When Oil was Gold

There is a great blog on Fire Dog Lake describing just what has gone on and is going on with the well out there in the Gulf.

It sent me on a trip down nostalgia lane.  The author's descriptions bring back memories of familiarity with all that equipment. The following is in substance my cross post.

I lived on 21st street about a mile and a half from the International Petroleum Exposition grounds.  It was a time when Oil was gold, earth milk, and Tulsa the "Oil Capitol of the World."  It was a time when to see a Halliburton truck was good luck.

Of course I had many friends in the oil business, including my very best friend who started life as a wildcatter in the, by that time winnowing, Oklahoma fields.  He did his own geology and most everything else. But, Lord! the romance of it all!. His wife and I spent more than one night out there all night waiting for the well to come in. It was a time when the stench of oil was uplifting, the sign of hope and prosperity, of greatness.

How things change. How perspective changes. Now we have come to risk the destruction of the planet as our greed and hubris grew from that romance. No one understands the life of the earth better than the geologists and paleontologists. I cannot believe that if they were still doing the exploration we would be in the mess we are.