The Paseo Arts District in Oklahoma City has seen a revival in recent years and the Paseo Arts Festival, a fixture of Memorial Day has led this resurgence.  Marilyn and I attended the festival and I am happy to report that it is alive and well.

The day started out cloudy.  While the temperatures were in the eighties, the weather was still pleasant.  As we left the house we were only worried about rain.  The rain never came in Oklahoma City but the sun did.  By two it was hot and humid but bearable because of a nice southerly breeze.

The past week has seen a record number of tornadoes in the state and today was no exception.  Somehow, Paseo and Oklahoma City managed to dodge the bullet.  Marilyn and I had a wonderful time and I took many photos.  Here are a couple of pics.  For more pictures of the festival, please visit my website:  http://www.ericwilder.com

Life on other planets has always interested me.  The first human hasn’t visited Mars yet (unless you believe the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs) but we now have a robot spaceship there, taking samples.  I think it’s wonderful!

Mars Lander Flexes Robotic Arm - AOL News.

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I’m a bourbon drinker and after reading Eric Felten’s recent bourbon taste test I decided to do one of my own.  My study falls far short of being scientific.  I only had four different brands of bourbon whiskey in my liquor cabinet and these are the four that I compared.

I’m a Jack Daniel’s drinker and have been for many years.  Marilyn has always liked Weller’s, a scarce commodity lately because, according to Darla, our local liquor store manager, the Chinese are buying up every bottle they can find.  This is the reason that I had these two brands readily on hand.  I had the other two brands for completely different reasons.

As you have probably already guessed, I’m an avid reader of Eric Felten’s column How’s Your Drink that appears every Saturday in the Wall Street Journal.  He is witty, insightful and always tells a good story.  When he picked Evan Williams as his favorite less-expensive Kentucky whiskey, I bought a bottle to check it out.  While I was at the liquor store I also purchased a very inexpensive bottle of Early Times simply because it was the first whiskey I had ever tasted.

I quickly turned my nose up at the Early Times and was ready to proclaim Felten crazy after drinking several rounds of the Evan Williams.  While I like Weller’s a lot, Jack Daniels is by far my favorite.  Hmm! I thought.  I know that it’s not likely but maybe, just maybe I have a built in bias.  I decided to find out.

I labeled the bottom of four 1-ounce paper cups (probably not a perfect container but the only thing that I had four of) and filled them with the bourbons.  Marilyn assisted me in my experiment, mixing up the cups so that I wouldn’t know which was which, and then handing them to me one at a time.  Having no idea how I should rate them, I decided on four characteristics: 1) flavor, 2) aroma, 3) sweetness and 4) presence of any harshness, edge, or unpleasant aftertaste.  I gave the first two traits a numerical value between one and ten with ten being my favorite.  Here is my unexpected result:

Weller’s                       Flavor – 9; Aroma – 9; Sweetness – yes; other – smooth with no aftertaste, unpleasant or otherwise.

Evan Williams               Flavor – 9; Aroma – 9; Sweetness - only slightly; other – just a hint of harshness.

Early Times                  Flavor – 8; Aroma – 6; Sweetness – no; other – no harshness or aftertaste.

Jack Daniel’s                Flavor – 6; Aroma – 6; Sweetness – no; other – had an indescribable under taste, almost unnoticeable but not pleasant

What does all this mean?  Probably that Marilyn, the Chinese and Eric Felten all know more about liquor than me, but heck, I already knew that.  I still like Jack Daniel’s the best and maybe it’s just an acquired taste.  If that’s the case then that’s all right too.  I intend to keep drinking Black Jack, or else have someone mix the drink for me and tell me it’s Jack Daniel’s.  After two drinks I’m sure that I want know the difference anyway, or care.

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My friend Dave lives in the country near Livingston, Louisiana.  There is lots of wildlife around his house, including spiders.  One of the spiders is so big that it trapped a hummingbird and ate it.  Here is a pic of that spider.

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Many memorable characters searched for black gold in early-Oklahoma, but none more colorful than Tom Slick.  Slick came from the oil fields of Pennsylvania to drill for oil in Oklahoma.  He was a true “wheeler dealer,” finding new and innovative ways of securing leases from reluctant mineral owners and raising money from investors.  Most of all, he had a special knack for finding oil.

Tom Slick, Sr. earned the title, King of the Wildcatters, when he drilled the discovery well for the giant Cushing Field in 1912.  He died at the age of forty-six, but not before selling his Oklahoma holdings to Prairie Oil and Gas Company for – what was at the time – a vast sum of money.  He left fifteen million dollars to his son, Tom Slick, Jr., who by all accounts was perhaps even more colorful than his father.

Tom, Jr. also led an interesting life and knew many celebrities on a first-name basis.  Among them were Howard Hughes and Jimmy Stewart.  During his life, he founded Slick Oil, Slick Airways, Texstar, Transworld Resources and two research institutes.  His passion, however, was the study of cryptids – creatures unknown to science.

Tom, Jr. financially backed expeditions to find Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, though perhaps his search for the Abominable Snowman is the most bizarre.  He financed an expedition to Tibet, supposedly in search of Yeti.  The expedition coincided with the invasion of Tibet by the Chinese and the ouster of the Dalai Lama.  Supposedly, Tom, Jr. worked with the CIA and helped spirit the Dalai Lama out of Tibet before the Chinese could capture him.  Tom, Jr. died in a plane crash in 1962 after losing most of his fortune.

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In nineteen-seventy-seven, I was freshly divorced and working in a high-stress job as a geologist - "A new drilling prospect every week or you’re fired!" Nights would find me in a disco called Clementine’s located in the basement of Oklahoma City’s Penn Square Mall. The place was dark, the music loud, the drinks and women loose. I was usually inebriated, or well on my way to getting there.

Yes, it was in the post-Vietnam, pre-AIDS era. Practically every night I would spend many hours line dancing to the anthems of Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer and KC and the Sunshine Band. Nineteen-seventy-seven was the year I first saw the movie Saturday Night Fever and fell in love with the music of the BeeGees.

There were two ways to enter Clementine’s. You could walk down a narrow flight of stairs or slide down a chute. Either way you’d wind up in a huge open room that was illuminated only by a rotating disco ball, colored strobe lights that warped your reality even if you weren’t drunk or stoned, and a few discreetly placed floor lamps that provided little more than a dim haze. Most of all there was a pressing multitude of warm bodies and the sounds of disco, belting out the message of freedom, expression and free love.

A huge bar extended across the front of the room where three bartenders served drinks as fast as they could pour them. The dance floor of diamond-shaped black and white tiles was rarely empty; the occasional cooling fingers of vapor rising from grids in the floor made the swaying dancers seem like uninhibited creatures from Hell’s nether regions.

The dance floor was like hypnosis, insanity and blasting sound. Bodies crushed together amid the beat of drums as ancient as Africa. Once, across the crowded dance floor, I saw a beautiful young woman staring at me. Our eyes locked. We danced toward each other. She passed me a note with her phone number and when I called her the next day she invited me for spaghetti that night at her apartment. I showed up with flowers and a bottle of wine.

Marti was her name. A single mother, she had a five year old son named Chris. We ate our spaghetti and drank wine by candlelight. When we finished, I helped her with the dishes and then she put Chris to bed. Afterward, we made love in her bedroom.

"I want to thank you so much," was her unexpected reply as we lay beside each other in her little bed.

"My pleasure," I said.

"You don’t understand," she explained, sensing the flippant tone of my voice. "I’m in remission from cervical cancer. You are the first man I’ve slept with. I’ve been so worried that I would never have the feelings of a woman ever again. You proved to me tonight that I’m okay and I thank you."

Confused and too young or too stupid to understand the depths of Marti’s feelings, I contributed little more than small talk before saying good bye and disappearing into the night. I never saw her again and I don’t think she needed me to.

Those were the days of disco, my days of disco, for whatever that means. Some people have even suggested that disco isn’t cool and people that liked it were somehow less than intelligent. I don’t think so. I think we were all just as young, human and vulnerable as any young person today.

