While growing up in north Louisiana, I wasted many hours at a place known locally as the Bossier Strip.  This three-mile row of night clubs, restaurants, liquor stores, and striptease joints was billed as the largest bit of neon between Las Vegas and Miami Beach, and maybe it was.

Probably the biggest and most popular night club was Sak’s Boom Boom Room, later known as Sak’s Whisk-a-go-go.  Clad in flashing neon of reds and yellows, the building looked like a rocket under full launch from Cape Canaveral.  There was always live music of all varieties along the strip, but Sak’s provided the biggest venue, to the biggest, soon-to-be-famous artists.

The Bossier Strip prospered because it had a captive audience – the men and women of Barksdale Air Force Base, the largest SAC base in the world.  Even the smallest of clubs had live music, along with the mystique of illegal gambling and prostitution, courtesy of the Southern Mafia.

Today, the “Strip” is mostly history, replaced by legal gambling in gaudy riverboats moored along the Red River between Shreveport and Bossier City.  Many music venues still exist, along with the palpable undercurrent of sex and danger that provided the place with an excitement like no other, and will likely never disappear.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Sometimes only a poem can express how you feel.  http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is an excerpt from a book review done by Heathe Froeschl of http://www.bookreview.com Please check it out!

Eric Wilder is at his best! If you’ve ever wanted to visit New Orleans, you can get a feel for the soul of the city in Wilder’s books. He has a gift for descriptive writing and readers will taste the bourbon and shrimp, feel the beat of the band, and march in celebration of a soul’s freedom down the streets of the Big Easy. The plot is a wonderful twisted tale of murder and mystery, magic and moments of pure feeling. The characters come to life, and meet with death, as expected when reading a Wilder novel. Some are dark and devious while others are perfectly flawed examples of humanity, and others still demand attention in flowing and delicate robes. A murder mystery with a deliciously dark side – I loved it!

http://www.ericwilder.com

Someone is killing New Orleans' street people and this is hurting the City's tourist trade just beginning to recover from Hurricane's Katrina and Rita. More than just simple acts of murder, voodoo is involved, the killer possibly an actual Vodoun deity. Homicide detective Tony Nicosia seeks the help of Wyatt Thomas, the City's foremost expert on a very secret and often seedy side of the Big Easy. Wyatt enlists the aid of Mama Mulate, Tulane English professor, and an actual voodoo mambo, to assist him. Together, they unravel the strangest mystery to hit the venerable city since Marie Laveau herself. Take a deep breath, and then prepare to see the Big Easy, as you have never imagined.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Big Easy is available in both soft (ISBN 978–1–84728–338–2) and hard cover (ISBN 978–0–6151–3591–5) editions from Amazon.com, Bn.com, Buy.com, and directly from Lulu.com at http://www.lulu.com/content/440966

Yesterday, I told the story about a not-so-modest female geologist during a particular summer field camp in Colorado.  My own field camp took place in Batesville, Arkansas.  We had an old farm house located some twenty miles from Batesville, on the bank of the White River.  Twenty of us bunked in the non-air conditioned basement.  Unlike yesterday's story, only male students composed my field camp.

For those that don't know, summers in Arkansas are hot and humid.  After a sweaty day of field geology, we cooled off with a cold shower (we had too anyway, as we had no hot water in our outdoor shower house) and a dip in the White River (the temperature of the river stayed at 52 degrees year round).  Even amid the heat of Arkansas summer, 52 degrees is a shock to the system.

Our Arkansas field camp was rustic, to say the least.  The last ten miles from the nearest highway was paved only with rip-rap from a local rock formation known as the Boone Chert.  Tire integrity in those days was not what it is now and punctures were a daily occurrence.  Yes, for those of you that know, Boone Chert is sharp and jagged.

Our mornings started at six with a breakfast of bacon and eggs.  Then, before setting out to map the wilds of Arkansas, we made and packed our own lunch - potato chips and a sandwich.  Our choices for that sandwich?  Bologna, or peanut butter and jelly.  I fondly remember field camp in Arkansas as the "Summer of Bologna."

http://www.ericwilder.com

Yesterday’s report called Totally Naked Geology caused me to recall a story I once heard.  All geology students are required to take a course called Field Geology.  I took my field geology course near Batesville, Arkansas where I learned how to map surface formations.  Mostly, we learned how to see, taste, and smell the bedrock.

