NAPE 2015: Euphoria in the Year of the Vulture

Welcome to a Road Trip of the Mind, as you accompany me in a visit to the North American Prospect Expo (NAPE) 2015, which took place in Houston, TX  (February 9-10, 2015).

NAPE 2015 in Houston, TX

Background:
NAPE is the North American Prospect Expo, and it takes place the second week in February in Houston. Although the event is organized by the AAPL (American Association of Petroleum Landmen), it's also attended by geologists, engineers, and people involved in finance. NAPE is the place to buy and sell oil and gas properties, mineral rights, royalty interests, and to find partners and financing. Properties range from tiny little packages in East Texas to massive resource plays that can involve hundreds of thousands of acres.  The properties are onshore and offshore, and there are booths from companies and even countries all around the world. It's an action-packed two days at the George Brown Convention Center, which is across the street from the Hilton Americas, where many of the receptions, meetings, and meet-and-greet events take place.  Last year, it was icy and cold. The year before that, the weather was rainy and cold. This year, the weather was spectacularly beautiful, and the more than 17,000 attendees and exhibitors had an opportunity to walk to the many different restaurants in downtown Houston, ranging from the House of Blues to Massa's Seafood Restaurant. The energy is just absolutely electric. You can feel the racing pulse of Houston, which is the heart of the oil industry.

Susan Nash getting ready for NAPE.

Ready for NAPE
I'm making my way along third floor of the Hilton Americas, getting ready to participate in an all-day meeting of the AAPG Executive Committee.  Because the AAPG is one of the partners behind NAPE, it is important for the members of the EC to attend. So, like clockwork, the events unfold: dinners, meetings, receptions, and more meetings. There is some science and some engineering, but mainly, it's business. If you have a property to sell, this is the place to be because you'll get it out in front of a lot of people. At least that's the hope. There is a lot of competition for mind-space, though.  I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who actually ever closed a deal at NAPE.  But, it's where you connect and initiate communications. I'd like to make a lot of money at NAPE, but I've never had anything to sell. That said, I do find it to be a great place to promote AAPG's activities. I think that my activities at NAPE, when I'm really aggressive and proactive, probably result in additional business to AAPG.  That's in a good year. This year is shaping up to be not merely bad, but potentially fatal to some companies and projects. Nevertheless, I think I need to push myself and try to do whatever I can to find out what people want and need, and then see how AAPG can meet the demand. 

Year of the Vulture?
Because of the the collapse of the price of oil during the second half of 2014 and the first few months of 2015, I fully expected the atmosphere to be utterly apocalyptic. Layoffs at major companies were happening, and the ones I read about already totaled around 50,000.  Worse, Citibank was predicting $20 per barrel oil.  Most companies need $85 per barrel to be profitable. So, I expected fear and avoidance of pain as the dominant or informing weltanshauung, the fundamental cognitive orientation of society. I, myself, have already suffered a number of sleepless nights, or at least nights in which I wake up at 3 am, my mind racing with ideas and possibilities. To my surprise, aoocalypse was not really the overall mood. The mood was enthusiastic, even euphoric. Why?? Clearly it's all about opportunities, and if one is positioned well, it's possible to buy at a price that is favorable. There are short-term, medium-term, and long-term profits to be made. Some of the opportunities could form the foundation of a new, successful company. 

Susan Nash at the NAPE IceBreaker, Feb 2015

Breaking the Ice
The Icebreaker is a great place to hear yourself be utterly drowned out by background noise. I do not have much to say this year, but I would like to listen. I generally attend the Icebreaker out of curiosity, just to measure the mood and to see if I run into anyone I know. This year, I saw at least 20 people I knew, which surprised me, given that it's really a landman's event, and not so much for geologists. This year's color was purple.  Is it always purple?  I do not think so.  This year's signage seemed particularly elegant and compelling, and the knowledge that this will be a year of dramatic changes, and that change means opportunity gave me a huge surge of adrenaline.

