Fred was already in his fifties when I started work for Cities Service Oil Company. He taught me how to make contour maps, and pick formation tops from electric logs. More importantly, he instructed me on how to find oil and gas. Though important, they were not the only things I learned from him.

Fred was the senior Kansas geologist and no longer had to watch drilling wells. He still liked to go to the field occasionally, but more as an observer than anything else. “A vacation from the office,” he said.

For the first two or three wells that I watched, Dave, another junior Kansas geologist accompanied me, letting me do most of the work but correcting my errors as we went along. When the company finally trusted me enough to watch a well alone, I felt confident that I could do the job. A week had passed when Fred joined me on the well.

He picked me up at the well site the first morning, taking me to a nearby town to a favorite café he remembered for a breakfast of steak and eggs. After breakfast, we spent much of the day driving around the countryside, Fred pointing out wells he had drilled and explaining Cities’ politics, and the local history of every little town we drove through.

After dinner, we found a bar and pool hall where we drank pitcher after pitcher of beer and played game after game of pool. At midnight, when the tavern closed, he drove me back to the location and told me to catch up my samples and descriptions. He would see me in the morning.

The same routine continued for three days, eating, wandering, drinking beer and shooting pool until midnight, and then me burning the midnight oil to bring my well site work up to date, while Fred went to the motel in town. The fourth day, he found me with my head on the trailer’s desk, very much asleep.

“Hey,” he said. “I hope you haven’t missed any shows. We’ll have hell to pay if you did.”

“You kidding me? I’m so tired, I fell asleep staring into the binocular microscope. Both of my eyes are probably black. It would be a relief if you fired me. At least I could get a little rest.”

Fred wasn’t the type that laughed much, but he guffawed a time or two at my words. Patting me on the shoulder, he said, “Go into town and get some sleep. I’ll catch things up for you. You can come get me for dinner.”

I found out later from Dave that Fred had done the same thing to him. “He just wants to see what you are made of,” he said.

Next time Fred joined me on a well and suggested we shoot a game of pool, he actually laughed when I said, “Fine, but if we stay for more than one pitcher, then I’m going to the motel room, and you’ll have to watch the well tonight.”

Eric’sWeb

Mick is one of my closest and dearest friends.  I met him when I went to work for Cities Service Oil Company and we both knew each other during our first wives.  I went skiing the first time with Mick, had fun with him and I’ve fought with him, just like a brother.  When he asked me to be the best man at his wedding, I naturally said yes.

Mick and Ginette had been a number for quite a while and the time had finally arrived for them to marry.  I was to be Mick’s best man and Anne was Ginette’s first lady.  Mick and Gin lived near our house, in a condo in Hefner Village.  When the day came for the wedding, Anne and I made our way to their condo and knocked on the door.  Gin met us with a smile.

“Mick’s running late and still at work,” she said.  “I’ll get you something to drink.”

Anne and I were both dressed for a wedding and I felt uncomfortable waiting for Mick as I drank beer in my suit and tie.  An hour passed with no word from Mick.  This was in the days before the cell phone and there was no way for Gin to call him.  When another hour passed, Gin began to cry.

“I knew he would never marry me.  He’s probably out drinking with his buddies, not even worried about getting married.  Tomorrow he’ll have some lame excuse.”

“He’ll be here,” I said.

“How do you know?” Gin asked.

“Because I know Mick,” I said with my tongue firmly in cheek.

Anne put her hands on Gin’s shoulders to console her, a task that became even harder as yet another hour passed.  Finally, we heard the key in the front door and Mick stumbled in.  Yes, he had been drinking and he had a resolute expression on his face.

“Sorry guys,” he said.  “I just had to think about awhile.”

“And what did you decide?” I asked.

“I don’t think we’re ready for marriage yet.  I’m calling it off.”

By this time, I was mad.  “The hell you are,” I said.  “Get your suit on.  I’ll call the limo and tell them you finally showed up.”

“Eric –“

“Don’t Eric me.  Get your suit on.  We’ve been waiting almost three hours and by God you’re going to get married, and I mean tonight.  I’m not taking no for an answer.”

I must have been persuasive because Mick returned from the bedroom dressed in suit and tie – just in time as the limo driver was knocking on the door.

Mick had found a marriage chapel, really the home of Reverend Sweeney, in an older neighborhood of Oklahoma City.  The good reverend answered the door on the first knock.

“Sorry we’re late,” I said.  “We had a few problems.”

“Quite all right,” he said.

Reverend Sweeney led us to the back yard where he had a rose garden and an arbor decorated with flowers.  Oh, and it was a full moon that night.  As late as we were, it was at its zenith and beautifully full.  Mick and Gin exchanged vows and sealed the ceremony with a kiss.  After we filled out the necessary paperwork in Reverend Sweeney’s kitchen, we returned to the limo waiting out front.

The driver took us to Junior’s, a restaurant where all good oilies always go to celebrate something good, even today.  It was Friday night, Junior’s filled to capacity.  Junior’s was known as much for its strong drinks as for its wonderful food, and Anne, Gin and I soon caught up with Mick’s state of inebriation.

Later, after celebrating with two rounds of brandy ices, Mick stood, tapped his glass with a spoon until he had garnered everyone in the crowded restaurant’s attention.  When the room went quiet, he said something like, “I love this beautiful woman and want everyone to know.”

Seeing the confused looks on everyone’s faces, I stood and said, “This is Mick and Gin.  They are very much in love and just got married about an hour ago.”

The entire restaurant exploded with a round of applause and cheers.

I felt bad about badgering Mick into marrying Gin and told Anne as much when we finally returned home that night.

“He’s a grown man and is perfectly capable of making his own decisions.  He must have wanted to marry Gin or nothing you said could have made him do it.  You just sort of nudged him in the right direction.”

True words as Mick and Gin have now been married, through thick and thin, for more than twenty years, and have two wonderful children, Ashlee and Will, to show for the union.

Do I take the credit?  Let’s put it this way.  I’ve been a best man four times during my life and all four marriages are still going strong.

Eric’sWeb

The temperature in Oklahoma this summer has gone from hot to hotter, with little relief in sight. Growing up in Louisiana, long before air conditioning, we used to keep cool eating chilled watermelon and home-made ice cream. I still like watermelon and ice cream but I’m older now and also enjoy an occasional nip. Here is a recipe for an alcoholic summer cooler I think you will enjoy. For the kiddos and you teetotalers, just omit the rum – it’s still good!

Okie Watermelon Cocktail

• 1 watermelon, cubed
• 1 cup water
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 cup sugar
• ¼ cup fresh lime juice
• light rum
• zest of 1 lime

Blend watermelon in batches, in a blender. Pour through strainer into a large container; add water, sugar, salt, lime juice and zest.

Pour mixture and about 2 jiggers of light rum over ice cubes and stir. Top with a lime wedge, freshly sliced strawberries and a sprig of mint. Enjoy.

Makes about 8 (12 ounce) cocktails

Eric’sWeb

As I have chronicled many times in these pages, my days as a geologist at Texas Oil & Gas were some of the wildest and wooliest of my life – and for me, that’s going a stretch.  One party in particular was woolier than most and still sticks in my mind:

TXO usually hosted several parties every year, a hold-over from earlier days when oil companies like Cities Service hired employees for life, every person working there part of a family that played together as well as worked together.  The party I am thinking of happened during spring, the weather more than pleasant.

