December proved to be the coldest yearend Oklahoma has experienced in many years. Now, with 2009 barely gone, a new blue norther is bearing down on Oklahoma. It is beginning to precipitate as I take my two pugs for a walk in the backyard. Tomorrow morning’s low is predicted with a wind chill of minus fifteen. It reminds me of a winter I experienced some thirty years ago. As a young geologist for Cities Service Oil Company, I spent almost two years watching wildcat wells as they drilled. The state was Kansas but sometimes seemed like total chaos.
I was sitting a well near Anthony, Kansas when a giant snowstorm blew in. The storm lasted two days. When the snow finally quit falling, it had left fourteen foot drifts on the sides of the road. In the days before cell phones I had to drive to the nearest payphone and give my morning report to the powers-that-be in Oklahoma City before eight in the morning.
I left the rig before seven, heading for a service station about fifteen miles away. Growing up in Louisiana, I had never seen much snowfall. I did get a little taste of it when I attended graduate school at the University of Arkansas, but nothing like I experienced that day in Kansas.
It was snowing so hard, that I experienced a total whiteout. How I stayed on the road I will never know. I never made it to the payphone and will also never know how I made it back to the rig without going in the ditch. I remained on location until it finally stopped snowing before driving to town to file a report. What I saw on the way there was as surreal as a scene from a Kafka novel.
Snowplows had cleared the highway, moving the massive amounts of snow to the side of the road. The drilling well was in the country, cattle ranching comprising the primary source of revenue for the locals. In flat central Kansas there are few trees to break the wind and rows of cattle lay dead, frozen to death, all along the fence line.
When the weather finally went back over the freezing mark, the snow began to melt, turning the location into a mud hole. Long before the days when the EPA began requiring portable toilets on all the drilling rigs, your only option if you had to relieve yourself was to seek whatever cover you could find (hard to do on the barren plains of central Kansas) and just go. I remember stepping out the backdoor of the logging trailer and sinking up to my thighs in mud.
The wildcat well was a dry hole and I got very sick, my throat so sore I could barely swallow. When I returned to Oklahoma City, I hung up my Louisiana jacket for good and ordered a goose down coat from the North Face – a coat I still own.
A blue norther approaches as I keyboard this story but I’m not worrying about it. I don’t have to drive twenty miles tomorrow morning to call in a morning report so I think I’ll just finish this story, mix a little whiskey and water, and then put another log on the fire.
Eric'sWeb
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Silkwood Story
In 1974, Marilyn and her two kids, Shane and Shannon, lived in a small apartment near the Edmond college that is now the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO). Living in an apartment directly across from Marilyn was Karen Silkwood and her roommate Sherri Ellis.
Karen Silkwood was the subject of the 1983 movie Silkwood that starred Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell and Cher. Silkwood worked in the Cimarron plant that processed plutonium for Kerr-McGee. Mysteriously contaminated with plutonium, she died shortly after in a single car accident while on her way to give an interview to a New York Times investigative reporter.
Karen, according to Marilyn, had discovered that a large number of the workers at the plant had developed cancer, as had she. She, along with many others, believed it was because the plant had lax procedures for handling the deadly plutonium. The plant had de-unionized and she was one of the few remaining members. As such, she felt it was her responsibility to expose the plant’s dangers.
As a union spark plug, Silkwood became a target, either by workers fearful of losing their high paying jobs, or by Kerr-McGee itself. More than once, Marilyn observed Silkwood in intense arguments with some man driving a blue pickup, the last argument occurring the day before her death.
Before her death, Kerr-McGee personnel conducted a search of her apartment, finding high degrees of contamination. They even found an object, clearly marked as radioactive, in Shane’s toys. The Company maintained that Silkwood had contrived to contaminate herself, and thus implicate Kerr-McGee.
Karen Silkwood swerved off the road on her way to meet the investigative reporter. The car, when searched after the accident, contained no contaminated evidence, but had blue paint on a rear fender from an accident with another vehicle.
Did Kerr-McGee plant radioactive material in her apartment? Did Kerr-McGee have Silkwood killed? Did she have illegal drugs in her body at the time of the crash? I do not know, but I do know that the resultant lawsuit filed by her family settled out of court for more than a million dollars.
As a geologist, I also know that Kerr-McGee had another plant in Gore, Oklahoma - a place that insiders now consider one of the most contaminated places in the United States. Carroll, a friend and fellow geologist, once worked for Kerr-McGee Minerals and told me that they would calibrate their helicopter-borne Geiger counters by flying over Gore.
The plant near Crescent still exists, manned daily by a dry watch staff, but hasn’t processed plutonium in decades.