And I do know this. Whenever I hear Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer or the BeeGees, I find myself back on that same dark dance floor with wisps of vapor cooling the sweat dripping down my neck and forehead as I pulsate to a hypnotic beat and message of love and coming together. And when I do it makes me feel young again.

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Natural gas was discovered in northwestern Louisiana in 1870.  A water well drilled in Shreveport caught fire when a worker noticed a strange wind escaping from the hole and struck a match to get a better look.

Oil explorers began drilling wells in 1904, searching for black gold.  What they found was a little oil along with huge flows of natural gas.  For years, millions of cubic feet of natural gas were either flared or vented, in order to recover small amounts of oil.  Legendary oil men, Mike Benedum and Joe Trees, knew there must be a better way.

There was.  Producers had already begun using steel pipe to “case” oil wells.  The problem is that boreholes are not uniform in diameter from top to bottom and neither are they always vertical.  Wash-outs and deviations are the rule rather than the exception.  With water wells, wash-outs and deviations presented no problem.  When large flows of natural gas were present, they often blew-out, uncontrolled.  Joe Trees’s father suggested a way to cure the problem – the use of cement to bind casing and formation.

In the early days before Halliburton, no one knew how to cement a well.  After much experimentation, cementers learned they could put the cement directly down the borehead – they did this with shovel and elbow grease – and that the weight of the cement would cause it to u-tube out of the pipe and up the backside, cementing the casing and the borehole.  Later, cementers learned they could employ heavy fluids to displace the cement out of the casing, raising it hundreds of feet.

Using this technological advance, monster gas flows in the area were soon contained, allowing for deeper drilling and the recovery of oil that early explorers had long known was present — oil otherwise unrecoverable, except for a simple sack of cement.

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I ran track in high school and continued for a while during college.  When I returned from the Army I kept doing it.  As I got older my running was more like jogging but I kept it up – at least until the oil boom and bust of the late seventies, early eighties.  It was then that my weight ballooned past two hundred pounds.

This pattern continued and I did little or nothing to correct the situation.  By the time my little oil company went belly up, I weighed two hundred and forty pounds.  Fiscally broke and mentally broken, I languished through the days and nights, searching for motivation to open my eyes and get out of bed in the morning, and get off the couch during the day.

Anne and I took a trip to Vivian for a family reunion and one of my cousins filmed the affair.  During a question and answer session, he asked Anne what was the one thing that she wished for.

“I wish Eric would lose some weight and get his old spirit back.”

The words hurt but I knew that they were true.  Upon returning to Oklahoma City, I started jogging again.

I was grossly overweight and none of my running clothes fit me anymore.  We didn’t have a lot of money to buy togs that fit so I made due with a tee shirt and pair of cut-off blue jeans.  First I started walking laps through the house.

Eighty-five circuits through the kitchen, den and dining room equaled a mile, as best as I could determine.  I was soon walking a mile a day, and then two.  It was then that I took to the hard pavement.

Oil was selling for twelve dollars a barrel and no one was drilling for it or buying prospects.  I had drilling ideas but no one to sell them to.  The years that followed were bleak, but Anne and I managed to make ends meet – somehow.  Along the way, I got physically and mentally stronger.  I was running three to ten miles a day and my weight down to one-hundred-seventy pounds.

Oh yeah, I was going to tell you about running my first ten K.

It was the Quail Classic 10K in 1986.  By this time, Anne and I had lost our house to foreclosure and we were living in a rent house in Quail Creek.  Okay, not much of a come down for those of you that know Oklahoma City real estate.

I finished the race in about sixty-six minutes and everyone along the way was supportive.  This was much different than a few months before when a car filled with teens passed and yelled, “Don’t have a heart attack fatso.”

I kept running 10K’s, finally getting my time down to around fifty-one minutes.  I would always run alone on Memorial Day to remember and commemorate my fallen friends and comrades, and all the heroes that continue to battle cancer and other dread diseases everyday without a whimper.  I quit running when Anne lost her battle with cancer.

Late last year I made it back up to two hundred and forty pounds.  Since January I have cut my calorie intake drastically but I have only managed to drop down to two-seventeen.  Anne died ten years ago and I am finally finished grieving. 

Tomorrow I am going to start walking laps through the house and weekend after next – Memorial Day – I promise, as I live and breathe I’m going to run a mile on hard pavement to commemorate once again all of those that have gone before me.  I don’t know if my body will make it back down to one-seventy again, but I’ll bet my brain will be rejoicing.

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A pic of Eric Wilder and Velvet.

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Here are some pics of flowers in my yard.

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Severe storms have ripped through the south, dumping lots of rain and causing damage. My friend Dave sent me this picture of his back yard in Livingston, Louisiana. The caption read, "When is it going to stop?"

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We have heard all week about the cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China.  Death tolls have exceeded 133,000 in Myanmar and as many as 50,000 in China.  Still, these staggering numbers have little meaning until someone puts a face on the tragedies.  Tonight, as I drove home from visiting my father, I listened to a report on National Public Radio that ripped my heart out.

Melissa Block, an NPR reporter, was in China at the time of the “big one” and has been reporting on the catastrophe ever since.  She was on the ground of a Chinese city whose name I can’t remember when she encountered a married couple leading a bulldozer to the site of a wrecked building where they had left their two year old son just before the 7.8 magnitude earthquake.  Block’s voice quivered with emotion as she delivered the story.

Two days had passed since the quake and the couple had been trying the entire time to get heavy machinery to dig for their son and parents.  The man spoke good English and stated firmly that he believed his son had survived.  When they reached the building, he couldn’t contain himself and began digging through the rubble with his hands.  When he reached a dangerous overhang, his wife begged him to wait for the heavy equipment.

Like the results of many earthquakes, the destroyed building sat alone amid others that had received little or no damage.  Chinese military police arrived and began digging, looking for survivors.  Soon, one of the policemen returned to where a large crowd of people waited.  Accosted by the smell of death, he held his hand over his face.  Two other policemen emerged from the wrecked building, carrying the body of a dead person.  The couple shook their heads, realizing it was a neighbor of their parents.

A woman appeared through the crowd and put her arms around the distraught Chinese mother, hugging her in a useless attempt to ease her pain.  Then she gave her a white sheet.

“I know your family is alive, but if they aren’t, cover their faces with this.”

An obviously shaken Block reported that the Chinese believe the living should not look upon the faces of the dead.  A military policeman finally returned from the wreckage of the building with news for the couple.  They had found a child, along with an old man and woman.

The old man had the child in his arms, the old woman one step behind.  They had not survived.  The policeman nodded when the woman asked him if the child was a boy, about two years old.

“Maybe he just fainted,” she said.  “Did you call to him to see if he was alive?”

The policeman just shook his head.

The couple didn’t just cry, they began to wail, loudly, leaving no doubt of their pain and loss.

“He didn’t want me to leave him.  He begged me to take him with me to work,” the woman said, her voice wracked with guilt and pain.

Near tears herself, Melissa Block concluded the story that had no happy ending.

I wasn’t near tears as I listened, I was crying.  The story brought back memories of the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Building where far fewer people had died.  Still, like Oklahoma City, every person that perishes in China and Myanmar has brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.  It doesn’t matter to which nationality you belong when you lose a son, a father and mother - it still hurts just as bad.

 http://www.ericwilder.com

Bertram Picou is a character in my novel Big Easy.  Like many Southerners, Bertram Picou served in the Army and did his basic training at Fort Polk in Leesville, Louisiana. The Fort is the subject of Tigerland, a gritty but powerful movie starring Colin Farrell. It’s probably the best movie Farrell ever did and you might want to check it out. Anyway, the place was a hell hole and some say the chances of becoming killed or wounded were greater there than in Vietnam.