Mini Hot Dogs
The lines were really long for the mini-dogs and sliders. They were also long for the chips and queso / salsa. I always feel relieved that I'm not a fan of hot dogs or hamburgers.  But it's really interesting to me to see what people like and how enthusiastic they are about what is being offered. The convention center food service types are great. None of the food stations ever seem to run out of the food.  I wonder how they chose the items. I know that they're convenient and easy to eat. They also seem ideal for sporting events (basketball games, football games).  Metaphorically, it's perfect. Selling deals and deal-making -- yes, it's a sports event.  How could it not be?  The game requires one to be smart, nimble, and quick. It's also good if you've been practicing diligently, and with an eye for how your competition has been making changes to their tactics and strategy.  It's perfect!

Life is a candy jar ...
Well, not this time. I did not see anyone digging into the candy.  Instead, they waited patiently in line for the chips, queso, nachos, hot dogs, and mini-hamburgers.  Perhaps it was too early for "dessert." This was the first time I had noticed jars of candy, and I wondered why they were there. Candy jars are a staple of the booths. Perhaps it was a way to set up a resonance with what would be taking place tomorrow -- what people would be seeing. It was a smart move, in my opinion.  It was an unconscious reminder of what would people would be seeing in the booths - generally big candy jars and other give-aways (pens, etc.).  So, it helps whip up excitement (and a sugar high) for the next day.

Drink the KoolAid
The lines were very long to the ION / TGS booth where fur-hatted baristas handed out purple "on the rocks" something-or-other served up in giant plastic martini glasses. I was offered one, and I took a photo of it. I was afraid to drink it. What was in it? There were absolutely no indications.  I know it has been more than 20 years since Jim Jones,  but is there really so little memory of the purple KoolAid? I recalled reading about the "white nights" when the followers drank KoolAid they fully expected to be laced with cyanide, meaning that they would most certainly die. I had to ask myself, have we forgotten the entire impulse behind the different Doomsday cults that suffused our culture with horror and a realization that uncertainty drives people to security, no matter how insane....?  My dissertation was on the use of the apocalyptic narrative to manipulate people (including in doomsday cults), and so I was quite impressed by the elements of this booth. It was very stylish and laden with multiple interpretive possibilities. In times of dramatic change and uncertainty, there is a tendency to create cultural enclaves of "true believers," usually headed by a charismatic leader who offers his followers security and a sense that they will be protected from the battering waves of change. So far, I have not seen the emergence of a charismatic leader. I believe that the oil industry is too cyclical for the formation of cults and mad messiahs. Further, it's possible that a short-lived downturn could actually lead to improved overall health of the industry. It's too early to tell. At any rate, I appreciated the multi-level semiotics in this booth. It strikes me as quite intelligent. Later, after reviewing my photos, I wished I had taken the drink. I would not have drunk the purple brew, but the enormous plastic martini glass was dramatic and it made me smile.

The Booths Are Big
So you want to know what NAPE looks like?  Here it is. Check it out. Lots of large booths by companies who want to make a statement and also open the floor for new ideas and opportunities. Devon is from Oklahoma City, and they've been a huge presence. So has Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake and America Energy Partners. Linn Energy and SandRidge were solid this year. It's all very strange for me to realize that after Houston, Oklahoma City is probably #2 in terms of US oil centers. I would not be surprised if OKC has eclipsed Denver. If so, that's interesting -- why? I attribute it to environmental issues in the Rockies and the fact that the cost of doing business in Colorado is very high. And, it's very clear that OKC's entrepreneurs are bold, visionary, and even messianic. I like it. I think that there is a very good chance that Oklahoma City's entrepreneurial spirit will help weather the storm. Let's hope the price rises to something reasonable soon, that Europe's economies find a way to recover, that China transitions from an investment-driven economy to one that can sustain itself on its own markets.  Let's also hope that new investment capital becomes available.

Where Deals Happen
NAPE is for the big guys. It's also for the little guys. So, NAPE also looks like this: lots of maps, lots of terms of trade. If you're exhibiting, you've got to find a way to capture the interest of the passersby within about three-tenths of a second. Then, you must communicate your value proposition within a space of 3 - 5 seconds.

