Fourth of July my Mom and Dad would buy us about ten dollars worth of fireworks.  Ten bucks doesn’t sound like much but you could pop lots of firecrackers for that amount in the sixties.  We always began the fireworks as soon as it was dark enough.

I don’t remember my age but I was old enough to feel the excitement of impending danger.  With our Dad’s help we began lighting sparklers, popping firecrackers and launching one bottle rocket after another.  We soon got down to the good stuff.

‘Hold it in the air and shake it,” My Dad directed as he lit my first-ever Roman candle.

I can still remember the percussion and slight recoil as incandescent flame burst from the coiled-paper barrel of the explosive device.  I couldn’t count at the time but I had a seat-of-the-pants feel for how many fiery rounds the candle contained.  When it was over I held the warm rod in my hand, inhaling acrid smoke and burned powder.  It was an odor I will never forget.

My red-headed Brother Jack was next at bat and he had mischief in mind before my Dad ever lit the candle’s fuse.  My Mother was standing behind us in the open door of our house.  Soon as the candle started spitting fire, Jack began pointing it at anything that caught his fancy - a tree, the family car, me, and finally toward the open door of the house.

Dodging the oncoming fireball, my Mom screamed and jumped off the porch.  Jack put at least three fireballs through the house, luckily catching nothing on fire.  When he finally threw down the spent Roman candle my Dad just shook his head, grabbed the remaining fireworks and walked into the house.  Mom followed him, but not before unloading verbally on Jack.

Nothing much else was ever said about the incident, Mom and Dad giving Brother Jack the benefit of the doubt that what he did was caused by inexperience and lack of good sense.  After living in close proximity to him until I was fifteen, I know better.  He went to sleep that night giggling about scaring my Mom and Dad and getting away with it.

The Fourth of July means a lot more to me than just fireworks and hot dogs and we should all reflect on the sacrifices this wonderful holiday immortalizes.  Still, my favorite holiday remains the Fourth of July and the one I remember best is the first one that I can remember.

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Saudi comments, EIA storage reports, war talk and innuendo combine to accelerate the upward price of crude.

Oil hits new record above $145: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance.

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This is a very interesting article with long-ranging implications for the economy.

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

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Here is the EIA’s latest graph of U.S. Crude oil stocks released July 2.  It shows that stocks are near a five year low.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=akeUPbbAb_h8&refer=energy

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It’s summer in Oklahoma, the weather hot and humidity out of sight.  As I drink a beer and dink on my laptop, I’m reminded of the many similar summers I experienced while growing up in northwest Louisiana.

We had no air conditioning then, only a ceiling fan and a lot of open windows.  As I pay attention to my new Eagle’s CD I’m also reminded that the music we listened to back then was either on scratchy LP’s or radios with tinny speakers.

I like the new Eagle’s album.  It has some good songs on the two CD’s, although most a little too country for my tastes.  My personal favorite is Last Good Time in Town sung, and I guess written, by Joe Walsh.

Age-wise I’m contemporaries with the Eagles and I’m happy to hear that in their sixties the boys haven’t lost their creative spark.  I grew up about thirty miles from the equally tiny town where Don Henley lived but hey, thirty miles across the Texas border may as well have been a thousand miles away.

Walsh’s song features one of his patented guitar riffs, his style as catchy as any musician that ever played the instrument.  The lyrics are meaningful but don’t weigh your soul down with some maudlin message.  The beat and back-up instrumentation keep enticing you to get out of your seat and start dancing.  Yes I did!

A new steamy summer and a fresh Eagles album make me happy and I’m glad the boys, in their sixties, haven’t lost their creative spark.  Maybe there’s hope for me yet!

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