There was a tennis club at the time built on the old Gaylord (think Opryland and the Grand Ol’ Opry) dairy farm.  Residing in an upper class Oklahoma City neighborhood, Summerfield Racquet Club often hosted oil industry events such as the now defunct Midcontinent Oil Man’s Tennis Tournament (once won by a woman, but that’s a different story.)  That particular year, TXO had rented the clubhouse for a sit-down dinner.

Miss C (a person that I have told many stories about in these pages) was my girlfriend at the time.  Like every other oil patch party during that era, alcohol flowed in copious quantities, both Miss C and I consuming our fair share.  It was still daylight, bright and sunny outside, when we sat down for dinner.

The Oklahoma City branch of TXO had fifty or so employees at the time.  The service personnel of Summerfield Racquet Club had assembled a series of tables in the shape of a long rectangle, all done in festive candles and white table cloths.

It didn’t really matter because most of us were already well oiled (sorry!) by the time dinner was served.  As fate would have it, Miss C and I were sitting across the table from the head OKC TXO honcho and his wife.

The dinner went well, the noise level moderate but just high enough that I couldn’t converse with my boss across the large table without shouting.  Still, I was trying hard to watch my P’s and Q’s and not embarrass myself out of a job.  As it turned out, I didn’t need to worry.

The dinner, and dessert complete, people all around me were starting on their next adult beverage and lighting up cigarettes.  Miss C was drinking and also lit one up, but her’s was not a cigarette.  The moment I whiffed the odor of marijuana, my heart quit beating – well, only for a moment.  After a long draw off the joint, she handed it to the person sitting to her right, and thankfully not to me.

I watched in awe as the joint began circulating around the table, one puff after the next, finally making it all the way around to my boss.  My rear end puckered as I waited for his angry explosion.

The explosion never came.  Honcho put the joint to his lips, pretended to take a puff and then passed it to the person next to him.  There was little left of the joint when it finally reached me so I handed it to Miss C as nonchalantly as I could muster.  Everyone was in a jovial, nay drunken mood by this time, nothing said about the joint passed around the table.  Next morning, I sat in my office waiting to be called down the hall to confront the honcho about my personal shortcomings.  The call never came.  Nothing was ever said about the discretion and I wasn’t about to bring it up.

That was years ago, before Mother’s Against Drunk Drivers and before the War on Drugs.  It was also the last hurrah for an oil industry that prided itself in being wild, flamboyant risk takers that wore gold nugget neckaces and rings, ten gallon hats and thousand dollar ostrich cowboy boots, and traveled everywhere in private jets.  Hey, and it was a time when oil companies couldn’t afford to fire their best oil finders just because they drank a bit of whiskey and smoked a little dope.

Eric’sWeb

I am nearing the completion of my new murder mystery Bones of Skeleton Creek. As part of a SWAT team attack on the international cattle rustlers’ compound, Buck McDivit encounters his nemesis Jimmy Quick. Here is another short, unedited excerpt:

*     *     *

       They found the door to Roy’s office ajar and no one inside the lavishly decorated room.

       “The passage is behind that panel but I don’t know how to open it.”

       Buck began feeling the wall, hoping to find the opening mechanism. When he didn’t, he kicked a hole in it with his boot and crawled through. Georgia followed him.

       “It’s too dangerous. I can’t take you with me.”

       “I’m not staying here,” she said, following him through the hole, into the darkness.

       Buck groped for a lightswitch. Finding none, he began descending the circular staircase, Georgia clutching the back of his shirt. Within minutes, they saw a light up ahead - a small fluorescent bulb above a closed door.

       “Get on the ground,” he said.

       The door was locked so Buck blasted it open with his assault rifle. When he kicked it open, he found himself staring at Jimmy Quick. Before he could react, Quick unloaded several rounds from his 9 mm Glock into his chest.

       The bullets wheeled him around. Losing his footing, he fell backwards, onto the cement. Jimmy Quick was on him, ripping off his black mask.

       “You m- f! I might have known it was you, McDivit.”

       Quick pointed the pistol between Buck’s eyes and for a moment, he thought he was a dead man. Quick had other ideas.

       “A bullet through the brain is too easy for you. This won’t be our last meeting. Next time I’ll take my time and make you suffer.”

            Instead of shooting Buck, Quick kicked him in the head and then hurried away down the darkened hallway. Dazed but not unconscious, Buck lay in a stupor until Georgia lifted his head and rubbed his cheek.

Eric’sWeb

We all know how music can evoke memories.  I realize as much as I listen to the Bee Gees on the stereo.  The group was part of the disco era, so important to me, and that I lived between wives Gail and Anne.  The group was active long before the seventies.  As I listen now to the dulcet tones of Barry Gibb, my thoughts return to a time in the 60s, a time when I was an unmarried college student at Northeast Louisiana.

I had a roommate named Chuck and we remained friends long after he moved back in with his parents to save money.  Chuck was, quite literally, the horniest person I have ever known and he was my roomy during a seminal time in my life.  I was young and inexperienced and he was the worldliest person that I knew.

Chuck and I lived in one of the men’s dorms and our door opened to an outside hallway leading to the stairs.  At the end of the hall, near our room, were two candy machines and two telephones.  One of these candy machines was the subject of a piece that I wrote called Honey Buns in Paradise.

Girls were always calling the dorm and one night Chuck answered the ringing phone and struck up a conversation with the female caller.  Being the fast talker that he was – he didn’t have to be too fast because the girl was trying to pick up someone anyway – he made a date to meet her.  His only problem was that he had no car.  My parents had bought a new Pontiac and I was driving their old ’59 Chevy, a station wagon but hey, it was wheels.

“I got us a date, roomy.  You game?”

I was eighteen.  Of course I was!

The girls lived in West Monroe, across the river from the college.  On the way there, Chuck informed me that they might not quite be in high school yet.  Too late to back out, I kept driving.

The girls were supposed to be sisters.  Sharon, it turned out, was fourteen.  It was dark when we reached the house but we could see that she was pretty, and quite precocious from the way she was flirting with both of us.  She had hurried out to meet us when she saw the lights and quickly invited us to follow her inside.

“She’s mine,” Chuck said.  “I’m sure her sister is just as gorgeous.”

She wasn’t.  Sharon’s thirteen-year-old cousin (not her sister, it turned out) was short and dumpy and had the face of a lonely bulldog.  I might still have been interested if I hadn’t known she was barely out of diapers.  It didn’t matter much because she took a shine to me the minute we walked in the door.

Soon, mister fast talker Chuck had finagled a trip to get an ice cream.  My date Cynthia had to take her eight year old sister as a chaperone in order to get permission from her parents to accompany us, a condition I was all in favor of.

Jenny, the little sister, sat in back with Chuck and Sharon.  The old Chevy had bench seats and Cynthia was practically sitting in my lap as I drove away from their house.  A Bee Gees song was playing on the radio but it faded away from my psyche when I stopped at the first red light.