Rutted dirt roads, tracts of heavily forested land that had never seen a chain saw, miles of seemingly endless rifle ranges, and swamps so murky and misty that they looked like the backdrop of a Lon Chaney horror film, comprised Fort Polk. Alligators, armadillos, water moccasins and frightened, pissed-off young G.I.’s, soon to be bound for Vietnam, populated the musty old Fort where fever and meningitus were everyday occurrences.

And it was hot and humid! The World War II-vintage barracks had no air conditioning in the summer and little insulation in the winter. A soldier’s day started at 4:30 AM with thirty minutes of physical training before breakfast. This was followed by more PT, a one to seven mile hike to the rifle range, orientation, target practice, a one to seven mile hike back to the barracks, more PT, then bed. Bertram lost forty-six pounds in six weeks at Fort Polk.

Some of the drill sergeants were mean, some practically psychotic. Nice wasn’t in their vocabulary. Bertram is the personification of the term laid-back, but two words can still evoke memories of distress and instantly raise his blood pressure and heart rate. Those two words — grease trap! If you ever spent any time in the Army, you probably know what I mean.

Food in the mess halls was simple but filling. All you could eat in fifteen minutes or so. They served red beans in abundance, and rice. Problem was, not together. Army regulation said you can’t have two starches on one plate. Good idea for the Army, bad idea for Bertram Picou who thinks RB&R should be part of the Government’s food pyramid (or whatever shape it is now!)

Bertram breathed a large sigh of relief when he finally got out of the Army. He cooks RB&R almost everyday at his bar on Chartres Street in New Orleans French Quarter and here is his personal recipe.

1 ½ lbs. dry red beans                          2 stalks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed                         ½  green pepper, diced
1 red onion, sliced                                ½  tbsp. oil
10 c. water                                           1 veg. bouillon cube
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper                        1 ½  c. rice
3 c. water for rice

Soak beans overnight. Saute garlic, red onion, green pepper, celery in oil in large pot. Add 10 cups of water, vegetable bouillon cube, and beans. Let cook on medium flame until soft. Cook rice separately. When rice is done, serve topped with red beans.

Crawfish pie is a Lousiana dish immortalized in the Hank Williams song Jambalaya.  I found this recipe for crawfish pie in the French Acadian Cook Book published in 1955 by the Louisiana Acadian Handicraft Museum, Inc., Jennings, Louisiana.  The person submitting the recipe is Gene Knobloch of Thibodaux, Louisiana and he offers this expert advice:

This is a basic recipe.  To be a good Creole cook you must be original and you must have a good imagination.  So throw in anything your good judgement tells you, even the kitchen stove if necessary.

P.S. – If you do not eat crawfish (shame on you) you may substitute shrimp.

3 cups cooked crawfish, tails and fat                 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

3 cups cooked rice                                           4 yolks hard boiled eggs

1 ¼ cups of water                                             2 or 3 slices, well buttered bread

¼ cup minced celery                                         Olive oil or other shortening

½ small green pepper, minced                           Salt, black pepper, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, pimientos

1 bunch shallots, chopped fine                          1 bay leaf

Saute in olive oil or other shortening, celery, shallots and sweet pepper, about five minutes.  Add crawfish tails and fat, saute about 5 minutes longer.  Salt and pepper to taste, add a few dashes of Tabasco sauce.  Mix this with cooked rice, add water, mushroom soup, bay leaf.  Add a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce.  Test for salt and pepper.

Pour entire mixture into a greased baking dish.  Grate egg yolks of the top.  Remove the crust from the slices of bread, cut each slice into four triangles.  Arrange triangles in a circle on top of mixture.  Sprinkle with paprika.  Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes, until mixture is toroughly heated and bread is toasted.  Garnish with pimientos.  Serves about eight.  Present with gusto.

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When oil was discovered in northwest Louisiana, rolling hills, massive pines and a few small settlements dominated the landscape, farming and cattle the two major occupations.  Some thirty years before, Army engineers had blasted and methodically dismantled the natural dam known as the Great Red River Raft that had raised area water levels for decades, perhaps centuries.  What were left were shallow bayous, isolated ponds and Caddo Lake.

Caddo’s coffee-colored water was also shallow, no more than 20 feet at it’s deepest.  Turtles and alligators populated the sprawling lake along with miles of impenetrable cane brakes and mazes of giant cypress trees with water-gorged trunks and branches draped with Spanish moss wafting in a damp breeze.  And it was hot, temperatures rarely below 100 degrees in the summer and humidity through the roof.  The shallow, often stagnant water bred mosquitoes, and many early inhabitants died of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.

Despite the hostile environment, something began drawing oil hunters to the region — news of oil seeps and gentle rolling topography that possibly signaled subsurface closure.  These explorers, drawn by the lure of black gold, pooled their money and drilled a few exploratory wells.  Believing correctly that oil existed far below the shallow depths of Caddo Lake, wooden pilings were driven in shallow water and platforms built on them.  The explorers constructed drilling rigs on the platforms from native timber and began drilling in Caddo Lake.  This was a first, Caddo Lake the birthplace of offshore drilling.

Like the gold rushes of California and Alaska, men and their families began pouring into the area, intent upon sharing in the prize.  Boom towns sprang up — Oil City, Trees City, Vivian, Rodessa.

What explorers had discovered was the giant Sabine Uplift.  This single subsurface feature underlies several Louisiana parishes, and even more Arkansas and Texas counties.  It not only trapped millions of barrels of oil beneath it, but formed the stratigraphic barrier for the Woodbine Sandstone, the primary reservoir of the super giant East Texas Field.

Caddo Lake sits atop the Sabine Uplift.  Even with thousands of wells already drilled in the region, the deepest horizons of this giant subsurface feature still remain mostly undrilled and unexplored.  What are the ramifications of this little-known fact?  Possibly several hundred million barrels of untapped oil that could ultimately help the U.S. ease its dependence on foreign oil.

http://www.ericwilder.com

I lived most of my early years in Louisiana and when I moved to Oklahoma I was quickly taken aback by the weather.  The wind seemed to blow constantly and when we had a storm, there was often mayhem involved.  Still, we only averaged half the yearly rainfall that was normal for Louisiana.

Two years ago the state was in a persistent drought and I wrote about it many times in a series of articles titled Oklahoma Burning.  Now the pendulum has swung.  Last year, Oklahoma had more rainfall then it has ever had.

As I write this article I am glancing out the window at my backyard.  Rain is falling, and not a gentle rain.  Yesterday we were only two inches behind last year’s record rainfall.  Today, we may surpass the record.

I took some pictures in the front yard of water pouring down the street in rivulets.  The ditches were full, water white capping and looking for all the world like a wild river.  My bare feet sank into earth already soft from yesterday’s rain.

Last year’s rainfall practically shut down oil and gas exploration in Oklahoma.  Heavy equipment can’t maneuver in soggy wheat fields and there was often more rain before the ground had time to fully dry.

Glancing out the window again I just shake my head and sigh.  The gas wells I need to complete in Noble County may have to wait until August.

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During the early days of oil exploration, people had no idea why hydrocarbon deposits were found in certain locations and not others.  The drilling of a well, even a relatively shallow one, often took a year or more to complete.  Because of the time and expense involved, early explorationists began looking for ways to limit the number of dry holes.

A university geologist concluded that oil was trapped in subsurface features known as anticlines — large, inverted U-shaped structures formed when sedimentary strata is folded by tectonic activity.  Indian Territory Illuminating Oil Company, the forerunner of Cities Service Oil Company, was the first oil company to hire geologists to search for these anticlines.

Before seismic surveys were invented, the only way to get a hint of what was going on in the subsurface was by mapping surface structures.  The theory is that shallow structures are often propagated into the subsurface.  If you can map a closed structural feature at the surface (and I don’t mean topography), you have increased your odds of finding a closed structural feature at depth.  ITIO hired crews of geologists to map the surface of Kansas and Oklahoma.

One of the fields found by this method was the supergiant Oklahoma City Field.  The OKC Field will ultimately produce just under a billion barrels of oil.  It’s discovery was quite by accident.