Here are my favorites:

Theme 1: The Bargain.  Buy low, really low, and sell high. The message is that the property is being sold because the company is in a distressed situation, or consolidating their approach / properties / focus. The message is palpable: "We are a bargain. Buy low, and in a year or so, you'll sell high."

Theme 2:  Revitalizing Mature Fields.  Usually, there's an opportunity cost in taking a producing field offline. Now, with the price of oil at a 7-year low, there's no opportunity cost. Here is the message:  Buy this field. Take it offline. Waterflood it. CO2 flood it.  Drill the stranded pay. Buy the time you've done all that, the price will have gone back up. Of course, there are risks with mature fields, which include tricky production problems and potential environmental issues. 

Dreams of Flying High
Another smart and vivid "tactile metaphor" of NAPE.  All the guys who were touching the small plane were talking more or less in the same vein. "You know, the last time the industry went in to a tailspin and extended downturn, I was in my 20s and I did not have any experience or any access to capital. So, I saw big opportunities pass right in front of me. I tried to grab them, but because I had no capital, they slipped through my fingers. However, this time, it will be different! I'm smart, or at least, experienced, and I know how to work within the industry! I'm going to jump right into the game this time, and I'm going to win. I will win big. I know it. I will be flying high!" I listened, felt their enthusiasm, but decided that I would not try the same approach. I'm very conservative, so although I could understand the narrative, I still could not help but think of some of the challenges.

Snakebite Kits
These are actually business card holders. However, it was not at all clear what they were, and as people wandered in and out of the Southwestern Energy booth, they all had the same question: "What are they?"  I could not resist. I said, "They are snakebite kits." This response never failed to elicit a laugh -- often a pretty loud horse laugh. I even approached the engineers manning the booth, held one out in my hand, and then politely inquired, "Are these snakebite kits?" They laughed and had a great response: "We did not think so, but who knows? However, we do not warrant their efficacy in combatting the consequences of being bitten by a snake."  I loved it. So, I went back to lurking next to the pile of mysterious blue packages, and I continued to be helpfully responsive to all the passersby who posed the "What are these?" question. One guy had a great comeback: "Whoa - that's perfect," he said. "After all, we are ALL feeling a little bit snakebit these days!"  I liked his response.

Offshore Nova Scotia
It's not the best time in the world to be promoting a very high-risk venture in drilling offshore Nova Scotia. But, what can you do? You have to think long-term. The government of Nova Scotia has invested in a massive study, which includes geophysics, geology, and a petroleum systems study, which was positive enough to entice a few super-majors to obtain concessions and to file intents to drill. If they have positive results, the entire world will be turned upside down -- at least offshore Nova Scotia. The beauty is that this is a great time to be drilling. Prices of services are leaping off cliffs and plunging into really low territory, just to keep people busy with the hope of riding out the storm, and the emerging stronger than ever, like a lizard after accidental exposure to radiation. We all know what that is: GODZILLA! Perhaps we do not think of Nova Scotia in the same mindspace as Godzilla, but it's high time that we open our minds to power in unexpected places. I know that I like thinking that underdogs can emerge as major players. 

Wells Fargo
There's magic in this artifact, and seeing the replica of the "Wells Fargo Wagon," brings a number of thoughts immediately to mind. First, it's the perfect symbol for Wells Fargo financial services, which are based in San Francisco. One can't help but think of San Francisco's gold rush and the eagerness of people to move west, especially after the Civil War, when Wells Fargo offered it's "Best of Class" transportation system from 1866 - 1869.  The wagons were the best around, and were constructed in Concord, New Hampshire, where they had springs and suspension systems which gave them a great ride. Even fully loaded, the averaged 5 miles per hour, with a team of 6 horses. I have to say though, the idea of having to travel from, say, St. Louis, to San Francisco, at 5 miles per hour, is a bit scary. How many days, or months is that?  1500 miles / 5 miles per hour means 300 hours. Let's say you can travel 10 hours per day, that's 30 days. Good grief! How tough our ancestors were! And, when I think of the lyrics from the Broadway play, The Music Man, I can understand the energy and enthusiasm with the arrival of the Wells Fargo Wagon, laden with packages.  Here at NAPE, Wells Fargo delivers valuable financial services, and they've made many of the capitally intensive resource plays (mainly shale) possible.

