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