Rock and Roll Geology

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.

Fiction South

Odd Duck Out

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.

Fiction South

Hoodooed in Edmond, Oklahoma

I came home early this afternoon because Marilyn had left for Ardmore earlier today to pick up our daughter Kate. My new pup Princess had been alone inside the house for a while and I wanted to give her a potty break. When I opened the back door I got a big surprise. A large snake dropped down from somewhere above me and landed directly at my feet.

The snake was as startled as I was. It started into the house but turned away when I emitted a yelp. I know what you’re thinking but no, it wasn’t a scream, just a mild yelp. It was enough however to cause Mr. or Mrs. Snake, whichever the case might be, to think better of joining me inside.

The reptile was about three feet long and had a maximum diameter of about two inches. It had no rattler and looked to me like a garden variety snake, maybe a king snake. It was black and had several red stripes the length of its back and sides. Whatever kind of snake it was, I watched from a distance as it crawled away into the grass and disappeared.

I’ve been wondering ever since Mr. or Mrs. Reptile dropped by for a visit (yes, I know, bad pun) what it was doing above my door. I inspected the area carefully but found no evidence that someone had played a prank on me. It didn’t come from the roof because the patio on the back of our house is covered.

The snake and I both had quite a start and the incident made me think of voodoo priestess Mama Mulate from my French Quarter mystery Big Easy. Mama wouldn’t hoodoo me. I created her for heavens sake! Still, maybe I crossed somebody out there and they hired a local mambo or houngan to teach me a lesson.

Nah! No one practices voodoo in Edmond America. Or do they?

Fiction South

French Quarter Pics

Here are two New Orleans French Quarter pics.

Louisiana Mystery Writer

Lily's Famous Eggplant Dressing - a recipe

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.

Fiction South

A Place Called Storyville

 I realized something was exciting and quite different about New Orleans the first time I visited the city. Today, if you go south on Canal Street, you'll eventually end up at the Mississippi River. If you follow Canal to the river, you will encounter attractions such as the Aquarium of the Americas, the World Trade Center and the Canal Street Wharf. Unlike today’s tourist-driven atmosphere you would have found something quite different had you taken the same journey in the 1950s.

I first visited New Orleans during the Eisenhower Era and remember standing on South Canal Street and staring down the hill toward the Mississippi River. New Orleans is a major international seaport and what I saw was a bunch of seedy bars that sailors from many countries frequented when they were in port. The bars were off-limits to American military personnel, and for a good reason. They were dangerous, the women you met there "loose," and venereal diseases rampant.

"Those bars are a good place to get killed," my Aunt Carmol, an ex-marine during World War II and no shrinking violet herself, had told my brother and me. "Don’t ever go there."

The Canal Street bars were long gone before I ever had the opportunity to defy Aunt Carmol’s advice. Still, even as a youngster I felt the potential danger and lingering intrigue present around nearly every corner of New Orleans. One less dangerous but very intriguing place that was eventually cleaned up by the U.S. Navy was Storyville, the Big Easy’s early-day fantasy land that did as much to establish the City’s reputation as a latter-day Gomorrah as anything else in its history.

During the early days of New Orleans, there was a shortage of females. To alleviate this situation, street prostitutes were released from French prisons on the condition that they migrate to the new colony. In 1744, the number of bordellos and houses of prostitution prompted a French army officer to comment that there were not ten women of blameless character in New Orleans. City-wide prostitution continued until 1897 when a puritanical city official devised a plan to control the problem. The plan resulted in the formation of Storyville.

Locals called Storyville "The District." It existed from 1897 until 1917, the concept of New Orleans’ alderman Sidney Story. Story’s plan wasn’t to legalize prostitution, but to control it by defining the boundaries within which it would not be prosecuted as a crime. The concept worked for nearly two decades, and ironically the District became one of the City’s leading tourist attractions.

Despite the belief of many - likely propagated by fictional accounts in literature - Storyville wasn’t located in the French Quarter. It encompassed an area north of the Quarter, just east of Canal Street between N. Rampart and N. Claiborne. Elaborate bordellos, fancy restaurants, and dance halls quickly appeared and flourished, along Basin, the street that became a legend because of its association with early jazz.

Jazz flourished in Storyville, although it didn’t originate there. Each bordello was a place for music as well as prostitution, and each establishment generally had a piano player to entertain its guests. The bordellos often hired bands to perform, as did the restaurants and clubs that sprang up in the District. Jazz superstars such as Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong often performed there. Storyville was near a train station, and many visitors to the City also frequented the bordellos and the clubs to listen to jazz. These visitors, as well as sailors of all nationalities, took this new sound back with them to their cities and countries of origin.