25 dry holes had been drilled in Oklahoma County by the late 20’s and many “experts” were ready to deem the County dry.  ITIO had mapped several structures in the area and weren’t ready to give up quite yet.  They had several crews mapping the surface.

Oklahoma County is a large, relatively flat county.  To map the surface, a geologist needs to find exposed rock beds.  In mostly flat Oklahoma County, the only place to do this, usually, is in road cuts and riverbeds.

Today, in Oklahoma, the temperature reached the upper 90’s.  Rampant humidity, raised by an approaching front, made it feel like 102 degrees.  In 1927, there were no air conditioners in Oklahoma, few fans and little relief from the heat.  Mapping generally reached a crescendo before noon.  Crew members would then try to find someplace dark to cool off and avert heat stroke.

During his time in Oklahoma County, one ITIO geologist had become friendly with a widow who had a place just south of what is now downtown Oklahoma City.  After his crew shut down for the day, he began frequenting the widows farm.  Anyone that knows anything about Oklahoma has heard that it is called Tornado Alley.  This is for good reason.  There are probably more tornadoes here than anyplace on earth.  Because of this fact, the widow, and likely everyone else in Oklahoma County at the time, had a storm shelter.

The widow’s storm shelter was dug down into red Oklahoma earth and covered by large timber beams.  She and her new beau would go down into the shelter during the heat of the day and enjoy a nip of corn whiskey and maybe a little hankey pankey.  It was during such a hot, humid and generally oppressive Oklahoma summer day that the geologist made a discovery (no, not that the widow was sweet on him.  He already knew that).  Somewhere in his whiskey-hazed brain, he noticed something that would ultimately change the face of Oklahoma, and the entire world, for awhile.

The Permian-aged rock strata was dipping east instead of west.  I wasn’t there, but I can imagine him getting a big grin on his face, kissing the widow, and dancing her around the storm shelter.  Like spouses of explorationists even today, she probably thought he was crazy (she had likely already figured that out by now).

Shortly, the nearby #1 Foster was drilled, coming in for 5,000 BOPD.  It was soon overshadowed by the drilling of the Wild Mary Sudik #1, a well that blew out at a rate of 3,000 BO per hour, covering every house in the town of Moore with a coat of oil.  The well was reported on around the world.

I heard this story from a geologist whose name I no longer remember.  I don’t know if it’s true, but I suspect it is.  Growing up, exploration geologists were my heroes.  I still haven’t changed my mind.

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I graduated from college in 1969 and took a job mudlogging for a Texas company named Core Lab. The second well I sat was near the south Texas town of Weslaco. The well was a joint venture between Shell and Texaco and on its way to a depth of 13,500'.

Since this was only my second well, a senior mudlogger, Jack Bowie, was assigned to show me the ropes. Jack was as colorful as his name and show me the ropes he did. I would work the well site from seven in the morning until seven at night. Jack would usually spend the day doing other things and would check on me around quitting time when another mudlogger spelled us for the night.

Weslaco was very close to the Mexican border town of Reynosa. Usually Jack and I would leave the location and drive to Reynosa where the food, fun and drink were cheap. We often stayed out until the wee morning hours before returning to our motel rooms to clean up and then go back to the drilling well.

The well was a wildcat. That means it was more than a mile from the nearest producing well. The well was wild for more reasons than that. We were drilling through an extremely thick sequence of alternating sand and shale called the Frio. As close as we were to the Gulf of Mexico, the stratum was unconsolidated and we penetrated 300 feet or so ever hour. And there was gas, lots of gas, coming up out of the hole.

The gas and unconsolidated strata had caused problems on the well since the day it began drilling. The hole was crooked, dog-legged we called it, and there had been problems cementing the intermediate casing. Two drilling supervisors had already been "run off" and a crusty old tool pusher promoted to finish the hole.

I can’t remember the tool pusher’s name so I’ll call him Mike. Mike was of average height and build but he had a badly bent nose from some past altercation. He also had a resolute expression that caused the wild Texas roughnecks to take his directions seriously. He was a former World War II fighter pilot and it only took one look at his dark eyes to know he was likely good at it.

One hot July day found me more tired than usual from the past night’s cerveza drinking and senorita chasing. Jack was no where around and I reclined on the couch, "just to rest my eyes for a moment." I awoke to a sound peculiar to the giant drilling rig: silence. Awakening instantly, I rushed outside to see the backs of every man on location running as fast as they could, through the dry Texas cornfield, away from the location that had suddenly gone deathly quiet. Every man except Mike, that is.

Ten feet from me, he was moving faster than I had ever seen him move, twirling and closing valves, pulling levers, throwing switches. Finally, the diesel engines coughed, then sputtered, then again began circulating mud in the well. Seeing me looking, Mike grinned and walked over to the trailer door. As I stood with my mouth open and hands in my pocket, he pulled an old Zippo out of his pocket, fished a cigarette out of the pack in his shirt pocket, put it in his mouth and lit it. After a long, satisfying pull he looked at me and said, "Another thirty seconds and you and me would have been blown straight to hell."

Mike didn’t elaborate but Jack did when he finally returned to location. "The gas pressure’s so high that the mud’s not heavy enough to contain it. As long as the mud pumps are working, it’s cycled out of the hole. If Mike hadn’t restarted them, the pressure would have blown ten thousand feet of drilling pipe straight up into the air and all over this corn field. It wouldn’t have been a pretty sight."

Jack didn’t bother telling me how stupid I had been not to follow the roughnecks off the location. He didn’t have to because I’d already figured it out. That night Jack and I drank an extra Tecate for Mike, yet another unheralded oil patch hero that I’ve met, somewhere along the way.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a pic of a garden angel playing a fife using sheet music, and a rose.  http://www.ericwilder.com

A while back, I serialized a short story about wolves and panthers in northeast Texas.  The story is whimsical and a work of fiction.  There are no wolves and certainly no black panthers in east Texas.  Or are there?

The answer is – well maybe.  Northeast Texas remains an under populated part of the state.  A region known as the Big Thicket extends north from Beaumont.  The Big Thicket is a vast pine forest that stretches for hundreds of miles.  This large forest, by anyone’s count, contains more wild animals than humans, many of which moved up from Mexico, or south from the huge Ouachita forests in central Arkansas.

The Big Thicket, by definition, doesn’t extend into far northeast Texas.  In reality, however, the vast forest comprising the Big Thicket continues into northwest Louisiana and even into Arkansas, all the way to the Ouachita Mountains.  Anyone that has ever visited the area knows if you stray very far off the main highway and follow a winding blacktop or dirt road, you’ll soon find yourself surrounded by a sea of green often called the “pine curtain.”

Behind this curtain of trees and vegetation lies a world as mysterious and haunting as the day the first white man visited it.  If you take this road, don’t be surprised if you hear the howl of a wolf, or the low throaty growl of a panther – yes, maybe even a black panther.

While growing up, I often spent the night at my Grandmother’s house in the piney woods of Cass County.  They still had no electricity when I was young and burned coal oil lanterns at night for illumination.  People went to bed early in those days, the smoke, soot and acrid odor of burning fuel more than most people could tolerate for very long.

Wolves were very much a part of east Texas in the 1950s and I still remember their mournful howls when we finally snuffed out the lanterns for the night.  Don’t believe me?  They had a bounty on their heads and were hunted into near extinction.  I recall seeing the carcasses of an entire pack hanging in a row by their hind legs on fence posts.  I was probably ten or twelve at the time.

Are there still wolves in east Texas?  Not likely.  Wolves are social creatures and usually run in packs.  Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if an occasional lobo passed through the area.  Black panthers are a different story.  Locals have reported seeing them many times, although this is unconfirmed and denied by the Authorities.  Have I ever seen a black panther?  No, but I’ve seen bobcats and heard their woman-like screams in the woods.