The red-haired girl beside me put her arms around my neck, wrestled my head around and began kissing me.  Well, it was a little more than just a kiss, actually.  She had her tongue stuck halfway down my throat.  By the time we reached the ice cream place, I was running red lights with abandon, hoping that someone would hit us and put me out of my misery.

“Maybe we better listen to your little sister,” I said when Jenny threatened to tell Mommy we were making out in the front seat.  The little girl wasn’t worried about Chuck and Sharon going at it in the seat next to her.

An hour or so later we made it back to Cynthia’s house on the south side.

“Call me,” she said, waving as we drove away down the darkened street.

“I’ll get you for this, Chuck,” I said with malice in my voice.

Cynthia called the dorm every day for a month and I just kept telling her she was too young for me.  She finally gave up, or else met someone else.  Chuck, on the other hand, continued to have a relationship with Sharon for several years.

Tonight I’m listening to the Bee Gees and laughing to myself as I think about Sharon, Cynthia and little sister Jenny.  Did I ever get even with Chuck?  You bet I did, and I mean big time!  But that’s another story.

Eric’sWeb

Growing up in the sixties, I had no guilt about owning a muscle car and dealing with its lack of fuel efficiency, or the pollution it caused. I didn’t have to because, regrettably, I never owned a muscle car. Many of my friends did have fast vehicles with names that made them sound even faster.

None of us ran moonshine, but we all had aspirations of emulating the favorite racing drivers of the time. In Vivian, most young men eschewed NASCAR and were more interested in how fast their car could go in a quarter mile.

My friend Barry had a super-fast Chevelle that his father (unwittingly) purchased for him, complete with a big V8 and a performance package. He would put a twenty on the dash and give the bill to you if you could grab it while the car was accelerating. He never lost the twenty.

There is an airport outside of town that handles crop dusters and small planes. A pilot friend once told me that the runway is long enough for small jets. He also said the area around Vivian is in a “dead” zone, untracked by any radar or radio, and that drug traffickers regularly bring in consignments of foreign drugs to the airport there. I don’t have a clue if what he told me is true. There is another secluded runway large enough for jets just out of nearby Uncertain, Texas. Suspicious? You bet.

I do know that the road beside the airport was used as a local drag strip when I was in high school. I never participated in a race, but my friend Rod and I stayed behind on the side of the road once when Clay raced his Mom’s ’62 Ford. We hid in the trees when the cops showed up, shining their lights in our direction and ordering us to “Come out of the bushes.” We didn’t comply with their order, and another matter riveted their attention before they came in after us.

We made it home in one piece that night, neither crashed nor arrested. A few months later, a younger classmate wasn’t so lucky. Another car sideswiped his vehicle at the intersection of crossing streets near the end of the quarter mile. Neither driver lived to tell about it.

As a teen in Vivian, I regretted having only a pedestrian ’59 Chevy station wagon to drive. My only claim to fame was occasionally spinning the tires in loose gravel. Yes, I was always looking for loose gravel. And hey, my Bel Air didn’t even have a fast name.

Eric’sWeb

As boys, my friend Billy Williams and I spent many hours in the woods behind our houses.  We always felt as if we were exploring darkest Africa, or the Mato Grasso Jungle in Brazil and it didn’t really matter that we were less than a mile from civilization.

It’s spring here in Oklahoma, the giant oaks behind my house beginning to leaf.  As I walked Princess, my pug, around the backyard today I remembered a time many years ago, back in Louisiana when I made a very bad mistake climbing a similar tree.

Billy and I were deep in the woods, near a little glade complete with a gurgling brook.  A giant oak tree grew near the edge of the brook and its low spreading branches invited us to climb it.  Billy grabbed a branch and hoisted himself into the tree.  He was soon ten feet off the ground.

“Hey, it’s great up here.  Come on.”

I was a Boy Scout and couldn’t help but notice the poison ivy growing on the tree.  “Not me,” I told him.  “That’s poison ivy.”

“Have you ever had poison ivy?” he asked.  When I told him that I hadn’t, he said, “Neither have I.  I’m immune to it.  You must be too, or else you would have gotten it already.”

His logic seemed undeniable.  It was obvious that I was immune to the effects of poison ivy or surely I would have suffered from it already, considering the hours I had spent in the woods.  Grabbing the low branch, I pulled myself up into the tree.

We enjoyed ourselves for an hour or more, climbing from branch to branch, like a couple of juvenile monkeys.  Next morning I awoke scratching my arm, and then my legs.  I soon realized that I had an itchy rash over practically my entire body.  Later, I learned that Billy also had the rash and he too was suffering.

The rash got worse, much worse before it got better.  In the sweaty days before air conditioning, it was pretty miserable.  From that day until I was almost thirty, I suffered with poison ivy, oak or sumac at least once every summer, usually twice or more.  My only consolation was that every time that I got it, so did Billy.  I thought that I had grown out of it until last month.

I was sitting in my easy chair, watching basketball, when I noticed a pronounced itch on my hip.  Yes, the old malady had returned, and it was all over my hips and thighs.  I have no idea where I got it – maybe from Princess, scratching on my legs, wanting to be held.

I can’t really blame my old bud Billy.  My lifelong malady is the result of a failure of my own logic.  Still, I probably wouldn’t have climbed that tree that day, many years ago if it wasn’t for his goading.  I have long since lost track of Billy but I wonder if maybe he isn’t sitting in his own easy chair, watching basketball and trying not to scratch the rash on his legs and arms.  If he is, I hope he’s not blaming it on me.

Eric’sWeb

Here are a few flower pics from Marilyn’s garden.

Eric’sWeb

There are many fine restaurants in New Orleans, Galatoire’s Restaurant among them. I found this recipe for Shrimp Rémoulade on their website, galatoires.com. Check it out when you visit NO.

Galatoire’s Shrimp Rémoulade

Shrimp Rémoulade is in every New Orleans girl’s arsenal of favored dishes for relaxed entertaining. Serve this simple dish on elegant china and it is fit for a king- Mardi Gras or otherwise. This is our most popular dish and most frequently requested recipe. Bonus for the home cook: The sauce is definitely best made a day in advance and refrigerated, then all that’s left to do is toss in the shrimp and plate and serve. It’s a snap to make, yet it’s always impressive.

¾ cup chopped celery
¾ cup chopped scallions (white and green parts)
½ cup chopped curly parsley
1 cup chopped yellow onion
½ cup ketchup

½ cup tomato purée
½ cup Creole mustard or any coarse, grainy brown mustard
2 tablespoons prepared horseradish, or to taste

¼ cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Spanish hot paprika
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ cup salad oil
4 dozen jumbo (15 count) shrimp, peeled, boiled, and chilled
1 small head of iceberg lettuce, washed, dried and cut into thin ribbons

Mince the celery, scallions, parsley, and onions in a food processor. Add the ketchup, tomato puree, Creole mustard, horseradish, red wine vinegar, paprika, and Worcestershire. Begin processing again and add the oil in a slow drizzle to emulsify. Stop when the dressing is smooth. Chill for 6 to 8 hours or overnight. Correct the seasoning with additional horseradish, if desired after the ingredients have had the opportunity to marry.

