It’s not quite February yet, but Oklahoma finds itself in its first winter storm of the New Year, the second in little more than a month. While I stayed off the road most of the day, this storm reminds me of another that happened many years ago - when I was much younger, much braver and a whole lot dumber.
I was doing well-site geology work for Cities Service Oil Company in central Kansas. I had been on a well for two weeks. When it came time to leave and return to Oklahoma City, the weather was too bad to do so.
Management didn’t care about the weather. In the days before cell phones, email and fax machines the only way to get an electric log from one location to another was to take it in your car.
“Have it in my office by eight tomorrow morning,” my boss had told me. “We need to know what to do with the well.”
I already knew what to do with the well. It was dry as the proverbial bone, not a single show of oil or gas from the surface to total depth. Being a young geologist, nobody believed me and insisted on seeing the electric logs for themselves.
It mattered little that the highway patrol had shut down I-35, closing all the ramps. I left the location at midnight, heading south to Oklahoma City. When I reached a blocked ramp, I got out of the car, moved the obstruction and drove up on the frozen interstate highway.
A thick sheet of ice covered the surface of Interstate 35. It was a good thing that I had a full tank of gas because no stations were open. The trip took more than four hours and I never saw another vehicle the entire time. If I had gone into the ditch, I would likely have remained there until the spring thaw.
Four members of management met me at the door the next morning when I reached my bosses office. They took the electric logs and my geologic report, never asking me a single question. They finally told me that I could go home, never telling me what they intended to do with the wildcat well we had drilled.
When I read Dilbert each morning in the cartoons, I’m reminded of Cities Service Oil Company. The mismanaged company soon sold to another large oil company. I didn’t care because I had already moved on to work for Texas Oil & Gas.
Instead of driving on an off-limits sheet of ice tonight, I am sitting in front of my computer, pecking out this little remembrance while preparing to watch Arkansas play Mississippi State in basketball. Did I learn anything from that little escapade? You bet! I’ve worked for myself now for thirty-two years. Now, when management orders me to do something completely stupid, I have no one to blame but myself.
Eric'sWeb
Showing posts with label oklahoma oil stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oklahoma oil stories. Show all posts
Friday, January 29, 2010
Monday, December 28, 2009
Bullshot City
I am a big fan of Eric Felten’s weekly column in the Wall Street Journal. Felten highlights cocktails and rather than just providing his many readers with instructions on how to build the perfect Zombie or Mai Tai, he tells a story that is always interesting and informative. A recent column caused me to recall one of my own cocktail stories.
During the last oil boom, I began working as a geologist for Texas Oil & Gas, the most aggressive driller at the time and possibly since. My first day on the job, I had lunch at a downtown restaurant called Over the Counter with the district geologist and another company man.
Having just left Cities Service, a conservative, old-line exploration company, I was used to brown bagging a sandwich washed down with coffee or iced tea. Because of this, my lunch companion’s choice of beverages gave me a start.
Neither man actually had to order a drink. Gerlinda, our very German waitress brought Larry a Bacardi and Coke and Roger a Crown and Seven.
“You are a new one,” Gerlinda said. “What are you drinking?”
“Iced tea,” I answered.
Larry and Roger smiled when Gerlinda shook her head and said, “TXO geologists don’t drink tea.”
“A Coors then,” I said.
“There is no beer at Over the Counter. What kind of cocktail would you like?”
Larry’s grinning shrug clued me that he expected no argument from me.
“Bourbon and water, I guess.”
“What kind of bourbon?” It was my turn to shrug, and shake my head. “TXO geologists don’t drink house liquor and you look like a Wild Turkey man to me,” she said. “From now on I’ll bring you Wild Turkey and water.”
She did, three of them before we finished eating.
“Everyone drinks at lunch,” Larry informed me as I stumbled back to work. “Turkey and water suits you, Wildman.”
“Thanks,” I said as I returned to my office and tried not to fall asleep at my desk.
Lunch was the beginning of my indoctrination as a TXO geologist. I was instructed to put at least three-thousand dollars per month on my company expense account, even if I had to treat friends, cohorts and secretaries every meal. The Company expected me to create at least one drilling prospect every single week, no mean feat even when you are sober, much less when you can hardly hold your head up off the desk after lunch.