The Decameron and Waiting out the Plague / Low Oil Prices
I was a bit shocked to see a booth that had nothing but antiquarian books and comfortable leather seats. It was provided by Frost and Associates, an investment banking firm, and my sense was that the old books were supposed to provide an "old school / old money" sort of cachet. I think that is good. However, did they actually take a look at the books they included? I was amazed to see a Charles Reade volume -- I have an extensive collection of antiquarian books and Charles Reade is one of my favorites. I do not have a single volume of Griffith Gaunt, but I think I have it as a part of a set. It's a psychological study, and it probes the most extreme of emotions. In the case of Griffith Gaunt, it's jealousy.  I was also amazed to see a 19th-century printing of Boccacchio's Decameron, the collection of stories which are a bit like those told by Sheherazade, not only in the fact that that it's a collection of short stories, but also in the fact that they are all about telling stories to stave off death. In A Thousand and One Nights, Sheherezade has to tell stories to buy a new day of life. In the Decameron, it's all about a group of people thrust together because of the horror of plague, and the strategy of doing a self-imposed exile in the countryside to distance oneself from the walled cities where plague, desperation, and random death created a toxic miasma of desire, horror, and rage. Is that what this small little "reading island" within the current chaos of the oil industry reflects?

My Buddy, the Brontosaurus
Yes, you guessed it. This was the Sinclair booth. They were giving out blow-up dinosaurs - the kind we used to call brontosaurus, but now, I think have been renamed as apatasaurus. I ask myself, "Why?? oh, why, oh why???? I love the "brontosaurus" sound in a way that "apatosaurus" just does not do anything for me. The Sinclair dinosaur is very "Old School" and a symbol of individual creativity and entrepreneurship. This dinosaur is the same size as the ones you'll encounter all across the western U.S. in the front of locally-owned gas stations that purchase their gasoline from Sinclair, and also offer oil changes and basic maintenance. In this booth, the big "give-away" is a blow-up miniature Sinclair dinosaur.  I remember taking a small green Sinclair dinosaur home a few years ago. I inflated it and put it on my mantle, where it stayed as a cheerful reminder of the power of ideas and hope for the little guy.   

No Unauthorized Photography
I had already taken 20 or 30 photographs by the time I left the NAPE exhibition floor, when I encountered this sign and became aware that my smartphone snapshots might have been "unauthorized." I quickly retraced my steps and pondered whether or not I had taken photos of anything that could possibly be considered confidential or proprietary, or even potentially embarrassing. The answer was an unequivocal "no," so I emitted a sigh of relief, and proceeded on my way.  The positive energy of the event continued to envelope me, and I wondered how many of the individuals who stated that they were determined to "profit this time" or "buy low, sell high," would be successful. I am sure that many would be. On the other hand, some could soon be unemployed, and a certain percentage would prefer a steady paycheck. 

Fruit from the Tree

There is nothing like eating fruit picked from the tree. I have always felt that way, regardless of the potential wormholes and wasp bites on the fruit. I was happy to find I'm not the only one.

For example, there's my friend who lives in Guadalajara.  He was the fruit he had for breakfast -- mango, apples,"tuna" from cactus, oranges, plums, and all kinds of wonderful fruits. At first I thought that he had purchased them in the town near his "rancho" near Guadalajara, Mexico. But, he said he picked them himself -- that several years ago he put in a little orchard, and that for him, there is no greater pleasure than strolling through it in the morning and picking fruit that is still wet with dew.