In a large mixing bowl, add the sauce to the shrimp and toss gently to coat. Divide the lettuce among 6 chilled salad plates. Divide the shrimp evenly atop the lettuce and serve.

Serves 6

Eric’sWeb

There was a tremendous storm in central Oklahoma last night, continuing until early this morning. Our two pugs, Princess and Scooter, live on the back porch. There was so much rain, the porch flooded, drenching their bedding so Marilyn let them spend the night in the house. This morning, while getting dressed, I stepped in a pile of dog poo. The unpleasant experience caused me to recall something that happened many years ago.

Much as it is today, the housing market was horrible when my first wife Gail and I were trying to sell our house. We were not divorced yet, but already estranged. We took turns staying there while we tried to sell it. Gail never liked pets and we had neither cat nor dog during our seven year marriage. She had a thing about animals in the house. That was a no-no. During our separation, I had a girlfriend Carol that had a pekapoo named Boo. Carol’s analyst had given her the dog following her own divorce and Boo was her trusted companion.

A lease broker, Carol spent lots of time out of town, checking property records in courthouses. After a little cajoling, I volunteered to take care of Boo when she was away. There was no fence around the house so I had to leave the dog inside while I was at work.

One night, I got home a little late. I took Boo for a walk then made myself comfortable. I was in the living room in shorts and bare feet when I heard a key turn in the front door. Hurriedly, I put Boo in the back bedroom because I didn’t want to incite a firestorm with Gail – something that usually happened no matter what I did.

The room was almost bare, all of our possessions, including the furniture, already divided between us. The living room was dark because Gail had taken all the lamps. As I walked back into the sunken living room, I stepped in a pile of fresh dog poo. Yes, I was revulsed, but I dared not run to the bathroom to wipe my foot.

Gail checked the hall closet for an umbrella or something, and then stood in the dimly-lighted front entrance, reading me the riot act for some reason or other as she usually did during that point in our relationship. She only stayed about ten minutes but it seemed like an hour. She never caught on about Boo and I cleaned up the mess once she had gone.

The following day I made sure to return home earlier. Funny, once we were divorced, Gail bought two white toy poodles. Go figure! Oh and yes, we finally sold the house.

Eric’sWeb

Sometime back I sold a geologic prospect to a company in Amarillo.  They drilled the well, looking for a deep formation called the Arbuckle.  After setting production casing, they began testing the deeper formation.

Finding no commercial production in the lowest zone, they still managed to exhaust all their completion money.  They did have a zone up the hole that looked prospective, but they had no money left to test it.  They decided to plug the well as a dry hole even though I lobbied them to continue testing up the hole.

“If you like it so much, we’ll sell it to you,” they told me.

“How much?” I asked.

“It’ll cost us about fifteen thousand to plug it.  If you pay us that much and take the plugging liability, you can have the well.”

After taking a deep breath, I somehow managed to scrape up the fifteen thousand bucks and began thinking of a way to test the zone up the hole without bankrupting myself in doing so.  I began selling bits and pieces to my buddies and the largest share to an operator that saw things the same way as I did.  I ended up with a small carried interest in the well and my money back.

The untested zone up the hole was the Mississippi Lime.  The day finally arrived to perforate the Mississippi and fracture it with fifteen thousand barrels of water.  The operation went without a hitch; the well was soon making so much natural gas that it was rocking the frac tank catching the return water.

After making a rough calculation of how much the well was producing, I quickly began thinking about all the debt that I would be able to repay, the vacations that I would be able to take and the new cars I would be able to buy with my new-found wealth.  It didn’t turn out quite the way I planned.

Because of a title glitch in the ownership of the well, my override was disputed and put into suspense.  After five years, it is still in suspense.  Even though the well is producing primarily because of my efforts, I am the only one not benefiting from its production.

Well that’s the way of the oil patch!  You should never count your chickens until the zone you are testing is producing into the tanks and in my case, when and if you actually begin seeing some money flowing into your bank account.

Eric’sWeb

Stormy Oklahoma is an exciting and often dangerous place to live. The most powerful tornado ever measured passed less than twenty miles from my house several years ago. At least I was inside during that one. Tonight, I got caught out in a dangerous Oklahoma rainstorm. It was both frightening and fascinating, and I am thankful that I am alive to tell about it. The storm continues outside as I keyboard this story.

It rained earlier today but the sky had cleared, hot sun glaring down on muggy central Oklahoma. I worked late at the office and it was after eight when I finished eating Marilyn’s gumbo, and fed the dogs and cats. The sky was still clear when I began my walk, except for a row of angry clouds on the north horizon. It was still hot, sunny and sultry after going a half mile.

Three-quarters of a mile into my walk, the entire sky began turning dark, and wind began blowing from an indeterminate direction. Dry leaves, a product of the many hundred-plus degree days we had earlier this month, began blowing across the street in front of me, sounding like elves running from a blustering giant. By the time fat and lazy raindrops began falling on my head, I knew it was too late to make it back home without getting caught in the storm.

The rain started slowly but stayed that way only a minute. Very quickly, it was coming down so hard, and at such an angle, that I was afraid I might walk off the road, into the ditch. And then it began to hail. My glasses became so fogged that I simply put them in my pocket. I couldn’t see much anyway.

I was wearing my OU visor and it protected my eyes but not my head and arms. The dime-sized hail began pelting me with enough force to sting, especially when it nailed the top of my head. Oh yes, and there was lightning and thunder enough to pucker my rear end with fright.

Rushing water filled the ditches on both sides of the road and ankle deep on top of it. I made it home drenched and frightened but otherwise safe. It was an experience that I hope never to duplicate, but one so fascinating that I will certainly never forget.

Eric’sWeb

While walking through the neighborhood recently, I saw several people mowing their lawns with riding lawnmowers. I don’t presently own a riding lawnmower, but once had three. It made me think about the other things I no longer own.

Anne and I owned a ski boat when we lived in the Ski Island addition in Oklahoma City. We didn’t ski in the tiny lake; we mostly putted around in the scenic channels and canals. A spring storm sank the boat and the insurance company totaled it. They reimbursed me more than I had originally paid for the boat, marking the first time I ever came out better than an insurance company.  We also owned a small sailboat which I never learned to sail. We subsequently gave it to Anne’s brother.

I no longer own any of the three Jaguars I once possessed, and only one of the four motorcycles I once loved to ride. My ’67 Mustang is gone, along with two redwood hot tubs and three rent houses. I could go on.

I don’t miss the things I no longer have, probably because I replaced them with other objects. Maybe the older you get, the less you need, or at least the less you desire. It doesn’t matter because no matter how old you are, or what you desire, it is a fact that you will leave the earth with exactly what you arrived with – no more and no less.

Eric’sWeb

I was very young the first time that I went camping with my family.  We used to go to the lake Friday after my Dad got off work and then stay until late Sunday night.  I usually slept on a cot or sleeping bag.  It didn’t really matter because I loved it.  After marrying Gail, I quickly learned that she had never camped, nor had any desire to do so.