I - or I should say my liver - slowly grew accustomed to the daily consumption of alcoholic beverages that often continued into the wee hours of nearly every night. It did not seem to matter much as my seven-year marriage was already in shambles. An underground concourse wove a dark maze beneath downtown Oklahoma City, a pathway populated by restaurants, bars, barbershops and jewelry stores. The proprietors soon knew my name, and my poison of choice, greeting me happily when I stumbled through their door.
The last oil boom was populated by a cast of almost unbelievable characters – ex-used car salesmen sporting Rolex watches, diamond encrusted belt buckles and gold nugget necklaces, preying on the unwary investor, hungry to participate in the multitude of newfound riches and burning up with incurable cases of oil fever. I bought my own gold necklace, a half moon with a diamond eye, from an eight-by-ten jewelry store in the concourse that catered to the newly rich.
I managed to survive almost two years with TXO, having almost a hundred of my prospects drilled during that time. I do no remember if it was I that said uncle, or my liver. Whichever, I moved down the road with my life.
All this brings me to my cocktail story. Sometimes when I was simply too drunk to continue drinking Wild Turkey, I would switch to a drink called a Bullshot. A Bullshot is beef bouillon and vodka. I never learned the exact recipe although I tasted many varieties during my two years with TXO. The one I liked best came from an eight-ounce can. I cannot remember the company that produced it and I do not believe they are still in business.
The last oil boom is long gone, along with Penn Square Bank and thousands of drilling rigs cut up for scrap. Oklahoma now has liquor by the drink instead of liquor by the wink, and you can no longer leave a bar with a roadie to tide you over until you get home. Oklahoma City police no longer tolerate drunk drivers, nor should they.
An era of overindulgence died in Oklahoma City, along with the last oil boom. What survived was a group that could smile when someone said, “Last one to leave the State, cut off the lights.”
That was nearly thirty years ago and the lights in the City are again burning brightly. It has been nearly that long since I drank my last Bullshot. Still, the cocktail helped me survive an era every bit as exciting as the Alaskan Gold Rush, and Felten’s column every week reminds me that mixed drinks are more than a bartender’s recipe. They are an untold story.
Eric'sWeb
During the last oil boom, I began working as a geologist for Texas Oil & Gas, the most aggressive driller at the time and possibly since. My first day on the job, I had lunch at a downtown restaurant called Over the Counter with the district geologist and another company man.
Having just left Cities Service, a conservative, old-line exploration company, I was used to brown bagging a sandwich washed down with coffee or iced tea. Because of this, my lunch companion’s choice of beverages gave me a start.
Neither man actually had to order a drink. Gerlinda, our very German waitress brought Larry a Bacardi and Coke and Roger a Crown and Seven.
“You are a new one,” Gerlinda said. “What are you drinking?”
“Iced tea,” I answered.
Larry and Roger smiled when Gerlinda shook her head and said, “TXO geologists don’t drink tea.”
“A Coors then,” I said.
“There is no beer at Over the Counter. What kind of cocktail would you like?”
Larry’s grinning shrug clued me that he expected no argument from me.
“Bourbon and water, I guess.”
“What kind of bourbon?” It was my turn to shrug, and shake my head. “TXO geologists don’t drink house liquor and you look like a Wild Turkey man to me,” she said. “From now on I’ll bring you Wild Turkey and water.”
She did, three of them before we finished eating.
“Everyone drinks at lunch,” Larry informed me as I stumbled back to work. “Turkey and water suits you, Wildman.”
“Thanks,” I said as I returned to my office and tried not to fall asleep at my desk.
Lunch was the beginning of my indoctrination as a TXO geologist. I was instructed to put at least three-thousand dollars per month on my company expense account, even if I had to treat friends, cohorts and secretaries every meal. The Company expected me to create at least one drilling prospect every single week, no mean feat even when you are sober, much less when you can hardly hold your head up off the desk after lunch.
I - or I should say my liver - slowly grew accustomed to the daily consumption of alcoholic beverages that often continued into the wee hours of nearly every night. It did not seem to matter much as my seven-year marriage was already in shambles. An underground concourse wove a dark maze beneath downtown Oklahoma City, a pathway populated by restaurants, bars, barbershops and jewelry stores. The proprietors soon knew my name, and my poison of choice, greeting me happily when I stumbled through their door.
The last oil boom was populated by a cast of almost unbelievable characters – ex-used car salesmen sporting Rolex watches, diamond encrusted belt buckles and gold nugget necklaces, preying on the unwary investor, hungry to participate in the multitude of newfound riches and burning up with incurable cases of oil fever. I bought my own gold necklace, a half moon with a diamond eye, from an eight-by-ten jewelry store in the concourse that catered to the newly rich.
