The domestic oil industry is populated by many types of people, both male and female, but it is safe to say that none of them could ever remotely be considered saints.  During my tenure in the business, I have met many of its denizens but the most colorful of all was a person named Harold (not his real name).  Harold, an OJT geophysist that had found a billion (I'm not exaggerating!) barrel oil field in Nigeria for Mobil Oil.  He was quite seriously, one of smartest persons I have ever met.  Unfortunately, he had a larcenous side.

Anne and I had a company in bankruptcy when Harold showed up on our doorstep, his own oil Company and 1600 acre Texas ranch in foreclosure.  He parked his old Mercury (the only vehicle he had left) in our driveway and proceeded to move into our spare bedroom where he stayed for about two months.

During the time that he lived with us, Harold drank every drop of liquor in the house, became engaged to a woman he somehow met in the interim, and talked to our creditor's committee, telling them we were incompetent and needed to be removed as debtors-in-possession.  When I heard what he had done, I hung him out the second story window by his heel, threatening to let go.

"I don't really care how you treat people that you don't know, but Anne and I are your friends.  You shouldn't treat us like marks."

My actions must have had an effect because Harold never again treated me, or Anne, like a mark.  He did talk the owner of an OKC mud company into starting an oil company and hiring him as president.  The long-time mud company owner died a pauper after Harold had sucked off every penny he had.

Anyway, I got to thinking about Harold after my story about the Carousel Lounge in Shreveport.  Harold, Anne and I had an adventure at the Carousel Lounge in New Orleans, at the Monteleone Hotel - an adventure instigated by Harold.  Never drink at a rotating bar, is a rule that I had lived by for years, only to violate it some twenty years later.

http://www.ericwilder.com

On a weekend break from my freshman year in college, I decided along with my bud Clay to drive to Shreveport and see what trouble we could stir up.  Clay was driving his sister Betty's Triumph Spitfire.  The car was bright red, it was summer and we were driving with the top down, trolling for any interesting females we might happen to encounter.  Not even noon yet, we decided to stop for a beer, just to wet our whistles.

We stopped at a place called the Carousel, primarily because it had a rotating bar in the center of the dark little establishment.  After grabbing a stool we got a pleasant surprise.

"You boys are in luck," the bartender told us.  "The Schlitz people are here and they're sponsoring free beer all afternoon."

Beer wasn't expensive in those days but we were both students, always strapped for money, and free was the favorite word in both of our vocabularies.  Supplying Clay and me with free beer was little different than throwing raw meat to a starving dog.  Before an hour had passed, we had both consumed half a dozen, or so, cold draws.  'When I got off the stool to visit the facilities, I got a big surprise.

They don't have 3.2 beer in Louisiana, every draw a strong one.  When I stepped down from the slightly elevated bar, I almost fell on my face.  The bar's floor was black and white tile, similar in appearance to a diagonal checkerboard.  After staggering back from the bathroom, I was so dizzy that it took me a while to find Clay.  When I did, I discovered that I had another problem.

The bar was rotating, not moving fast but just fast enough to provide problems to a person with impaired senses.  When I finally managed to regain my seat at the bar, I found a fresh draw in front of me.  Clay's head was drooping, resting in a lopsided manner in the palm of his hand, his elbow on the bar, and barely supporting the weight.  It was then that I noticed the jerky motion of the rotating bar.  As I tried to focus on the checkerboard floor, I began to feel very queasy.

"Clay, we gotta get outa here or you might have to drag me out."

"I'm ready but I need to visit the little girl's room first," he said as he stepped off the stool, almost falling on his face.

We somehow made it out the door only to be accosted by hundred degree heat and a bright Louisiana sun when we opened it.  It wasn't even mid-afternoon but neither of us was in any shape for meeting nubile college girls.  Somehow we made it home, ruined for the rest of the day for anything except a nap.

I learned a valuable rule that day and I have observed it ever since, except once and that's another story.  Never, ever drink at a rotating bar.

http://www.ericwilder.com