As a grad student at Northeast Louisiana, we lived in a one-bedroom efficiency apartment not far from campus.  Two of our best friends were John and Delaine.  John was also a geology student and he and Delaine were avid campers.  One weekend they asked us to join them and Gail and I agreed.

My brother Jack was also a geology student.  He had also grown up camping but not his wife Bibian.  We were all friends and we asked them to join us.  The trip was set for a small camping area about twenty miles from Monroe.  Spring usually comes early to north Louisiana but that weekend the weather took a reversal.  There were six of us in a small tent, the weather near freezing.

“I can’t take anymore of this,” Gail finally said.  “I want to go home.

No amount of cajoling could convince her to stay the night and we soon returned to Monroe, neither of us speaking on the trip home.

Next fall the geology department planned a trip to Big Bend in Texas.  I was a grad student and advised by one of the profs that I should plan to go along.  Gail was miffed, finally deciding that she would join me.  It was late in the season and I knew that it would be cold at night, even colder than our first camping trip.

“I’ll be fine,” she said when I tried to convince her to stay home, worried she would ruin the trip for all of us, perhaps even getting me kicked out of grad school with her temper.  It didn’t matter because she was adamant about going.

Stretching our small budget, I purchased an eight by ten tent and two sleeping bags from an army surplus store.  I also bought a catalytic heater, long handled underwear, and a Coleman two-burner stove.  Accordingly outfitted, we headed toward south Texas, my fingers crossed that all would go well.

The first night camping in Big Bend was worse than I expected, temperature dropping well below freezing.  A thousand miles from Monroe, there was no way for us to go home for the night, even if we were in our own car, which we weren’t.  I got little sleep that night, listening to Gail toss, turn and shiver in the sleeping bag.  Somehow she made it through the night.

The following morning was crisp and cold, a glorious sun rising over El Capitan and the aroma of bacon and eggs cooking on someone’s Coleman.  I prayed that ours would start.  When it fired up, I glanced at the heavens, thanking my lucky stars.  The coffee we brewed was divine, the best I had ever tasted – at least it seemed that way.  As we sat by the fire with the dozen or so other grad students, eating our own bacon and eggs, I saw the glimmer of a smile on Gail’s face.

There is almost no place on earth more gorgeous than Big Bend National Park, and we investigated every meter as only nerdy geology students could have.  Gail loved it.  When we raced back to the campsite to see the sun set between the Burro’s Ears, a scenic rock formation, I knew that she was hooked for life.

After the War, we moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas so that I could finish grad school.  We had the same old tent and Gail and I camped out almost every weekend.  As it turns out, it was the one thing we really had in common.

Like many first marriages, ours didn’t make it.  We split the sheets, she going her way and I mine.  We split everything fifty-fifty, except for the tent and camping gear.  There was no way to divvy it up fairly so she took it.

I haven’t heard from her in many years but I can bet, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she is still camping, probably every weekend at some campground, somewhere.  Oh, and my brother Jack and sister-in-law Bibian are also addicts and they now even have a portable air conditioner for their tent.

Eric’sWeb

Earlier, I told the story of my first visit to New Orleans, and to the Court of Two Sisters on Royal Street in the French Quarter.  Here is a recipe for Barbecue Shrimp (one of my personal favorites) that I found on the restaurant’s website.

Barbecue Shrimp

Ingredients:

• 48 large shrimp, heads on
• 4 tbs. Ground black pepper
• ½ tsp. Cayenne pepper
• ½ lb. melted butter
• 1-cup water
• ½ lb. melted butter
• (DO NOT add salt)
• French Bread

 Procedure:

Select 48 (approximately 2 ½ lbs.) 16-20-count shrimp with heads on and place in a shallow baking dish large enough to contain shrimp in a double layer. Add water and one half pound of butter. Sprinkle shrimp with black pepper and cayenne and cover with second half pound of butter.

Place in a hot oven (375 to 400 degrees) and roast for ten minutes. Turn with a large spoon and roast for another ten minutes until shrimp are an even robust pink. Serve with extra loaves of French bread to mop up the delicious liquor created by the butter and roasted shrimp. Serves 4.

Eric’sWeb

The year I graduated from the University of Arkansas, I also had my thesis published by the Arkansas Geological Commission.  My thesis advisor, Dr. K, co-authored the article with me and gave the talk at the regional Geological Society of America convention held in Little Rock that year.  The keynote speaker was John Rodgers, a famous geologist and co-author of the renowned textbook The Principles of Stratigraphy, along with Carl Dunbar.

As part of the convention, we took a field trip to nearby Lake Catherine, a location in the heart of the Ouachita Mountains.  Rodgers had a full head of bouffant white hair that bounced in the wind and caused him to look like Moses.  Whenever he glanced at a fault or tortured slab of rock, everyone halted what they were doing and listened to his ensuing proclamation.  He was quite literally the most famous geologist that I had ever met and I, along with everyone else, was in awe.

Dr. K had assigned me the job of slide projectionist for Dr. Rodger’s keynote speech, the last of the convention.

“I don’t want his talk screwed up,” he told me, “And you’re the only one I trust to work the slide projector.”

I was terrified, but it did not stop me from accompanying Garland and Ed later that first night to Hot Spring, once known as a wide-open town, complete with gambling, gangsters and prostitution.  We were only looking for strippers, and we found them shortly after arriving in the little resort town located not too far from Little Rock.

Ed and Garland were both from Shreveport, Louisiana.  Being from that fair state, they could party with the best of them.  Since I was also from Louisiana, we proceeded to spend every penny we had and to paint the town a very bright red.  It was six the next morning when we made it back to the hotel in Little Rock, my stomach churning and head pounding.  I only had time for a quick shower, drink a cup of coffee and down a couple of doughnuts before the talks began, along with my duties as slide projectionist.

The day wore on and I frankly do not know how I made it – by cursing Ed and Garland, still asleep in their beds upstairs, I guess.  Finally it was five and time for Professor John Rodger’ keynote address.  My body felt like hell and my rear end puckered as he began.

Everything went well until Professor Rodgers’ last slide.  I do not remember much about his talk but I will never forget that last slide.

“I hope I’ve conveyed some of my love for the science of geology today and nudged some of you fledgling scientists in the right direction.  I just want to leave you with one thought.”

When Dr. Rodgers stopped talking, looked me straight in the eye and nodded, I pressed the button for the last slide.  When it appeared on the large screen, I almost had a heart attack.  It was a fifties pinup of a very naked, extremely well endowed woman.  Oh my God! I thought as my mind raced.  Someone has played a cruel trick on me.  As I sat there, expecting the filled auditorium to start hissing at me, Rodgers added, “If you can’t think fast, then think big.”

Within seconds, the stunned audience regained their composure and broke into universal, belly-rolling laughter, quickly followed by thunderous applause. 

The slide was not a plant.  It was Rodgers’ own wonderful way to end the convention on a note of levity and laughter.  It also taught me a much-needed lesson in life – no matter how famous you are, or think you are, do not ever stop acting like a normal human being.  Oh, and if you are going to be wasted the night before, then be prepared for the consequences the next day.