I managed to survive almost two years with TXO, having almost a hundred of my prospects drilled during that time. I do no remember if it was I that said uncle, or my liver. Whichever, I moved down the road with my life.
All this brings me to my cocktail story. Sometimes when I was simply too drunk to continue drinking Wild Turkey, I would switch to a drink called a Bullshot. A Bullshot is beef bouillon and vodka. I never learned the exact recipe although I tasted many varieties during my two years with TXO. The one I liked best came from an eight-ounce can. I cannot remember the company that produced it and I do not believe they are still in business.
The last oil boom is long gone, along with Penn Square Bank and thousands of drilling rigs cut up for scrap. Oklahoma now has liquor by the drink instead of liquor by the wink, and you can no longer leave a bar with a roadie to tide you over until you get home. Oklahoma City police no longer tolerate drunk drivers, nor should they.
An era of overindulgence died in Oklahoma City, along with the last oil boom. What survived was a group that could smile when someone said, “Last one to leave the State, cut off the lights.”
That was nearly thirty years ago and the lights in the City are again burning brightly. It has been nearly that long since I drank my last Bullshot. Still, the cocktail helped me survive an era every bit as exciting as the Alaskan Gold Rush, and Felten’s column every week reminds me that mixed drinks are more than a bartender’s recipe. They are an untold story.
Eric'sWeb
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tulsa, Tornadoes and Life's Curve Balls
Back in the early nineties two petroleum engineers, friends of mine asked me to testify for them at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission on a geologic matter. Their geologist was out of town, on his honeymoon.
“The map is already done,” Irv told me.
“All you have to do is go over it for the Judge and answer a few questions for the group that’s protesting our spacing hearing,” Ron added.
The task seemed simple enough and I agreed to help them out in the hearing scheduled for consideration in Tulsa. As we all drove east down the Turner Turnpike, their lawyer John regaled us with stories about when he was a Captain in Korea, working for the Military Police.
It was spring, the weather wet and stormy, much like Oklahoma’s weather today. Running water filled ditches on both sides of the turnpike and clouds were a dark shade of ominous gray. You didn’t have to be an Okie to know there was yet another storm brewing overhead.
The Tulsa branch of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is in an old school building near the west edge of town. We headed for the coffee shop to discuss our strategy and to look at Mike’s exhibit.
“What do you think?” Ron asked after I had studied the map in silence for a solid ten minutes.
“There’s a little bust in the contouring,” I said.
Irv grabbed the map out of my hand and said, “Where?”
I showed it to him. “It’s not a material bust. Just something I’d have probably done myself if I had been contemplating marriage and honeymoon in Jamaica.”
John, our attorney, appeared concerned and Irv asked, “What’ll we do?”
“I can correct the contour with a pencil but it changes the map’s interpretation. I don’t think that it would be to your benefit,” I said.
“We can ask for a continuance,” John said.
“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Ron said. “Like Eric said, the bust isn’t material. The other side probably won’t even notice it.”
“What are you grinning at?” Ron asked me, seeing the smirk on my face.
“Mike, the opposing attorney used to work with me at Texas Oil & Gas. If he or his geologist notices the bust they’re going to scream bloody murder.”
“So? What can they do about it?”
“They’ll pick us apart,” John said. “Maybe we should call for a continuance.”
“Nah, we’re here. Let’s do it,” Ron said. “If things get nasty then put me on the stand.”
“Is that all right with you, Eric?” asked Irv.
“Hey, I’m just a hired gun. You tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll give it a shot, but – “
“But what?” Ron demanded.
“Mike is an attack dog. If he smells blood, he won’t stop until he has us gutted and quartered.”
“I say we’re here and we should put on our case. What we’re asking for is the right thing. That little bust in the map is immaterial.”
“I think Nixon said the same thing about the Watergate Tapes,” John said with a grin. “But hey, it’s your call. Eric and I are both just hired guns.”
“Don’t give me that malarkey,” Ron said. “We need to get a ruling on this hearing today. Let’s go for it.”
“Fine,” I said, “But I think we should disclose the error and explain why it has no relevant meaning.”
“It’s such a minor error, they’ll never notice it,” Ron said. “Let’s don’t show our hand before it’s played.”
I had a lump in my throat as I was sworn in before the judge. I knew that there was a narrow line I had to traverse without telling a lie. I also felt a little dirty because I intended to testify only to what was positive about our case and say nothing about what was negative about it.