My parents had fruit trees, and I loved eating cherries, peaches, apples, pears, and persimmons. But, hands down, the fruit I like to eat most from the tree is grapefruit. What I like about grapefruit is that it's such a random thing; you never know what you'll get. The fruit can be really sweet, or really bitter, or somewhere in between, and you can never tell by its color, size, or even firmness.

The first time I picked a grapefruit was on New Year's Eve when I was 15 years old.  I was in Palm Springs, California, accompanying my dad on a trip. He was the head of a contract mining company, and one of the companies, Atajo Mining (short cut mining!), was not performing, and he was going to have to enter in some rather difficult conversations. He had told me all about it as we drove across the desert from Phoenix to Palm Springs. 

While he was in negotiations, I was riding bicycles and horses at locations near the hotel where we were staying. Nothing was going as planned. I was seriously saddle-sore from riding a horse for 4 hours instead of the 1 hour, and I felt very alone. It was late afternoon and I had a few hours to kill before my dad came back to the hotel to go to a New Year's Eve celebration. I decided to sit outside, relax, and read a book. My room was perfect for it, because it had a small patio shaded by a grapefruit tree that was bursting with bright yellow fruit, and many felt soft and ripe to the touch.  I picked two grapefruits and tried them. They were wonderfully bitter (I love bitter things), as was the time itself or perhaps, let's say, bittersweet...

But, that's another story and one I'll save for another time. Another story would be based on the saying that fruit never falls far from the tree where it grew, referring to characteristics of a child and his or her parent. That's a saying that fills me with angst and dread, but again that's another story. 

In the meantime, every time I think of a grapefruit tree, I think of that amazing time with my dad, who, interestingly enough, sends me off with a small bag of grapefruits each time I see him.

I'm aware that age and time are linear, but memory is not. Thank goodness for that. If memory were linear, we would lose everything -- there would be some sort of expiration date, I guess, and I'd lose the things I love most -- picking grapefruits, eating them from the tree, while on an unforgettable trip with my father when I was 15.

This photo does not have much (or anything) to do with picking ripe grapefruits and eating them straight from the tree, but it does bring a smile to my face. I'm at the 2014 AAPG-PAPG-PPG Marcellus-Utica GTW. In this picture, there I am (Susan Smith Nash) on the left, looking a bit giddy after facilitating all day. We're standing in front of a poster on XRD. That's Randy Shannon of PMET in the middle, and Dawn Snyder, an attendee and presenter, on the right.

Good-bye, Johnny Winter: Renaissance Angel and Texas Blues and Slide Guitar Genius

It was partly his music, but it was mainly that he looked like an angel with his pale blonde hair, his porcelain skin, and his light amber eyes. When he burst onto the rock and roll / blues scene in the early 1970s, John Dawson Winter III (Johnny Winter) often dressed in Renaissance-inflected loose, flowing shirts and shiny slacks along with elegant platform shoes -- he could have stepped off the canvas painted by Botticelli, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, or other Italian Renaissance artist. His younger brother, Edgar, was also an albino and a musician. Edgar, however, was not beautiful, nor was he the least bit angelic, despite the fact that he adorned himself with chunky women's necklaces and you had to wonder who came first - Edgar Winter or David Bowie. I remained unmoved by Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. However, when it came to Johnny Winter, I was utterly transfixed.


 I loved Johnny Winter's music because it was so expressive, although I did not even like the blues. His slide guitar work was mesmerizing, especially when I could watch him perform at a concert recorded for television.  I liked it also that Johnny Winter was a man of few words; he spoke through his costuming and also through his music. When Johnny Winter died, he was no longer beautiful in the same way that he had been when he was in his 20s and 30s. Years of heroin addiction will do that to you. However, there was still something in his stage presence that pulled in the ineffable, and at 70, he had the same heart-stopping phrasing and his voice the same forceful growl; a sound utterly at odds with his frail, often other-worldly appearance. He was still an angel, albeit one whose appearance tugged your heartstrings because he still did what angels did, which was to be in touch with the divine, and bring the music of the spheres to our own mortal coils.