Eric’sWeb

During my tenure as a graduate student at the University of Arkansas, I took a road trip along with four other graduate students and a professor to the Geological Society of America Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  We headed north from Fayetteville, through Kansas City, and reached Iowa soon after dark.  Our plan was to reach Minneapolis that night, but it did not work out quite that way.

The car was a small Plymouth, six of us packed in, along with our luggage.  None of us had much money and we only had so much budgeted for gas.  We were heading north on I-35 when our trip suddenly took a turn for the worse.

I was jammed in the back seat, sitting in the middle, trying to sleep when the screeching of brakes and rapid deceleration caused me to open my eyes, just in time to feel the impact as we struck a large deer that had run into our path from the darkened side of the road.  I still have vivid memories of seeing the large buck slam into the windshield and then disappear over the roof.

The collision mangled the front end of Joe’s Plymouth, as it did the big deer, dead on the side of the road.  The Iowa Highway Patrol soon came to our rescue.  The nearest town was Osceola and he took us there to stay for the night.

“We’re on a tight budget, officer,” Dr. M told him.  “Please take us someplace reasonable.”

The nice police officer took us to the Blue Haven Motel.  It was old but nice and very reasonable.  Next morning Dr. M, Joe, two Ed’s, Garland and I found a body shop that would fix the Plymouth.  We then took a taxi to the airport to secure a car rental, soon on our way again to Minneapolis.  It was winter, darkness arriving early, and it was night when we finally reached our hotel.

Even though we were twenty-four hours late, the hotel had not given away our rooms, unlike one year at the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans when I had to spend an entire convention stay on a cot in a clothes closet.  This convention lasted two days and went mostly without a hitch, except for a side trip to a strip club where we were unfortunate enough to catch the act of a three-hundred pound woman.  At least she was dressed in a nude body suit instead of au natural.  The trip home was less eventful.

When we tried to rent a car for our return trip, we learned that there were none available in the entire city.  We split into groups of two and began hitchhiking to Ames, the home of the University of Iowa and the place where Dr. M had graduated – a good thing as all our funds were growing tight.

“There’s a Holiday Inn near campus.  The first group that reaches it, tell the manager that there are six of us and that we only have forty dollars.  They will let us all stay in one room, even if some of us have to sleep on the floor.  I guarantee.”

Either fortunately or otherwise, Joe and I were the first two to reach the Holiday Inn.  To my utter amazement, the night manager smiled, shook his head and led us to a very nice room.  He even brought cots so that none of us had to sleep on the floor.  When the others arrived, we went across the street to a Mexican restaurant and had tacos, enchiladas and beer.

The remainder of the trip went without incident.  We found a rental car and made it back to Fayetteville the next night.  The following year the same fearless six of us went by car to the American Association of Geologist’s Convention in Dallas.  We had no car wrecks and saw no strippers – well, at least none that weighed three-hundred pounds.

Eric’sWeb

I have heard it said that the biggest sex organ in the body is the brain.  Years ago, I had reason to confirm this statement.

Miss C and I were a number but we were beginning to get on each other’s nerves.  She was smart and confident, and good looking and blonde.  I was simply young and dumb.  Even though we worked in the same industry, the biggest attraction we had for each other was sex, pure and simple.

Six months had passed in our relationship and the attraction had begun to wane.  Both of us, it seemed, were searching for a way to let the other down easy.  My friend J was in town from Colorado and staying at my house.  I was divorced but my ex and I had not yet sold our house.  We were taking turns staying there until we found a buyer.

Miss C’s friend Miss A took J with her to one of our favorite bars and Miss C and I were supposed to join them.  It was Friday night, Miss C a lease broker who had just returned to town from a week of checking records in Roger Mills County, had been doing her thing during that time, and I mine.

“I just want to go home and go to bed,” she said.

“What about J and Miss A?” I asked.

“They don’t need us,” Miss C said.

“Okay,” I said.  “Let’s drive over anyway.  J can ride back with me and Miss A can take you home.”

“Fine,” she said, “But I’m not staying.”

On the way to the club, I caught a whiff of her perfume and suddenly remembered why I liked her so much.  We were on 10^th street, an area in Oklahoma City populated with strip bars and seedy hole-in-the-walls.  About that time, we passed a stand-alone x-rated movie theatre.

“Have you ever seen a porn movie?” I asked.

“I’m not ten,” she said.

On a whim, I pulled into the parking lot.  “Let’s go in.”

Miss C grinned.  She was trying to dump me but she had just enough kink left in her to consider my offer.

“Come on,” I cajoled.  “You don’t have a hair on your ass unless you come with me.”

“Okay, Perv,” she said.  “You’ll say uncle before me.”

The XXX Theatre was a single-storied building with a very dark lobby.  We purchased two tickets from the disinterested ticket puncher that had likely seen it all.  The theater was small and dark and smelled like urine.  A naked man and an equally unclad woman were going at it on the screen.

There were probably ten patrons in the theater and they were not people you would want to call your best friends.  Miss C and I found an empty aisle and settled in to watch the movie.  The couple on screen was performing every sex act imaginable, complete with grunts, groans, moans and even a few screams.

As I began getting into the flick, I put my hand between Miss C’s legs, groping her most private parts, fully expecting she would slap me.  Instead, she began licking my neck.  Before long, we both had our jeans pulled down almost to the floor, helplessly locked in the throws of hot, mindless sex, right there in the middle of an x-rated theater, surrounded by perverts with their own pants down.  We were suddenly shocked back to reality by a raspy voice.

“You two need to take it outside,” the man from the ticket booth told us.  “This is a theater, not a bedroom.”

I do not know who turned us in but duly chastised, we headed up the dark aisle, buttoning our britches as we went.  We were both still hot – hell, I mean my head was cooking off!  I was all over Miss C as soon as the doors of my car closed.  She was as hot as I was and I am not sure who was all over whom. Our passion continued, the windows steaming like a sauna when someone tapped on the front window.  It was a cop and he was smiling.

“This is no place for what you two are doing.  Take it to the house, and I mean now.”

Our ardor had not waned by the time we made it back home and we spent the rest of the night locked in hot passion the like of which I have not experienced since.  J interrupted our ardor, knocking on the door around two in the morning.  I let him in and quickly returned to the bedroom without bothering to listen to the story he was trying to tell me.

Miss C and I broke up shortly after our night of red-hot passion.  My lust had dissolved and my brain again able to add two and two and not come up with an answer of five.

Eric’sWeb

I was eleven when I visited New Orleans the first time. It was summer, the weather hot and muggy. My Aunt Carmol and her husband Tack lived in Metairie. Carmol was a schoolteacher and took it upon her self to introduce my brother Jack and me to all the cultural aspects of the wonderful old city.

Carmol was a good Methodist of Irish and German descent. She did not drink or smoke and would never have taken us down Bourbon Street after dark. She had no qualms, however, of showing us every historic sight, of which there are many in New Orleans, during the daylight hours. On one excursion through the French Quarter, she took us to the Court of Two Sisters on Royal Street, one block from Rue Bourbon.

The thing I remember most was the beautiful courtyard complete with fountains and flagstone. It was early, before noon, and an old black man was hosing the flagstones.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

The man smiled and gave my flattop a friendly rub. “Watering the masonry.”

