I left Texas Oil & Gas in 1978, intent on becoming a successful independent oilman.  Practically broke, I had little more than the false bravado of a young man that had never tasted defeat, well, maybe a little.  My recent divorced 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 oilman, 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 ended, I was rolling in dough, and firmly convinced that I was the smartest geologist there ever was.  I was not merely a participant in the last oil boom; I lived and breathed it.

Do I have stories?  Well, let us 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 am returning to Florida tomorrow and I need a deal.  Can you help me?”

We both shook our heads.  “We don’t have anything this moment.”

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

John spoke slowly, with a distinctive Mississippi drawl.  He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a crumpled napkin.  “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 2 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 proceeded to write us a check for a thousand dollars.  “If this lease is open, I’ll give you another four thousand dollars, 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 for four thousand dollars.  The man’s company drilled the well and it came on for 140 BOPD, ultimately producing around 60,000 BO.

Yes, 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.

Eric’sWeb