John understood my quandary and questioned me about the exhibit without asking me to stretch the truth. Shortly after he finished, I sat facing the doggedly resolute eyes of Mike, the opposing attorney. The first words out of his mouth were, “Mr. Wilder, did you notice that there is a geologic bust in your exhibit?”
“Yes, but it’s not material,” I said, protesting.
Mike slammed his hand against the lectern. “Not material? Judge, this exhibit is a total fabrication meant to showcase their argument in the best possible light – a false light,” he added.
“Judge,” John said, standing. “May I approach?”
Mike and John stood in front of the administrative law judge’s bench, bickering back and forth when a bailiff burst into the courtroom.
“Judge, we have to evacuate to the auditorium. There’s a tornado bearing down on us.”
We had all heard the rain and hail pelting the windows. Now the wind had picked up and was rocking the walls. “Recess,” the Judge said. “Everyone follow the bailiff.”
A hundred or so of us sat for around thirty minutes in the auditorium of the old school building, expecting the roof to fly off at any minute. Finally the tornado passed but the storm continued, rocking the old building with rain and wind. Because of the continuing tornado watch, the Judge had little choice but to call for a continuance to the hearing. Ron laughed as we headed back down the Turner Turnpike toward Oklahoma City.
“John, I should have listened to your advice. We were getting our asses kicked in there.”
Talk of the hearing quickly changed to the tornado that barely missed us, and then to other things. I’m a boxing fan and as John began regaling us with tales again, I learned that he was once the manager of Sean O’Grady, Oklahoma City’s former world champ.
To put a cap on this story, Mike the geologist returned from his honeymoon and corrected the minor bust on his map. By the time the next hearing occurred, attorney Mike had lost all his explosive ammo and Ron and Irv prevailed easily.
Alas, Ron and John are no longer with us. Like my Dad, John suffered from Alzheimer’s and lived next door to him in Reminiscence before he died.
Seeing him there reminded me of the Tulsa tornado story. It also reminded me that life is good at throwing curve balls, and sometimes when it does, the only thing you can do is ask for a recess. If you don’t, Old Mother Nature may just request it for you.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
“The map is already done,” Irv told me.
“All you have to do is go over it for the Judge and answer a few questions for the group that’s protesting our spacing hearing,” Ron added.
The task seemed simple enough and I agreed to help them out in the hearing scheduled for consideration in Tulsa. As we all drove east down the Turner Turnpike, their lawyer John regaled us with stories about when he was a Captain in Korea, working for the Military Police.
It was spring, the weather wet and stormy, much like Oklahoma’s weather today. Running water filled ditches on both sides of the turnpike and clouds were a dark shade of ominous gray. You didn’t have to be an Okie to know there was yet another storm brewing overhead.
The Tulsa branch of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is in an old school building near the west edge of town. We headed for the coffee shop to discuss our strategy and to look at Mike’s exhibit.
“What do you think?” Ron asked after I had studied the map in silence for a solid ten minutes.
“There’s a little bust in the contouring,” I said.
Irv grabbed the map out of my hand and said, “Where?”
I showed it to him. “It’s not a material bust. Just something I’d have probably done myself if I had been contemplating marriage and honeymoon in Jamaica.”
John, our attorney, appeared concerned and Irv asked, “What’ll we do?”
“I can correct the contour with a pencil but it changes the map’s interpretation. I don’t think that it would be to your benefit,” I said.
“We can ask for a continuance,” John said.
“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Ron said. “Like Eric said, the bust isn’t material. The other side probably won’t even notice it.”
“What are you grinning at?” Ron asked me, seeing the smirk on my face.
“Mike, the opposing attorney used to work with me at Texas Oil & Gas. If he or his geologist notices the bust they’re going to scream bloody murder.”
“So? What can they do about it?”
“They’ll pick us apart,” John said. “Maybe we should call for a continuance.”
“Nah, we’re here. Let’s do it,” Ron said. “If things get nasty then put me on the stand.”
“Is that all right with you, Eric?” asked Irv.
“Hey, I’m just a hired gun. You tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll give it a shot, but – “
“But what?” Ron demanded.
“Mike is an attack dog. If he smells blood, he won’t stop until he has us gutted and quartered.”
“I say we’re here and we should put on our case. What we’re asking for is the right thing. That little bust in the map is immaterial.”