“But why?”

“Cools things off and makes it more comfortable for the diners when they sit out here to eat.” He smiled again when he saw my incredulous look. “We do it all over the Quarter. It works.”

“Thanks,” I said, shaking his extended hand.

“No, thank you. You made an old man’s day, asking proper questions and showing respect. You come back anytime.”

The old man twisted the nozzle of the hose and returned to watering the bricks again. Brother Jack had wandered off to look at the goldfish in one of the fountains. I glanced around to see Carmol smiling at me.

“I am proud of you,” she said. “Culture is not all museums and art galleries. Sometimes you learn lots more by talking with the locals. That nice man just gave you a valuable lesson.”

I did not know what she meant at the time but I do now. Today, with central Oklahoma temperatures in the nineties, I hosed the bricks and cement around the pool while my two pugs quarreled playfully under my feet. Marilyn simply shook her head when she asked what I was doing and I answered, “Watering the masonry.”

Eric’sWeb

   Cafe Du Monde is a French Quarter destination for visitors to New Orleans.  They serve two things: coffee, the strong, chicory-flavored variety liberally laced with milk, and beignets.  Beignets are doughnut-like confections, dusted with powered sugar, without the hole.

There is limited seating inside but most patrons prefer to sit outside on the covered patio where they enjoy a wonderful view of the St. Louis Cathedral, the Pontalba Apartments.  It is perhaps the best place in the Quarter for people watching.  Detective Tony Nicosia, one of the characters in my murder mystery Big Easy, loves Cafe Du Monde.  The location exudes character and provides a pivotal scene in my short story Diamonds in the Night.  Here is an excerpt from the story:

From Diamonds in the Night, a short story in the book Name of the Game

Salty air, drifting up from the Gulf, mingled with piquant chicory-laced coffee and slowly rotting vegetation as he walked along the levee.  Cold rain had ceased falling, leaving only outsized puddles on the streets.  When he reached the heart of the Quarter, he found a late night, early-morning crowd milling around outdoor patio tables at the Cafe Du Monde.

Because of incessant rain, the crowd was thinner than usual and Johnny T quickly found an empty table.  He ordered coffee from a white-smocked waiter, and then rested his head on the table, allowing spilled sugar to dust his forehead like carelessly applied makeup.

As Johnny T. Sampson listened, music from a mellow clarinet floated through the Quarter, and shouts and laughter billowed up from beyond Pirate's Alley.  He could hear the traffic clamor over on Canal Street as it punctuated muffled darkness, creating illusions of reality and allusions of transmutation.  It did not matter much.

A carriage pulled by a mule with clattering hooves dropped off a romantic couple at the corner.  The smiling duo, holding hands and ignoring light rain that had again begun to fall, took a table next to Johnny T.  He did not notice.  He just sat in silence as rain dripped down his head - rain that reflected neon’s gold and purple rainbows, and sparkled like diamonds in the night.

Eric’sWeb

My mother loved peanuts, pecans and popcorn and was always searching for recipes to use these ingredients. Here is one of her recipes for a dessert that combines all three ingredients. I loved it then and I think you will too.

Oven-Baked Caramel Corn

·        6 quarts freshly popped corn

·        1 cup unpopped corn

·        1 cup dry roasted peanuts

·        1 cup pecan halves or pieces

·        1 cup margarine or butter

·        1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

·        1 cup sugar

·        ½ cup light corn syrup

·        1 tsp salt

·        ½ tsp baking soda

Combine popped corn, roasted peanuts, and pecans in a large roasting pan. Melt butter in a large saucepan; stir in sugars, corn syrup, and salt. Bring to a boil; boil 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat; stir in soda.

Pour sugar mixture over popped corn and nuts; stir well. Bake at 250 degrees for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Cool and store in an airtight container. Yields 6 quarts.

Eric’sWeb

There are several old hotels in Eureka Springs, including the Crescent, built in 1886.  It sits on age-worn hill overlooking the valley where the main part of Eureka lies.  Eureka has many mineral springs known for their medicinal powers.

The Crescent Hotel has had many incarnations and it is haunted according to many sources.  I have stayed at the Crescent Hotel several times but unlike the New Orleans Hotel, I have never seen a ghost there.  Ghosts aside, I did have a particularly memorable trip that involved the Crescent Hotel.

During the oil boom, I had a girl friend named Gayle.  Friends of ours, Carol and David, decided to join us one weekend on a camping trip to northwest Arkansas.  Carol, Gayle and I worked at Texas Oil and Gas and David was an oil and gas lease broker.

We left Oklahoma City after work on Friday in David's car and drove to a large lake east of Fayetteville, Arkansas.  It was dark when we arrived and we had all been drinking.  As we were trying to raise the tent, Gayle slipped and fell down the sloping terrain.  She grabbed her leg in pain.

"Are you okay?" I asked, finding her in the dark with my lantern.

"It hurts but I think I'll be okay," she said.

Carol and David had joined us by this time and we all commiserated with her pain.

"There's probably an emergency room in Fayetteville," David offered.

"I'll be all right," she said.

We soon realized the temperature inside the tent was almost unbearable and the mosquitoes outside it on a rampage.  "Let's go into Eureka Springs and find a room," Carol suggested.

None of us needed much convincing.  We drove to Eureka and found a room at the Crescent Hotel.  There is a bar on the third floor.  After taking our bags to the room, we hurriedly retreated to the bar for drinks.  There is a scenic deck outside the bar from where you can see downtown Eureka, and in all directions for many miles.

There was also a band playing.  Gayle wasn't a big drinker but she slugged two vodka tonics in a matter of what seemed like minutes.  The night was moody and rich with sound - perfect for imbibing a little too much alcohol.  The rest of us followed her lead.

The next day we toured the scenic spa town.  Gayle kept favoring her leg and looking like a whipped puppy, so we decided to head back to Oklahoma City early.  After David and Carol dropped us off at my apartment, I took Gayle to the Baptist Hospital Emergency Room.  An x-ray showed that she had a broken leg.  The doctor's set the break and thankfully gave her pain medication.

Gayle was quite a trooper and her leg healed well.  We didn't see any ghosts on that trip but maybe it was because we were all in such an alcoholic haze that we wouldn't have known it if we had.

Eric’sWeb

Some people search for ghosts while others spend their lives trying to avoid them.  I am one of the latter because I know that spirits are all very real, and with us everyday.  Yes, there is every manner of transient being among us - ghosts, demons, angels and kindred spirits.  Those that doubt this are obviously not paying attention.

I have lived in my house for eleven years.  The man that Anne and I bought it from committed suicide three days after he sold it to us.  No, not here in the house, but not far away.  Anne died about six months later.  These are just two spirits that I know are connected to the house.

I have told this story before but I feel it bears retelling.  Anne died in March but we had had one last Christmas together.  She had graduated from law school late in her life and had only practiced for four years before her death.  She had met three young women and one young man that she called her law daughters and law son.

Anne and I never had children of our own.  That last Christmas, all of her children spent several days with us.  They bought Anne a stuffed frog that had a button on its foot.  When you squeezed the button, the stuffed animal would croak out "Jingle Bells."  I left the frog sitting on the living room mantle and forgot about it.