Eric'sWeb
Karen Silkwood was the subject of the 1983 movie Silkwood that starred Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell and Cher. Silkwood worked in the Cimarron plant that processed plutonium for Kerr-McGee. Mysteriously contaminated with plutonium, she died shortly after in a single car accident while on her way to give an interview to a New York Times investigative reporter.
Karen, according to Marilyn, had discovered that a large number of the workers at the plant had developed cancer, as had she. She, along with many others, believed it was because the plant had lax procedures for handling the deadly plutonium. The plant had de-unionized and she was one of the few remaining members. As such, she felt it was her responsibility to expose the plant’s dangers.
As a union spark plug, Silkwood became a target, either by workers fearful of losing their high paying jobs, or by Kerr-McGee itself. More than once, Marilyn observed Silkwood in intense arguments with some man driving a blue pickup, the last argument occurring the day before her death.
Before her death, Kerr-McGee personnel conducted a search of her apartment, finding high degrees of contamination. They even found an object, clearly marked as radioactive, in Shane’s toys. The Company maintained that Silkwood had contrived to contaminate herself, and thus implicate Kerr-McGee.
Karen Silkwood swerved off the road on her way to meet the investigative reporter. The car, when searched after the accident, contained no contaminated evidence, but had blue paint on a rear fender from an accident with another vehicle.
Did Kerr-McGee plant radioactive material in her apartment? Did Kerr-McGee have Silkwood killed? Did she have illegal drugs in her body at the time of the crash? I do not know, but I do know that the resultant lawsuit filed by her family settled out of court for more than a million dollars.
As a geologist, I also know that Kerr-McGee had another plant in Gore, Oklahoma - a place that insiders now consider one of the most contaminated places in the United States. Carroll, a friend and fellow geologist, once worked for Kerr-McGee Minerals and told me that they would calibrate their helicopter-borne Geiger counters by flying over Gore.
The plant near Crescent still exists, manned daily by a dry watch staff, but hasn’t processed plutonium in decades.
Eric'sWeb
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Party Naked
During the last oil boom, Christmas parties became monster occasions in downtown Oklahoma City. Schlumberger, Halliburton, Dresser Atlas and all the large service companies rented massive ballrooms and sated every guest there with food, drink and entertainment. The oil companies were not far behind, especially those in constant search of investor money.
Single and still young, I once had three women that I was dating show up at the same party. The ballroom was so large and the crowds so thick, I almost made it without discovery. Well, almost!
A year or so later, I made the break from Texas Oil & Gas, forming a partnership with a geophysicist friend of mine. We had an office on the eighth floor of the Park Harvey Center. The venerable office building had a bank of elevators in the center of the floor. A hallway wrapped around this center square with the offices on the outside, facing the windows.
In addition to John and me, there was a small oil company, a land (oil leases) company, two lawyers and a couple of independent geologists. We all knew each other and decided to go together and have a Christmas party on our floor. We chipped in for the booze and food, and one of the lawyers mentioned that he had a few waitresses as clients that owed him money. He was sure that they would act as waitresses free in exchange for working off some of their indebtedness to him.
About this time, I had just begun dating Anne and wanted desperately to impress her. When the night of the party arrived, John and I had a big shock. The lawyer’s servers were actually strippers and they were dressed only in baby dolls. Since we were not paying them, they were not afraid of us firing them, and they quickly began sampling the hooch as fast as they dispensed it.
Word soon spread. Before long, leering geologists packed the hallways along with landmen and engineers. The girls did not mind, soon doffing their tops, and then their bottoms.
Anne showed up with a friend, a matronly secretary. After practically fainting, the older woman hurried back to the elevators, leaving the increasingly rowdy crowd for safer climes. I do not remember a lot after that, having already consumed too much whiskey.
The party continued until all the whiskey was gone, and the girls dressed and departed. Anne was a good sport about the situation, as was Debbie, John’s future wife that also showed up. Anne remained sober, had a clear head and drove me home safely. I awoke to a massive hangover and a ringing phone. The news of the party had spread and those that had missed it were calling to see if the stories were true.
The following year John and I were drilling oil wells and had several employees. Instead of the previous year’s drunken debacle, we hosted a sedate wine and cheese party that lasted only until seven. It did not matter as hundreds of oil industry voyeurs showed up anyway, just in case.
Those were the go go years of the last oil boom. Even amid the blurred memories, many things that occurred read almost like fiction. The events that occurred during that era were true. Even I couldn’t make this stuff up.
Eric'sWeb
Single and still young, I once had three women that I was dating show up at the same party. The ballroom was so large and the crowds so thick, I almost made it without discovery. Well, almost!