“I think Nixon said the same thing about the Watergate Tapes,” John said with a grin. “But hey, it’s your call. Eric and I are both just hired guns.”
“Don’t give me that malarkey,” Ron said. “We need to get a ruling on this hearing today. Let’s go for it.”
“Fine,” I said, “But I think we should disclose the error and explain why it has no relevant meaning.”
“It’s such a minor error, they’ll never notice it,” Ron said. “Let’s don’t show our hand before it’s played.”
I had a lump in my throat as I was sworn in before the judge. I knew that there was a narrow line I had to traverse without telling a lie. I also felt a little dirty because I intended to testify only to what was positive about our case and say nothing about what was negative about it.
John understood my quandary and questioned me about the exhibit without asking me to stretch the truth. Shortly after he finished, I sat facing the doggedly resolute eyes of Mike, the opposing attorney. The first words out of his mouth were, “Mr. Wilder, did you notice that there is a geologic bust in your exhibit?”
“Yes, but it’s not material,” I said, protesting.
Mike slammed his hand against the lectern. “Not material? Judge, this exhibit is a total fabrication meant to showcase their argument in the best possible light – a false light,” he added.
“Judge,” John said, standing. “May I approach?”
Mike and John stood in front of the administrative law judge’s bench, bickering back and forth when a bailiff burst into the courtroom.
“Judge, we have to evacuate to the auditorium. There’s a tornado bearing down on us.”
We had all heard the rain and hail pelting the windows. Now the wind had picked up and was rocking the walls. “Recess,” the Judge said. “Everyone follow the bailiff.”
A hundred or so of us sat for around thirty minutes in the auditorium of the old school building, expecting the roof to fly off at any minute. Finally the tornado passed but the storm continued, rocking the old building with rain and wind. Because of the continuing tornado watch, the Judge had little choice but to call for a continuance to the hearing. Ron laughed as we headed back down the Turner Turnpike toward Oklahoma City.
“John, I should have listened to your advice. We were getting our asses kicked in there.”
Talk of the hearing quickly changed to the tornado that barely missed us, and then to other things. I’m a boxing fan and as John began regaling us with tales again, I learned that he was once the manager of Sean O’Grady, Oklahoma City’s former world champ.
To put a cap on this story, Mike the geologist returned from his honeymoon and corrected the minor bust on his map. By the time the next hearing occurred, attorney Mike had lost all his explosive ammo and Ron and Irv prevailed easily.
Alas, Ron and John are no longer with us. Like my Dad, John suffered from Alzheimer’s and lived next door to him in Reminiscence before he died.
Seeing him there reminded me of the Tulsa tornado story. It also reminded me that life is good at throwing curve balls, and sometimes when it does, the only thing you can do is ask for a recess. If you don’t, Old Mother Nature may just request it for you.
Louisiana Mystery Writer
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Altered Perceptions
I’ve been working on some shallow gas wells in Noble County, Oklahoma lately. The area is wide open, with few farm houses and trees, and an absolutely huge sky that lends itself to numerous pictures. The sky is beautiful but even more interesting when you add some effects with your favorite photo editing software.
Being the software junkie that I am, I have a half-dozen or so photo editing programs. Tonight I was fiddling with an Oklahoma sky picture using Roxio Photo Suite because I like its filter set. What I created is a psychedelic version of an oil well tank battery back dropped by an anomalously red sky. The result is, well, psychedelic.
As I gazed at the picture I could almost imagine that the created picture was real and not contrived. The lens of a camera, after all, is similar to the human eye, the digital image it creates like a well-formed thought. It made me wonder if what I see is always the same as what the person beside me sees.
Just like the picture of the sky that I just modified with Photo Suite, my mind is capable of modifying everything I taste, see and hear. How do we know when it is telling the truth, and does it really matter anyway?
Being the software junkie that I am, I have a half-dozen or so photo editing programs. Tonight I was fiddling with an Oklahoma sky picture using Roxio Photo Suite because I like its filter set. What I created is a psychedelic version of an oil well tank battery back dropped by an anomalously red sky. The result is, well, psychedelic.
As I gazed at the picture I could almost imagine that the created picture was real and not contrived. The lens of a camera, after all, is similar to the human eye, the digital image it creates like a well-formed thought. It made me wonder if what I see is always the same as what the person beside me sees.
Just like the picture of the sky that I just modified with Photo Suite, my mind is capable of modifying everything I taste, see and hear. How do we know when it is telling the truth, and does it really matter anyway?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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
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
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