If you’re still unconvinced, travel south to Cass County, Texas sometime.  Leave the main road and follow a blacktop until it dead-ends.  Hike a mile or so back into the piney woods, maybe until you reach a cypress bayou.  Pitch your tent and then wait for the sun to go down.  But zip the door up tightly.  The howls, growls and woman-like screams you will definitely hear may just raise those tiny hairs on the back of your neck. 

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a fun pic I took in my backyard.

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Like all Okies, I love Mexican cooking (Tex-Mex, at least).  Here’s a recipe that I found on the net to help celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

Shrimp Burritos
California Milk Advisory Board 1997 Calendar

Real California Panela
Cheese tid bit ~ This fresh cheese has a flavor similar to Cottage Cheese. Use it in sandwiches, salads, with fruit and in cooked foods.

2 T each soy sauce, lime juice and water
1 LB med. shrimp, shelled and deveined
6 lg. (12") flour tortillas
4 C cooked rice preferably Basmati rice
1 Can (15oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
8 oz California Panela, * crumbled (2C)
2 oz California Queso Fresco, * crumbled (1/2C)
Cilantro Leaves (optional)
Fresh Salsa (optional)

* May substitute California Jack or California Cheddar

Combine soy sauce, lime juice and water in large, heavy plastic bag. Add shrimp; marinate in refrigerator no longer than 30 min. Grill or broil 6-8 min. until opaque throughout. Warm tortillas in oven or microwave. Top with shrimp, rice, beans and crumbled cheeses. Add a few cilantro leaves and salsa , if desired. Roll-up and serve. Makes 6 servings.

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I took a pic of these wild roses growing up a tree in my back yard.

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During the summer of 1969, having just graduated from Northeast Louisiana State College with a degree in geology, I got a job as a mudlogger with Core Lab.  I had already been on deep wells in Laurel, Mississippi and Westlaco, Texas.  August found me near Mt. Pleasant, Texas, in a horse pasture, on my third wildcat of the summer.

I lived in a little one-room apartment in Lone Star, a Texas steel mill town, and worked from 7 at night until 7 in the morning, 7 days a week, until the 13,500’ Smackover test reached total depth.  During this time, I witnessed a shoot-out, a stabbing and numerous fights on the rig.  It was my welcome to the East Texas oil patch.

What I learned from this experience was that East Texas roughnecks were a hard-working, hard-drinking bunch.  Every night, when drilling was going smoothly, they would invade my air-conditioned logging trailer to play poker and tell stories.  One of the stories they told me was about Dad Joiner and the discovery of the East Texas Field.  True or false, it varies somewhat from official accounts.  As memory serves me, here is the story told by those wild East Texas roughnecks more than 36 years ago.

Already 66 years old, Dad Joiner was a broken-down wildcatter when he moved from Dallas to East Texas in 1926.  An educated man, he’d practiced law in Alabama and served in the legislature there.  It wasn’t enough for him.  Like many others, he was drawn by the lure of Oklahoma black gold and the whispered promise of riches beyond his wildest dreams.  Answering the siren call, he made and lost two fortunes during his 28 years in the Sooner State.

Joiner was an oil promoter, a breed spawned by “oil fever,” a disease for which, even today, there is no known cure.  Having seen the blow-outs in Cushing and heard of the 25,000 BOPD uncontained flows in Oklahoma City, investors, greedy for instant wealth, fairly threw their money at often unscrupulous oil promoters, rife with promises of easy money.  Many of the early Oklahoma oil discoveries were funded by these investors, even though most never realized a penny from their investments.

Some of the reports of Dad Joiner portray him as a principled visionary, a man with divine knowledge of the infinite riches located in the subsurface of East Texas and determined to find them.  The truth is quite different.  Joiner went to East Texas because of one thing — cheap leases.

17 dry holes had already reached total depth in the area and most legitimate oil companies had long since abandoned East Texas for more promising regions.  Taking advantage of unsubstantiated, earlier-generated reports of possible oil in the Woodbine Sandstone, Joiner used this sparse information to raise enough money to lease a large block of acreage from Daisy Bradford.  With these leases, he parlayed the drilling of a wildcat well on the block.

Oil rigs were primitive affairs in the late twenties.  They shut down drilling at dark, sometimes after penetrating only a few feet during the day.  At night, Dad Joiner would hold court at a saloon, drinking whiskey and playing poker with the locals.  He also used this time to raise money for his ongoing venture.

After drilling two dry holes, Joiner’s money was beginning to “dry up.”  In the manner of all good oil promoters, both before and after him, he devised a way to raise enough money to drill a third well, and help fund his high-rolling lifestyle.  What he did is now called checkerboarding.

Simply put, he subdivided his block of leases like the squares on a checkerboard.  He kept the red blocks and sold the black ones.  When money got tight, he would subdivide the blocks even further.  Through his continued promotion, he raised enough money to drill a third well by May, 1929.

In October, 1930, the Daisy Bradford Number 1 struck oil and became the discovery well for the largest oil field in the world.  Dad, also in the manner of many oil promoters, had over-sold the well.  What does this mean?  It means that he sold the interests in the well two or three times.  Lawsuits against him began soon after oil was discovered in the Woodbine Sandstone at the Daisy Bradford Number 1.  Supposedly, he had sold the offset leases to oilman H.L. Hunt shortly before the Daisy Bradford discovery.

The roughnecks that played poker nightly in my logging trailer told a different story.  Hunt was also an oil promoter and poker player  – one that would be a card playing legend, even in today's high stakes Texas hold-em era.  He won Joiner’s offset leases in a poker game - at least according to my roughneck friends - and the rest is history.

Don’t mourn Dad Joiner.  Even though he died a pauper, he lived one of the most interesting lives of anyone I know.  And despite his lack of altruism, he inadvertently discovered a legitimate super-giant oil field, one that may ultimately produce 8 billion barrels of oil.

History is the foundation of what we know today, and it’s important to understand what happened in the past.  Sometimes, however, words on the printed page are but a shadow of reality.  A month in a steamy, East Texas horse pasture taught me that.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Some are surprising, some are not.

AbeBooks: Collectible Authors.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Those that have read any of my New Orleans short stories know that Bertram Picou is the owner of an eclectic little bar on Chartres Street, in the French Quarter. He cooks some of the world’s best gumbo and always has a pot simmering in back for his regular customers.

Everyone in New Orleans makes gumbo, some tasting better than others. The best gumbo is like ambrosia, a gift from heaven itself. It’s now made all over the world but one thing is sure. You’ll never find better gumbo anywhere in the world that tastes as good as the worst gumbo from New Orleans.

Some say that Bertram’s gumbo is the best in the Big Easy. Don’t believe me? Next time you’re in the French Quarter, stop by his place and give it a try. The bar’s a little hard to find, but keep looking. Below is Bertram’s recipe, told in his own words.

Bertram Picou’s Mama's Gumbo

"First thing is make the roux. Pour some oil in your big cast iron skillet and put it on the fire, medium heat. Add some flour and start stirring. Whatever you do, don’t leave the stove, even to chase Ol’ Shep, until the roux cooks to a pleasing shade of brown, maybe a little darker if you’re taste buds are more Cajun than most. Be careful now. Don’t burn that roux cause it’s the most important part of the gumbo! If it starts to smoke and curdle up, you done screwed up! Throw it out and start over.

Once you got the roux done, its time to make the gumbo. My Mama throws in crawfish, shrimp, chicken, sausage, squirrel, deer, or even fish. "Whatever floats your boat," she used to say.

Fill up your big stock pot with water and set it on the stove. Get it to boiling then add the roux. Mama always uses four tablespoons, more or less, depending on the weather, how dark she had let it cook, and how she feels that particular day. Good cooks don’t read recipes. They just sense how something ought to taste. However many tablespoons she used, her gumbo always tasted damn good!