Geology, like every other profession, is mostly male dominated.  That said, there are many excellent female geologists.  Geologists are all a weird bunch (myself included) and female geologists seem to take this one a step further.  What do I mean?  Don’t argue with a female geologist about anything, unless you have your facts down pat.  If you don’t, be prepared for an ass kicking.  Female geologists have minds of their own, and beware the fool.  Anyway, here is the story.

University of Missouri summer field camp during the 60s - 25 male geology students, 1 female geology student.  Colorado summers are hot.  Mid-afternoon, all the male geology students would remove their shirts while mapping the geology of the surface.  This day, their female counterpart followed suit.

Geologists are a strange bunch.  Nothing was ever said, or made, of the single female geologist’s topless display.  Still, the story is legend in the industry.  What is the name of that particular young woman?  I’ll never tell.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Geologists and students of geology are blessed to live in states like Arkansas and Colorado because the bedrock there is exposed, often revealing all its secrets and beauty amid a glorious panorama.  Students and geologists in mid-continent states like Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Kansas aren’t always so lucky.  Bedrock usually lies buried beneath recent sediment such as found in corn and wheat fields.  What is a geologist to do?

As a student at Northeast Louisiana (now University of Louisiana at Monroe), we had to improvise.  A professor once led us on a field trip though campus, identifying fossils in the building stone of the University’s library and classroom buildings.  Other places of interest were cutbanks of rivers and large streams, and even ditches.  Yep!  I’ve waded around in many a muddy ditch just to examine a small ledge of weathered rock.  Luckily for geologists, our taxpayer dollars are largely responsible for the most prime geologic locations in mostly flat states.

Yes, the highway department often creates beautiful geologic exposures known as roadcuts when they construct highways and roads.  In Oklahoma, perhaps the most spectacular roadcut is near the intersection of US Hwy 77 and Interstate 35.  This is part of the highway traverse through the heart of the Arbuckle Mountains.

The Arbuckles are the oldest mountains in North America, already eroded as the Appalachians became uplifted.  At the I-35 Roadcut near Turner Falls, the exposed geology is spectacular.  Proterozoic crytallines and Paleozoic rock, peneplaned to the old mountain range’s very core, are exposed in all their glory.  Paleozoic fossils and even seeping oil are readily visible in the rock.  I highly recommend a detour next time you are driving from Oklahoma City to Dallas.  You’ll see a lot of wonderful, totally naked geology and I promise that you won’t regret it.

Photo date 11/90, © J.S. Aber

http://www.ericwilder.com

“This book has an entangled storyline that keep readers turning the pages with anticipation.  The characters are real, the dialogue strong, and the description exceptional.  Having previously read some of the author’s other work, I was not disappointed with the way he uses words to paint breathtakingly beautiful portraits of nature.  It is obvious that this author loves the outdoors, and readers see the scenic beauty through his colorful words.  I would purchase the book for this depiction alone. In my mind, I was with them at the campgrounds, on the mountain trails, and in the jungles of Vietnam.  I made my way through the thick, briery wilderness, helped fight off the bad guys and eventually visited the Big Valley, delighting in the waterfalls—perhaps even enjoying the innocence of skinny-dipping.”

Bettie Corbin Tucker

For Independent Professional Book Reviewers

http://www.bookreviewers.org

This book is available on the web at http://www.bn.com , http://www.amazon.com and many other sites.  http://www.ericwilder.com

Magnet Cove, Arkansas is perhaps the rarest site on earth.   Why?  This tiny area contains 42 distinct minerals, some found only two other places in the world: the Tyrolean Alps and the Ural Mountains.  This rural Arkansas community received its name because of the presence of the mineral magnetite.  Magnets go wild at this irregularly shaped 5 mile area.  Settlers soon found more rare minerals and collectors went crazy.

http://www.ericwilder.com

This past week’s early winter storm brought with it sub-freezing temperatures, ice, sleet, and more than 8” of snow in my backyard.  It also prompted me to scan the recently published, 2007 edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac.  This ageless publication provides times and tables for planting, and predictions about the upcoming weather sprinkled with interesting factoids.  One such factoid tells how to determine the temperature by listening to the chirp of a cricket.  Count the chirps during a 14-second period and add 40 to determine the approximate temperature.  Interesting, but it doesn’t work when there’s 8” of snow on the ground.

http://www.ericwilder.com