In 1917 the Secretary of the Navy was Josephus Daniels and his nickname "Tea Totaling" perfectly described his tolerance for sin. Daniels insisted that New Orleans either shut down Storyville or else he would close the naval base across the river in Algiers. The base provided too much income to New Orleans for the City fathers to see it close, so they shut down Storyville instead.

A wave of Puritanism swept across the United States during the era of World War I. The residents of New Orleans weren’t exempt from this phenomena. Embarrassed by Storyville, city fathers began systematically dismantling the District. In the years following 1917, all the elaborate bordellos were demolished leaving only a metaphorical scar in place of nearly two decades of irreplaceable history. Even the street names were changed, world-famous Basin Street becoming North Saratoga.

Toward the end of World War II, city fathers made yet another planning blunder. Soldiers were returning home from war and needed a place to live, so the Iberville Housing Project was built on the site of Storyville. Never spoken about in travel brochures or in tourist information, the low-cost Iberville Housing Project quickly became dangerous and crime-ridden. Close to the French Quarter, the Project was a place to avoid at all costs instead of the tourist attraction that the District had once been.

Even with the dismantling of Storyville, prostitution never left New Orleans. It simply spread out across the city to places like the seedy bars frequented by sailors on south Canal. Unlike south Canal, transformed now into a tourist attraction rather than a city blight, the area around Storyville remains largely unknown and off-limits to tourists.

New Orleans’ city fathers made a colossal blunder when they demolished the historic district. They compounded their error when they covered up their mistake by building the infamous Iberville Project. Finally realizing their horrible error in judgment, they did return the name Basin to the famous street that was home of legendary jazz and fabulous bordellos.

New Orleans still exudes a well-deserved aura of danger and intrigue, and there are still more than enough historical sights to see, even though one of the most famous is forever gone. Few vestiges of Storyville remain, yet like the tang of Tabasco Sauce on the palette, its memory remains long after the last spicy bite of etouffee has been consumed.

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

The Little Room Where I Grew Up

The last time I visited my parents in the house where I grew up, before my Mother died, I sat on a stool with my laptop on the bed. This is the room where I lived for seventeen years of my life, the first fifteen along with my older brother Jack. The room is small, sixteen by fifteen, or 240 square feet. These days my brother and I get along very well. Now I know why! If we didn’t, we would have killed each other long before either of us ever graduated from high school. And the room seemed much larger than it does now.

I don’t remember getting along with my brother. Just the opposite. Memories of torment filling every waking moment abound in my mind, torment that usually lasted every single day until one or both of us fell asleep at night. If that’s true, then how did we keep from killing each other?
As I sat there, staring at the walls now decorated with pink print wallpaper, I wonder – did my Mother secretly want girls instead of boys? Even the sheets and comforter on the bed are pink. Yeech!

Now there was a queen-sized bed in the room. Jack and I each had our own beds, small beds. I remember moving them around like forts, taking the plungers out of our BB guns and having cork wars, shooting at each other until my Mother would hear us and race into the room screaming, "Your Daddy’s going to whip your butts when he comes home. Now stop it right now and straighten up this room."

My Father worked in construction and was away from home a lot. When he returned on weekends my Mother would meet him at the door with a belt. We almost always got a whipping before we got a hug. He never hurt us; the whippings were always more bluster than substance.
After pondering this great mystery of life, I’ve decided three things – the way we remember people we once knew is probably totally wrong, our memories of how things used to be are likely completely false and, last but not least, size only matters to adults.

One more thing bothers me, though. Am I wrong about the pink wallpaper?

Fiction South

Happy Father's Day

My Dad will be ninety next month. He lives in a nursing home now, but he is still a vital and witty person. Here are a few pics of him.

Fiction South

Summer Heat and Cool Guitars

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!

Fiction South

Dirty Rice Dressing - a recipe

Dirty rice is a Cajun specialty. Here is an authentic recipe for Dirty Rice Dressing from the French Acadian Cookbook published by the Louisiana Acadian Handicraft Museum, Inc. in 1955. The recipe was contributed by Dr. W.E. Hunt of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

1 cup rice
1 clove chopped garlic
1 pound ground meat
Salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste
1 pound ground giblets
(from fowl or separate giblets)
Pinch of thyme and sweet basil
1 cup chopped onion
1 bunch green onions and tops chopped
½ cup chopped bell pepper
1 tablespoon minced parsley
½ cup chopped celery

Cook rice in double boiler until fluffy, using enough salted water to 1 inch above rice. Allow to cook unstirred until all water is gone. In one skillet sauté ground meat and giblets in ¼ pound butter until brown; in another skillet sauté onions, pepper, celery and seasoning in ¼ pound butter. Add other ingredients. In large pan mix all above ingredients well, using natural gravy from fowl to moisten.

Louisiana Mystery Writer