Keep stirring until the roux and water are mixed, then add a couple of chopped onions, a chopped bell pepper, six minced garlic cloves and your chicken, seafood, or whatever. This is where it gets tricky. You need to add salt, cayenne and black pepper and this must be done to taste. Using too much, or not enough, can make or break the gumbo and, unfortunately, practice is the only way to learn how. You’ll have to do this yourself cause Mama can’t go to everyone’s house.

Cook the gumbo on a medium hot flame and keep stirring until everything starts getting tender. Don’t put a lid on the pot.

Finally, boil up your rice to perfection (just about the hardest thing in the world to get right, but that’s another story). Add parsley and scallions to the gumbo, and, if you like, a little file, then ladle it on the rice and enjoy!"

http://www.ericwilder.com

As a geologist, I am fascinated by minerals and gems and I have a collection of spheres and eggs carved from various stones.  I bought some nice spheres from an internet company called Mystic Gems and I’m now on their list to receive their newsletter.

I was working on something else for Musings today when I got their most recent newsletter which included an article about April birthstones.  The article is so interesting that I am putting it on the blog, and there is a link to Mystic Gems at the bottom of the article.

April Birthstones, Traditional, Spiritual and Mystical - by Tammarah Davis, Gemologist

While April's diamond is deservedly the stone of everlasting love, the Opal from ancient Rome and a millennia beyond of Tibetan tradition is a fascinating mystical alternative. Sapphire and Amber arise from the religious realm as breastplate stones of the High Priest and as Zodiac stones for Taurus. Of these Opal brings the most varied beliefs. From the Tibetan tradition Opal is believed to help overcome challenges of one's birth month.

Opal - the name opal is derived from the Greek Opallos, meaning "to see a change (of color)." It is an amorphous mineral which can be of almost any color but most commonly white and green shades, and exhibits beautiful internal color play. Opal has been believed to strengthen faithfulness and loyalty in regards to business relationships, personal affiliations, and love. Some believe that it holds the energies to help one seem invisible in situations that the person does not want to be noticed. Native American Indians and Australian aboriginal shaman believed opal held the power to invoke visions and used it during ceremonies referred to as vision quests (Native American Indians) and "dreamtime" (Australian aborigines).

Opal has a curious darker side though. There is a superstition and belief by some that opals are bad luck to those that wear or carry them except for those whose birthstone it is. It started out being carried and highly prized by the Romans, second only to the emerald. As the centuries passed, more and more magical properties were attributed to the opal. By the 11th century opals were believed to be the stone of thieves, spies, and robbers (attributed with the magical ability to make the wearer invisible to others).

It was likely the Medieval Europeans who gave opal its "bad name" though. They equated the stone to the "Evil Eye" because of its likeness to the eyes of creatures that were feared and / or considered evil, such as cats, toads, snakes, and other reptiles and amphibians. But it was during the 18th and 19th centuries when the opal truly fell from grace as it became associated with disease, pestilence, famine, and the crumbling of empires and monarchies. There are still some areas that these superstitions run strong but there are very few if any stories to support these beliefs of the malign properties of opal.

Amber is the 7th stone of the Breastplate of the High Priest, and is a zodiac stone for month beginning on Apr 21. Actually a fossilized resin rather than a true mineral, amber is relatively soft and malleable. Strictly speaking, Baltic Amber is the only true Amber although Dominican Amber (retinite) and Copal (much younger resin) are also generically accepted as Amber. Amber has been used to trap and transform negative energies into positive energies. It is also been used as a symbol for the renewal of marriage vows. It is said to aid in choice, helping one to choose or allow them to be chosen. It is believed to be a pseudonym of the biblical "jacinth", and thus the seventh breastplate stone.

Turquoise is also from the zodiac month of April 21. It has a pale green-blue color and waxy luster, and can change colors when in contact with human oils. Turquoise has been referred to as a "stone of communication". It has been used to help speakers communicate their thoughts and ideas more clearly and precisely. It has been given to loved ones to help facilitate open and honest communications, while still allowing for those thoughts and ideas to be expressed in the most helpful and concise manner.

Turquoise is also used as protection by those engaged in astral travel or going on a vision quest. It helps to provide a link between the unconscious and the conscious, helping to act as a protective mechanism during meditation work. The name turquoise is from the French expression Pierre tourques or Turkish stone, and originated in the thirteenth century.

Here is a link to Mystic Gems for you mineral lovers -

http://mysticgemcreations.com

http://www.ericwilder.com

Frequent readers of this blog know that I am an avid fan of almost every kind of motor sports.  This weekend I was lucky enough to see three races: the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona, NASCAR’s Talladega, and the Indy Car race at Kansas.  While they were all entertaining, the race I enjoyed most was Talladega.

I wasn’t surprised by the winner.  Kyle Busch is the hottest driver racing in the world today.  I disagree with many Formula One fan’s elitist opinion that no American is fast enough to win in Formula One.  Given an equally matched Ferrari, I would bet good money that Kyle Busch could take a half second off Formula One’s champ Kimi Raikkonen’s best lap on any circuit.

I digress.  I wasn’t surprised by Kyle Busch winning at Talladega but I was surprised by how he won.  Let me provide a little background for my argument.  Talladega is billed as the “World’s Fastest Race Course” and probably for good reason.

The restrictor plate cars Sunday maintained 195 mile-per-hour speeds all day long.  There are many teams at the highest level of NASCAR and some of the top teams have four drivers.  Every car has different sponsors, but they all drive the same car make.  At Talladega there is little if any speed advantage from car to car – except when drafting comes into play.

When two cars “hook up” they gain a distinct aerodynamic advantage that can propel the two cars five to ten miles per hour faster than the cars around them.  Let me explain.  Talladega has also been called the “Worlds Fastest Traffic Jam” because there is often only a matter of a few seconds separating the entire field of forty two.  They are close but they aren’t “hooked up” because they are all constantly moving around, jockeying for position.  One of the drivers showed the field a better way.

Not long after the race began, Denny Hamlin hooked the front of his Toyota to the back of another vehicle and proceeded to quickly push it to the lead.  Unfortunately for Hamlin, the twosome’s speed and their lead quickly vanished when they abandoned their “hook up.”

The preferred racing tactic at Talladega is finding a suitable drafting partner and then assisting one another in moving toward the front of the pack.  Usually, it’s team members that help each other whenever possible.  A few weeks ago at Daytona, the other restrictor plate Mecca, it was a group of Dodge’s that worked together to earn a win for Ryan Newman.  Sunday at Talladega the two drafting partners seemed totally unrelated.  Well, maybe not.

At first glance, twenty-three year old Busch, driving a Toyota, seems as far removed from former open-wheel Formula One ace Juan Pablo Montoya, driving a Dodge, as proverbial night and day.  I heard something on National Public Radio today that caused me to change my mind.

NPR reported that the Mars Corporation had made a twenty three billion dollar bid for Wrigley’s.  Mars is the world’s biggest seller of chocolate and the maker of M & M’s.  Wrigley’s is the world’s biggest seller of chewing gum and the maker of Juicy Fruit.  Kyle Busch was driving the M & M Toyota and Montoya was behind the wheel of the Juicy Fruit Dodge.  Unlike the earlier display of “hooking up” by Hamlin and others, Montoya and Busch “hooked up” for the better part of three laps, an almost impossible feat.

Those of you that watch Formula One races are familiar with the phrase “team orders.”  This term has little meaning in NASCAR where team members are racing for altogether different sponsors.  This is why you will see teammates and close friends Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon pulling no punches when it comes to which one will cross the finish line first.  They race for different sponsors that both want a win for their brand.

Are we talking conspiracy here?  Well let’s just say that J.P. Montoya is one of the most talented drivers to ever sit behind a wheel but he is still learning when it comes to racing stock cars.  Sunday, he pulled something previously unseen out of his heart, and maybe his a--, to push Kyle Busch to victory.

This isn’t taking anything away from the driving skills of Busch as he and Montoya are perhaps the only two drivers on the face of the earth, in my opinion, that could have accomplished the task of “hooking up” for so many laps.