A year or so later, I made the break from Texas Oil & Gas, forming a partnership with a geophysicist friend of mine. We had an office on the eighth floor of the Park Harvey Center. The venerable office building had a bank of elevators in the center of the floor. A hallway wrapped around this center square with the offices on the outside, facing the windows.
In addition to John and me, there was a small oil company, a land (oil leases) company, two lawyers and a couple of independent geologists. We all knew each other and decided to go together and have a Christmas party on our floor. We chipped in for the booze and food, and one of the lawyers mentioned that he had a few waitresses as clients that owed him money. He was sure that they would act as waitresses free in exchange for working off some of their indebtedness to him.
About this time, I had just begun dating Anne and wanted desperately to impress her. When the night of the party arrived, John and I had a big shock. The lawyer’s servers were actually strippers and they were dressed only in baby dolls. Since we were not paying them, they were not afraid of us firing them, and they quickly began sampling the hooch as fast as they dispensed it.
Word soon spread. Before long, leering geologists packed the hallways along with landmen and engineers. The girls did not mind, soon doffing their tops, and then their bottoms.
Anne showed up with a friend, a matronly secretary. After practically fainting, the older woman hurried back to the elevators, leaving the increasingly rowdy crowd for safer climes. I do not remember a lot after that, having already consumed too much whiskey.
The party continued until all the whiskey was gone, and the girls dressed and departed. Anne was a good sport about the situation, as was Debbie, John’s future wife that also showed up. Anne remained sober, had a clear head and drove me home safely. I awoke to a massive hangover and a ringing phone. The news of the party had spread and those that had missed it were calling to see if the stories were true.
The following year John and I were drilling oil wells and had several employees. Instead of the previous year’s drunken debacle, we hosted a sedate wine and cheese party that lasted only until seven. It did not matter as hundreds of oil industry voyeurs showed up anyway, just in case.
Those were the go go years of the last oil boom. Even amid the blurred memories, many things that occurred read almost like fiction. The events that occurred during that era were true. Even I couldn’t make this stuff up.
Eric'sWeb
Monday, January 4, 2010
The Last Cakewalk
Growing up in the Deep South, I have memories of many things that cross my mind from time to time. During the fifties in Vivian, Louisiana, there was no air-conditioning and only primitive television. By today’s standards, Vivian itself was primitive.
On Friday nights, my parents would take Brother Jack and me for hamburgers at the Rock Café (as in sandstone, not music). From there we would go to Vivian’s main street, park the car and watch the foot traffic passing on the sidewalk.
All the country folk would come into town Friday afternoon, buy their salt and flour for the week and then stay around to rub elbows and socialize with their neighbors. One electrical store had an early television in the window. Friday nights they would leave it running and practically the entire town would crowd around and watch the Friday Night Fights. That old television was not the only thing black and white in Vivian.
In the fifties, I grew up in a racially segregated town. The whites lived in their part of town, the blacks theirs, and never the twain shall meet. Even living in a region where the black population nearly equaled the white’s, I never met a black person until I was eighteen. This revelation is almost unbelievable, even to me, but it is true.
Unlike many of the small municipalities in east Texas and southwest Arkansas, most rural north Louisiana towns had no square. We did have a small park, complete with pigeons and benches, and the locals would congregate there on Friday nights, and during special events. I remember seeing Earl K. Long on a campaign stump give a steamy speech on a hot Louisiana day. It was really more of a performance than a speech. Sometime later, I remember that his wife Blanche had him committed to the mental institution in Mandeville.
A charity cakewalk was one of the events sometimes held in the square. Church members would donate cakes for the event and fifteen or so participants, each having donated a dollar, would walk around in a numbered circle until the music ended. The person stopping on the correct number would win a cake. This charity event was the white southern version of a dance created by black southern slaves, the dancers strutting in their best clothes in a parody of their owners.
Like the cakewalk, African slaves greatly influenced white southern society. Southern mannerisms, mores, speech patterns and culture all benefited and changed because of interaction between the races. Even southern cooking is black southern cooking. This interaction between the races ended, for the most part, after the Civil War and this extended isolationist period lasted through much of the nineteen-seventies.
I was probably no more than ten when I saw my last cakewalk. Segregation no longer exists in the little town of Vivian and there are no longer any white-only events in the local park. Moreover, like the end of other woefully dark periods in American history, this is a good thing.
Eric'sWeb
On Friday nights, my parents would take Brother Jack and me for hamburgers at the Rock Café (as in sandstone, not music). From there we would go to Vivian’s main street, park the car and watch the foot traffic passing on the sidewalk.
All the country folk would come into town Friday afternoon, buy their salt and flour for the week and then stay around to rub elbows and socialize with their neighbors. One electrical store had an early television in the window. Friday nights they would leave it running and practically the entire town would crowd around and watch the Friday Night Fights. That old television was not the only thing black and white in Vivian.