George Gissing's In the Year of Jubilee (1894): Mini-Lecture / Learning Object

Late Victorian writer George Gissing and his works are not well known, but they are emotionally gripping, psychologically realistic, and ultimately both destabilizing and reinforcing of how we come to understand the world around us vis-a-vis rapid cultural and technological change. To correct the fact that his works have slipped into invisibility, The Fringe Journal is launching a series of learning object mini-lectures.

In the Year of Jubilee (1894) is the first in this series. You may click the link, or the graphic to access the interactive learning object. The full text transcript appears below. You may access the full text of the book at Project Gutenberg. There is an audio recording of In the Year of Jubilee at Librivox.org.

George Gissing: In the Year of Jubilee  (1894)

TEXT TRANSCRIPT:  In the Year of Jubilee (1894) by George Gissing

Mini-Lecture by Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.

Introduction

In the Year of Jubilee (1895) is, as other novels by George Gissing, extremely sympathetic toward women. It takes place in the late Victorian world where there is more access and communication with far flung regions, and where the British Empire has enriched the nation.

However, Gissing's is also a complex word where one step outside the norms results in a loss of marriage prospects, a loss of inheritance, loss of social standing, and the potential for disease and literal starvation.

About "Jubilee"

Jubilee refers to the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s reign, and also to the biblical concept of “Jubilee” a year in which property reverts to its proper owner.

Gissing’s novel starts with the Jubilee celebrations, which usher in disruptions.

The old order is turned upside down, and new enterprises are built upon false appearances, short cuts, and vanity.  They replace what came before.

Nancy Lord: Trapped in a Social Caste System and Gender

At the center of the narrative is Nancy Lord, the daughter of a successful piano dealer. She has been raised to a higher level than what might be expected, with the idea that education ushers in social mobility. Thus, she aims higher than previous generations may have dared to do, given that her father was in "trade," and not a gentleman (by Victorian standards).

Despite the fact that her father is in trade, Nancy's mother, who abandoned the family when Nancy was a toddler, was in fact, born of gentry. The mother, however, displays little innate nobility is a shallow woman who it seems will do anything to live in luxury.

Nancy’s mother rather hypocritically condemns the sisters, Fanny and Beatrice French, daughters of a wealthy builder, and their lives in a large home in a new suburb of London. 

Fraud and skill fakery are keys to success in this new world where mass production, advertising, distribution, and credit make it possible for women and men to achieve the appearance of the upward mobility as they do what they can to actually achieve higher places in society.

Jubilee: Restoration with Resignation

The restoration of money to rightful owners takes a long, convoluted path in the narrative of the novel, which includes attempts to hide Nancy’s marriage (and baby) in order to avoid losing her inheritance, and the ultimate unmasking of unsavory business practices on the part of spiteful, vindictive members of the sisters French.

At the same time, the energetic and entrepreneurial-spirited self-invented Luckworth Crewe, achieves wealth in the newly emerging business of advertising and public relations.

Apocalypse and the Jubilee

Jubilee is, at its heart, deeply apocalyptic, because it suggests a new order, or at least a return to natural distribution and order. Apocalypse is a theme that is a theme that occurs throughout Gissing’s work. Change refers the destruction of the old and a replacement of the new.

The purpose is to either rid oneself of old inequities or to create a vibrant world of technology (trains, telegraph, newspapers, gas lights).

At the same time, however, the world to be replaced already contains the consequences of change, including poisonous, lung-searing fog, dark, crowded urban landscapes, and hunger, both physical and psychological.

Women and Education: New Access, but to what end?

Gissing rails against the useless schooling that is bandied about as women’s “education” and the socially-encouraged destructive in-fighting, competition, dependence on others, enslavement in marriage, and lack of self-determination.

Gissing also suggests that when a friend of Nancy who works as a governess, Jessica suffers a nervous breakdown as she tried to pass an exam in order to matriculate at London University.