For the last three laps at Talladega Sunday, I witnessed perhaps the finest display of driving I have ever seen, as performed by two of the best drivers the world has ever seen.

But did Montoya have team orders from Wrigley to help Busch’s Mars-sponsored car win at any cost?  Nah!

http://www.ericwilder.com

A certain spicy stew is a cooking staple in south Louisiana.  Sauce piquante was introduced to Louisiana by the Spanish.  It has been embraced by Cajun chefs and has evolved into nearly as many differing recipes as there are cooks.

The dish begins with a roux, combined with the sauce and almost any meat you can think of.  In Louisiana, there is chicken, pork, wild duck, turtle and even alligator sauce piquante.  Here is a recipe for chicken sauce piquante submitted by Mrs. S.J. Ardoin and included in the 1977 cookbook Hot off the Press – Good Cooking from the Pages of the States Time-Morning Advocate.

Chicken Sauce Piquante

1          chicken, cut up                         ¼         cup chopped shallots

½         cup cooking oil                         2          (8 oz.) cans tomato sauce

½         cup flour                                   1          cup water

2          large onions, chopped               1          cup Burgundy

4          garlic cloves, chopped              ¼         cup chopped parsley

1          medium bell pepper                              salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste

Make roux with cooking oil and flour, stirring constantly until medium brown.  Add onions, garlic, bell pepper and shallots.  Sauté until onions are clear.  Add chicken, tomato sauce, water, Burgundy, parsley and seasoning.  Cover and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes (stirring occasionally) or until sauce begins to thicken.  Serve over rice.  Serves six.

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For those of you that have spent time in the Old Absinthe Bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, here is a very interesting article.

Absinthe's Mind-Altering Mystery Solved - Yahoo! News.

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Frequent readers of this column know how superstitious I am.  Business took me to rural Oklahoma today and something I saw there gave me an instant case of the creeps.  Here’s a little background info:

My business partner, fellow author r. r. bryan and I recently bought an old oil well in with the intent of recompleting in a new zone.  Being oil promoters as well as writers, we turned a percentage to a man we know in Dallas named Pat O’Neil.

Today, I was in the county on other business.  A few miles from the well in question, I came across an old sign so I stopped to take a picture.  I was blown away when I read the inscription and this is what it said:

This land was founded by Jacob Derr in the land run on September 16, 1893.  Others making the land run of 1893 were C.B. Kirk to the southwest and the west, H.C. Swingle to the east, W.R. Whitaker to the northwest, B. Lowman to the northeast.  Pat O’Neil to the southeast.

I know, the name is fairly common and it could just be a coincidence.  Maybe, but I can think of at least two more possible explanations that involve reincarnation and the supernatural.  On the other hand, I am a fiction writer with a well developed imagination.  I’m posting the picture at the bottom of the page and fiction writer or not, I think you will agree that it’s still kind of creepy, and you can draw your own conclusions.

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Here is a pic from an old bridge in Noble County, Oklahoma, looking down at a creek, swollen by several inches of recent rain.  Note the debris on the bridge.  It is an indication of just how high the water has gotten at times.

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A very creepy picture!

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Writers must have steel egos and not all of us are destined to pen best selling novels and win Pulitzer Prizes. I found out as much when I began submitting my short stories to various publications. This is the way it goes: you stuff a story that you've worked days on into an envelope, along with another one, self addressed and stamped, and then you wait - sometimes weeks, sometimes months, and sometimes longer.

There is no greater excitement than seeing one of your return envelopes in the mail box and you hold your breath while opening it. Most of the time you see only your returned short story and a form rejection slip. This happens more often than not.

Occasionally, there are a few scribbled words on the slip, sometimes encouraging, sometimes almost devastating. Still, I gleaned enough encouragement from the short words of rejection to keep writing and to keep submitting. Here is a collection of my own rejections, and thanks so much to all you compassionate editors out there. Without you, even the strongest might stop creating and give up their dream. In the oil patch, even the best oil finder drills dry holes and we say, "Just keep drilling."


THE BIG MAMOU
(1) "I could visualize Mamou as a terrific situation comedy or a quick-moving screenplay."
Carrie Pomeroy - THE OGALALA REVIEW

THE BIG THICKET
(1) "Gary, I enjoyed reading Big Thicket."
Harry Opperman - DESCANT

(2) "I enjoyed the descriptions and imagery and would consider a re-write, longer. I felt it could continue and wanted it to.
Kendrei Bailey - NEW VIRGINIA REVIEW

CITIES OF THE DEAD
(1) "I would have been interested without the flowery prose."
Margo Powers - MURDEROUS INTENT

(2) "The wake is an aside - although interesting. Good Cajun background. Consider revising and resubmitting."
Editors - RED HERRING MYSTERY MAGAZINE

CRUEL WOMAN BLUES
(1) "You almost got me with this one because I love the New Orlean's setting."
Edward J. McFadden - PIRATE WRITINGS

DALLAS SKYLINE
(1) "Not bad."
Gary Lovisi - HARDBOILED DETECTIVE

(2) "Try expanding the story a bit."
Mike Baker - SKULL

(3) "Interesting story idea."
Tim Libby - EULOGY

THE DEER
(1) "Romantic set-up."
Alex Blackburn - WRITER'S FORUM

DIAMONDS IN THE NIGHT
(1) "Nice language. Sorry about the long wait, but the staff was deciding if we could use it or not."
Maxwell Gaddis - NIHILISTIC REVIEW

(2) "Lots of suspense."
Michael K. McNamara - PINEHURST JOURNAL

DISCARDED GOLD
(1) "Fun to read, but not our slant."
Carol A. Morrison - BLUFF CITY

(2) "Some nice stuff — free and loose. Not for us but someone will take it."
Don Monaco - ECHOES

(3) "Your writing style is close to what we're looking for."
Julia Soils - THE SPITTING IMAGE

(4) "Some beautiful moments here."
Ed Eurebio - HYPHEN MAGAZINE

EARTHEN REMAINS
(1) "Good story."
Larry Kirby III - STARSONG

(2) "The beginning is interesting and I like the characters."
Betty Nolley - STARWIND

THE FOURTH HARMONIC
(1) "A facinating romp through primitive territory."
Lisa B. Neuberger - AMAZING STORIES

GENETIC DEFECTS
(1) "Holding for consideration."
Elizabeth Hebron - THE MACGUFFIN

(2) "I found the story interesting and well written, but not quite right for The Pagan Review."
Susan L. Carr - THE PAGAN REVIEW

(3) "The writing is strong."
Marybeth O'Halloran - SIRIUS VISIONS

GHOST OF A CHANCE
(1) "Both the plot summary and writing style convince me that you should try a larger publishing house, and one with a more commercial fiction list."
Jay Schaefer - CHRONICLE BOOKS

GRANDPA'S BIRD DOG
(1) "You're doing some things well here — description, dialogue and insight into characters."
Jack D. Smith - BLACK RIVER REVIEW

(2) Very good details. You made me feel I was there.
J. Wideburg - WILLOW REVIEW

HOUSE CALLS
(1) "Easy to read, had a good hook, kept me interested and I loved the characters — all of them."
Rex Winn - INNISFREE

(2) "Your ms received favorable comments. Looking forward to seeing more of your work."
Roberta George - SNAKE NATION PRESS

(3) "Displays above average plotting and excellent closure of loose ends and wrap up. Very nicely done!"
Mike - PINEHURST JOURNAL

(4) "Some nice atmosphere here."
Tom Piccirilli - PIRATE WRITINGS

(5) "I enjoyed reading it and will include it in the Winter 96 issue with your approval."
Diana L. Lambson - ROCK FALLS REVIEW

LATENT ANNIVERSARY
(1) "Try us again."
Su Wright - GENRE SAMPLER

(2) "This story has many nice qualities."
Carol Newman - RED HERRING MYSTERY MAGAZINE

LONG STORY SHORT
(1) "There's powerful stuff in Long Story Short."
Fred Pfeil - THE MINNESOTA REVIEW