In the fifties, I grew up in a racially segregated town. The whites lived in their part of town, the blacks theirs, and never the twain shall meet. Even living in a region where the black population nearly equaled the white’s, I never met a black person until I was eighteen. This revelation is almost unbelievable, even to me, but it is true.
Unlike many of the small municipalities in east Texas and southwest Arkansas, most rural north Louisiana towns had no square. We did have a small park, complete with pigeons and benches, and the locals would congregate there on Friday nights, and during special events. I remember seeing Earl K. Long on a campaign stump give a steamy speech on a hot Louisiana day. It was really more of a performance than a speech. Sometime later, I remember that his wife Blanche had him committed to the mental institution in Mandeville.
A charity cakewalk was one of the events sometimes held in the square. Church members would donate cakes for the event and fifteen or so participants, each having donated a dollar, would walk around in a numbered circle until the music ended. The person stopping on the correct number would win a cake. This charity event was the white southern version of a dance created by black southern slaves, the dancers strutting in their best clothes in a parody of their owners.
Like the cakewalk, African slaves greatly influenced white southern society. Southern mannerisms, mores, speech patterns and culture all benefited and changed because of interaction between the races. Even southern cooking is black southern cooking. This interaction between the races ended, for the most part, after the Civil War and this extended isolationist period lasted through much of the nineteen-seventies.
I was probably no more than ten when I saw my last cakewalk. Segregation no longer exists in the little town of Vivian and there are no longer any white-only events in the local park. Moreover, like the end of other woefully dark periods in American history, this is a good thing.
Eric'sWeb
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Oklahoma Round Barn Pictures
Here are a few pictures of the famous Round Barn located in Arcadia, Oklahoma on a stretch of Route 66.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Tomatoes Bonaparte - a recipe
Many years ago, Anne and I flew to New Orleans with friends Gary and Carroll. It was off-season, somewhere between Mardi Gras and the Jazz Festival, so we got a good rate on a French Quarter hotel. Not much was happening except for the Festival of the Tomato.
Cajuns and Creoles love their tomatoes and use them as ingredients in almost everything. While enjoying the Quarter during the festival, we tasted many wonderful variations of tomato dishes. We quickly learned, when topped with oils and spices, the tomato needs no other ingredients. Here is a standalone tomato recipe I think you will enjoy as much as I do.
Tomatoes Bonaparte
Ingredients
· 2 large Creole tomatoes
· ¼ pound fresh mozzarella cheese
· Several stems fresh basil
· 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
· ¼ cup high-quality salad vinegar
· 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
· ¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil
· ½ teaspoon salt
· Freshly ground pepper
Directions
Slice tomatoes about 1/3 inches thick. Place a slice on each of 2 salad plates, then a slice of mozzarella, then several basil leaves. Make 2 more layers and drizzle with as much dressing as desired. To make dressing, whisk the vinegar and mustard together in a small bowl.
Gradually pour in the olive oil, continuously whisking. Add salt and continue whisking until smooth. After adding dressing to Bonaparte’s, place a few basil leaves around the plate and grind pepper lightly over all.
Serves two
Eric'sWeb
Cajuns and Creoles love their tomatoes and use them as ingredients in almost everything. While enjoying the Quarter during the festival, we tasted many wonderful variations of tomato dishes. We quickly learned, when topped with oils and spices, the tomato needs no other ingredients. Here is a standalone tomato recipe I think you will enjoy as much as I do.
Tomatoes Bonaparte
Ingredients
· 2 large Creole tomatoes
· ¼ pound fresh mozzarella cheese
· Several stems fresh basil
· 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
· ¼ cup high-quality salad vinegar
· 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
· ¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil
· ½ teaspoon salt
· Freshly ground pepper
Directions
Slice tomatoes about 1/3 inches thick. Place a slice on each of 2 salad plates, then a slice of mozzarella, then several basil leaves. Make 2 more layers and drizzle with as much dressing as desired. To make dressing, whisk the vinegar and mustard together in a small bowl.
Gradually pour in the olive oil, continuously whisking. Add salt and continue whisking until smooth. After adding dressing to Bonaparte’s, place a few basil leaves around the plate and grind pepper lightly over all.
Serves two
Eric'sWeb
Friday, January 1, 2010
End of the Naughties
After ringing in the New Year last night, I awoke this morning to a new decade. At least I think it’s a new decade as there was much fuss in 2000 about when a century ends and begins. Well, I’m not a mathematician so don’t hold it against me if today feels like the beginning of a new decade.
One thing is certain - the Naughties are over! I don’t know what we’ll call this decade but we have plenty of time to think about it. Happy New Year!
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