The following Christmas Eve, I was standing in front of the mantle, staring at the frog when it began croaking "Jingle Bells." I was standing ten feet away and never touched the button.  The next morning, Christmas Day, the radio on the nightstand next to my bed suddenly began playing.  I was groggy and I cannot remember much but I think Brenda Lee was the singer and she was wishing me a very happy Christmas Day.  I had never used the awake by music function on the radio.  It came on by itself.

I remember when I was a child, I was always afraid there was a monster under my bed, or in the attic.  Not any more, I know spirits surround me but they are the benevolent variety and they wish me no harm.  My pug Princess barks at them at night when they stir around the house.  Animals, it seems, are more attuned to the supernatural.  She usually falls back to sleep quickly, as even she realizes that she is in no danger.

Some people spend their lives searching for ghosts.  They will never find them, or see them, because they obviously have not a clue.

Eric’sWeb

When I was growing up in northwest Louisiana, there were passenger trains and depots in every little town along the track.  One summer, my cousin Ken and I talked our parents into letting us ride the train from Shreveport to Vivian.

Ken and his parents, my Aunt Wardie and Uncle Henry, lived in Shreveport and I spent the night with them before embarking on our trip. I don’t remember much about the overnight stay except that Henry and Ken were big into amateur astronomy and were grinding a large piece of glass to make a lens for a homemade telescope.

Ken and I stayed up much of the night talking but were ready for our adventure the next day.  Both my parents and Ken’s parents were very protective of us and we got a “be careful” lecture from Aunt Wardie before she would let us board the train. Free from parental constraint, Ken and I luxuriated in our freedom, exploring the train from one end to the other, enjoying the bumpy ride and scenic Louisiana vistas until the conductor made us sit.

The passenger train, as I remember, stopped at practically every town from Shreveport to Vivian. Passengers came and went, and then the train would blow its whistle and chug slowly out of the station, picking up speed when it neared the city limits.  I don’t know how many stops we made, but the thirty-mile trip took well over an hour. I do remember crossing the tracks over Caddo Lake, Spanish moss draping the limbs and swollen trunks of cypress trees like a scene from an antebellum movie.

There are no passenger trains running from Shreveport to Vivian anymore, and no working depots along the way. I visited the Vivian depot, now a museum, about two years ago. It was my first time in the old station since my train ride as a boy and it surprised me how small it is.

Years have passed since my Mother greeted Ken and me when we stepped off the train. Eras end and memories fade, but that ride remains framed in my mind, vivid as a flock of cattle egrets winging over sleepy Caddo Lake, or the drop of perspiration that trickles down the back of your neck on a hot Louisiana day.

Eric’sWeb

I have completed almost seventy-thousand words of my novel-in-progress Bones of Skeleton Creek, and probably have less than ten-thousand words to go. Problem is, I stalled out about thirty days ago and have been unable, or unwilling to complete the last few chapters, even though I already know the ending, or at least much of it. I got a possible hint as to the reason for my malaise while reading Screenplay, the foundations of Screenwriting, one of Syd Field’s books.

Called the Guru of Screenwriting, Field has launched more screenwriting careers than possibly anyone alive has.  In his book, just one of many that he has written, he mentions that it is a common occurrence for his students to experience the same phenomenon as I when nearing the end of a screenplay.  The reason, he says, is that your characters begin talking to you, often moving in directions and situations you never predicted. The writer begins enjoying his involvement and interaction with the characters to the extent that he (or she) does not want it to end. To this, I say amen.

Why am I reading a book on screenwriting? Every novelist should read Screenplay because Field offers lots of good advice on writing that transcends genre. Oh, and I had a call from a Hollywood producer asking if Big Easy’s movie rights were optioned.

“You had never written a book until you finished your first one,” he said when I protested that I knew nothing about writing a screenplay.

Hey, maybe the real reason that I am having trouble finishing Bones of Skeleton Creek is because there are only so many hours in a day, and many of mine now filled with the adaptation of Big Easy into a movie script.

Eric’sWeb

  In my book A Gathering of Diamonds, there is a scene where Tom Logan and Mary Ann Stewart crawl into a dilapidated Arkansas mineshaft in search of Logan’s missing brother’s journal.  Tom Logan is a Vietnam vet facing recurrent nightmares caused by his tour of duty.  Lowered by rope into a dark pit filled with viperous snakes is one of the experiences that haunt him.  Saddled by his claustrophobic paranoia, the muddy trip into the old mine does not go well.

I was also in Vietnam but luckily, never lowered into a pit of viperous snakes, although I did hear a similar story and believe that it is true.  I have crawled into many old mine shafts in Arkansas and I can attest to feeling much of the claustrophobic paranoia that Tom Logan experienced.

I entered the mines while working on my master’s thesis in southwest Arkansas.  I was looking for veins of antimony ore in order to piece together the geologic history of the area.  Exploring a hundred-year-old mine is dangerous and something I would never risk again.  Still, like Tom and Mary Ann’s journey into darkness, the need to know often exceeds the danger of discovery.

Here is a short excerpt from A Gathering of Diamonds, and the trip into the mine:

       The entrance to the mine was barely four feet high and the crowning timber had fallen, partially blocking the opening.  Red filigree fern cloaked the collapsed entrance making it impossible to see more than ten feet into its mouth.  I nudged a rock with my foot.

       "You shouldn't go in there.  Too dangerous."

       Mary Ann continued attaching the lantern to the metal clamp on the front of her cap.  She added carbide and water from her canteen before screwing the cap back on.  When she finished, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked at me.

       "This is carbide.  When you add water, it gives off acetylene gas.  You coming with me?"

       "Are you serious?"

       "As a heart attack.  Well?"

     "You're really crazy."

       Mary Ann read something in my expression that told her more than my reply.

       "It's all right if you're scared.  Many people are scared of holes in the ground.  You stay here.  I'll look."

       She removed a ball of twine from her pack and said, "I'll tie this at the entrance and unwind it as I go.  Unless it breaks, it'll keep me from getting lost."

       My heart had begun to thump above the sound of thunder and my throbbing temples signaled an approaching migraine.  Moisture, along with rainwater, dripped from my forehead.  I shrugged and frowned at the angry clouds, blinking away water from my eyes.

       "I'm going with you," I said.

Eric’sWeb

Here are three pics taken in the little east Texas town of Uncertain. The town is located on Caddo Lake, the largest natural lake in Texas, and is quite scenic.

Eric’sWeb

Here is a recipe that tastes much better it sounds.  Yes it's Cajun!  Remember that New Orleans is a melting pot.  There are many people of German heritage there, and Irish, African, etc. - I could go on but you know what I mean:

2           pounds squash

1           small chopped onion

3           tablespoons butter

1/4 lb    ground sausage

             cracker crumbs

             water

In a skillet mix squash, chopped onion, sausage and a small amount of water.  Cook until squash and onion are tender.  Brown sausage and then combine with squash and onions.  Season to taste with salt and pepper, and then transfer to 1 quart greased casserole.  Cover with cracker crumbs and cook at 350 degrees in oven until brown.  Enjoy.

Eric’sWeb