(2) "I liked the tone of the piece — the wonderful description of two armies avoiding each other."
Vivian Vie Halfour - NEW RIVERS PRESS

(3) "A powerful, engaging story."
Sy Safransky - THE SUN

(4) "This is a moving, important document; I only regret that we can't use it, having published many pieces of Vietnam, including Richard Curry's "Fatal Light."
Peter Stine – WITNESS

LUCKY THIRTEEN
(1) "You write very well and clearly."
Bejou Merry - DRAGAMON PUBLISHING

(2) "Well written and a good idea."
Lew Engle - SCENES FROM THE DARK

MOONING THE MOON
(1) "It's very well written."
M. DeWalt - CAVALIER

(2) "Well-described scene. Nicely written, for sure."
P.M. Cotolo - FAT TUESDAY

(3) "Holding for consideration."
Unsigned - OYEZ REVIEW

(4) "Images come together to create a delicate setting for this story. I could almost feel the soft grass Julie buries her head in."
Ayn Owensby - Puerto Del Sol

(5) "Please keep Boulevard in mind for future submissions."
Valerie Haus - BOULEVARD

MORNING MOON AT DAWN
(1) "I liked the story a lot."
Dan Quinn - KAFKA ANTHOLOGY

(2) "You're dealing with some big ideas here."
C. Darren Butler - MAGIC REALISM

(3) "Impressed with your work; it is definitely of interest to us. Holding for consideration."
David J. Acord - NEBO

(4) "Possibly offensive to some, namely close physical descriptions. Has good idea, though."
John Thiel - PABLO LENNIS

(5) "Interesting little metaphysical twist at the end."
C.F. Roberts - SHOCKBOX

(6) "Too mainstream for Happy."
Z - HAPPY

(7) "I personally enjoyed your story "Morning Moon at Dawn" very much.
Sean Winchester - DROP FORGE

MOTORCYCLE
(1) "Sorry to say no. Thanks for sending work. Please try us again.
Gloria Mindock - BLUR

(2) "Thanks for sending "Motorcycle" our way. I regret having to disappoint you on this one."
Laurie Henry - STORY

MOTH MADNESS
(1) "Our mailbox is open to you."
Bob - COOL TRAVELER

MURDER ETOUFFE
(1) "With thanks."
The Editors - ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE

(2) Well written. Not something I can use but let me see something else when you can."
Gary Lovisi - HARDBOILED

(3) "Another nice effort with some nice offbeat, hardboiled moves."
Tom Piccirilli - PIRATE WRITINGS

MUSCLE MURDERS
(1) "Please send us more of your short short fiction."
Alex Duffy - FURY MAGAZINE

1963
(1) "Made 1st cut. I came close to taking."
Fred Schepartz - MOBIUS

PONTCHARTRAIN
(1) "You should do well with this one, Eric. Sorry we cannot us it at this time. Thanks for thinking of us."
A.P. Samuels - THE POST

PRAIRIE JUSTICE
(1) "We did like a lot about this —"
The Editors - ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE

PRAIRIE SUNSET
(1) "You have the ability to bring characters to life — to make them seem real and human."
Jane Howle - BASKERVILLE PUBLISHERS

THE PRESS
(1) "This is what fiction is all about."
Tim Hall - STRUGGLE

PRIMITIVE DREAMS
(1) "I came close to accepting "Dreams" and dislike only what the story says about humankind in general."
Susan Richardson - CALYPSO

(2) "You're ms came in 3rd choice. That's still pretty good. Keep going."
Charles Champion - EXPERIMENTAL (BASEMENT)

(3) "Dreams needs lots of work to become creditable fiction."
Jim Barnes - CHARITON REVIEW

(4) "Yea - this one's in our realm."
Peter Quixby - URBANUS/RAIZIRR

RING OF FIRE
(1) "Holding for possible inclusion."
Elizabeth Fischel - HAWAII PACIFIC REVIEW

THE ROOFING
(1) "Well-written."
M. Dibel - THE BELLETRIST REVIEW

San Antonio
(1) "Nicely paced melodrama."
Editor - WRITER'S FORUM

SHARED INDISCRETIONS
(1) "I like it very much."
Susan Smith Nash - TEXTURE

SHROUDED PROMISES
(1) "A fun read."
Linda Rather - HARPER'S MAGAZINE

SOLDIERS
(1) "Interesting characters."
Deborah Brandsford - CIMARRON REVIEW

(2) "Holding for consideration."
Georgette Hartley - OWEN WISTER REVIEW

(3) "You might try us again."
FG - CLOCKWATCH REVIEW

(4) "Accepted for publication."
Editors - POTPOURRI

SOUTHERN FRIED MURDER
(1) "Too long for us, but liked your writing style."
CHERIE JUNG - OVER MY DEAD BODY

(2) "Pretty good.
Gary Lovisi - HARDBOILED

(3) "I enjoy Southern/Western flavored mysteries and handed this up the ladder to Ed (McFadden), but he wasn't quite as grabbed. Sorry, best of luck."
Tom Piccirilli - PIRATE WRITINGS

A TALK WITH HENRY
(1) "A very readable little piece."
David Hanson - LOUISIANA LITERATURE

(2) "Please keep us in mind with your other stories."
Unsigned - THE NEW YORKER

(3) "Sorry we couldn't use Henry. It's really quite a good piece, convincing and well written."
Claudia Rowe - WIGWAG

(4) "Interesting story."
Quentin Howard - WIND

(5) "Henry has a certain charm about it."
Hazel Hart - ARRAY

(6) "Somewhat overwritten with too many adjectives and metaphors — needs more tension and drama, can be condensed."
The Editors - MANGROVE

UNCONSCIOUS
(1) "Interesting story."
Anthony Boyd – Whisper

(2) "Well written, but not twisted enough for us."
J Moretz - ABERATIONS

(3) "The story has potential."
Kathleen Jurgens - THIN ICE

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
(1) "Very good at description, both physical and general."
James W. Lee - AMGARYAN LITERARY REVIEW

(2) "Interesting take with the old Russ Meyer's name."
James Haining - SALT LICK PRESS

VOODOO NIGHT
(1) "The writing is very good, the setting interesting. Try us again sometime."
Janet Hutchings - ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE

(2) "A nicely done tale but we've recently purchased a similar ‘voodoo' story."
Tom Piccirilli - PIRATE WRITINGS

http://www.ericwilder.com/

Here is a pic taken when the water was low at Lake Arcadia, near Edmond, Oklahoma.

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It’s still a month or so away before the irises begin blooming here in Central Oklahoma but they are already abloom in Louisiana.  Here is a pic taken today by my bud Dave who now lives in Livingston, Louisiana.  Thanks Dave.

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The hulk of an old Volkswagen abandoned in an old creek bed near Lake Arcadia in Oklahoma.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a pic of a lonely well in rural Logan County, Oklahoma.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Here is a recipe I found in the wonderful cookbook Hot off the Press – Good Cooking from the Pages of the State-Times Morning Advocate published in 1977 by Capital City Press.  This recipe was submitted by Lillian Gremillion of Frisco.

BEIGNETS (The French Market Type)

½         pkg. Yeast cake                                               3 ½      cups plain flour

1          cup milk                                                           ¾         tbs salt

2          tbs sugar                                                           1          egg

2          tbs cooking oil                                                              powdered sugar

Soften yeast cake in 1/3 cup lukewarm water to form a paste.  Warm the milk and add sugar, oil and yeast mixture.  Gradually stir in 2 cups flour and the salt.  Stir until it forms a batter.  Stir in egg until it is mixed well, and then add rest of flour.  Mix well.  Cover and set in warm place about 1 ½ hours to rise.  Take dough out and roll until about ¼ inch thick.  Cut in 2 inch pieces.  Place on cookie sheet or pan and let rise another half hour.  Fry dough until it is brown and then remove and let drain.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy.

http://www.ericwilder.com