As Gissing depicts the situation, Jessica does not collapse because she is intellectually incapable, but because it is too difficult to work full-time as a governess and try to study all night (instead of eating and sleeping).

Further, Jessica must combat the ridicule and negativity of the men who scoff at her goals.

Summary

George Gissing’s late Victorian naturalistic novel, In the Year of Jubilee (1894) concerns itself with both people and property, and how both are both lost and gained in both material and metaphorical senses. 

Using people and property as a point of departure, the novel also addresses change in society: the changing roles of women, the impact of technological and commercial innovations, and about education’s form and impact in late Victorian times.

Leper Farm

Please listen here: https://soundcloud.com/beyondutopia/leper-farm-susan-smith-nash

You may read the piece in Talisman: http://www.talismanmag.net/nash.html

Sooner Swim Club

All coaches quickly learned never to put my brother with me in the same lane. We would race each other and then try to pass each other, grabbing an ankle and pulling backward, or pushing down on the flat of the other’s back and swimming over.

I was a competitive swimmer with all heart and no talent.

My brother was a swimmer who was forced by my mother to join in the interest of weight control and hygiene.

No matter how hard I tried, my sister and brother breezed their way to ribbons and medals and “A” times, while I immersed myself in “The Physics of Swimming,” watching swim meets, and fantasizing about going to a transformative swim camp in Florida, and hopeful fictions of growing my petite hands and feet into retractable flipper-like appendages.

Needless to say, I was not able to genetically or biomedically engineer myself, but I did learn how to deal with disappointment, and how to lose races – gracefully and ungracefully. 

Little Red Wagon

My brother was back at our parents’ summer cabin in northern Vermont.  He was unable to walk on his leg after being in a terrible bicycle accident that resulted in the handlebar going through his knee. He was rushed to the Lancaster, New Hampshire hospital and spent two weeks there, in a semi-private room, shared by an older gentleman who died one night. I remember when it happened. It was tough on a 12-year-old to witness such an event:

“Mother, Mr. Glandeville died last night,” he said, muffled voice.
“Oh, that is sad. Well, that sometimes happens,” said Mother.
“But he was my friend. We played checkers,” said Paul. Mother continued hunting in her purse for something and did not really pause.
“He’s in a better place, probably,” she said.

He was finally released from the hospital and deemed well enough to stay home, but he could not put any weight on his knee. Paul was glad to be back and camp, and to sneak into his stash of C-rations and start to work on regaining the weight he had lost in the hospital.

It was not to be.

His only way to get to the cabinet where the C-Rations were stored was to use our little sister’s little red wagon as a wheelchair. When I realized what he wanted to do (and my parents were out), I rolled the wagon across the room, then in full view, opened up the cabinet, extracted a pack of C-Rations.

“Hey! Those are mine!” he shouted.
“I am hungry and want something,” I said.
“You can have the four-pack of cigarettes, but that’s all,” said Paul.
“I don’t want the cigarettes, and I don’t want the Kleenex packet either,” I said. “I like the fruitcake and that’s what I’m eating.” I said as I pulled out the can and prepared to grab the can opener.

Unfortunately it was precisely at that moment I heard the crunch of wheels on gravel and the return of adult supervision. I hustled the materials back into the cabinet, wheeled the little red wagon back to Paul’s bed, then left him to stew on his own new set of revenge fantasies.

If only I had been able to carry out my designs – grab, devour, gloat – right in front of him, it would have been great practice for the future. I would have been a much better wife and mother, and potentially even a captain of industry.

Bicycle Races

Here’s the scene: Racing to bicycles the minute the final bell rings in grade school to jump on and pedal as hard as I could so I could beat my brother back to the house.

“I have a head start! I’m going to beat you!” shouted Paul. Unfortunately, I knew this to be true. His classroom was nearest the bike racks. I had the further impediment of being unable to resist the siren’s call of teacher flattery / compliments. If my teacher wanted to say something to me, I immediately brightened and stopped. It was almost always on my excellent work in reading and science. There was only one nine week period in which I earned “Needs Improvement” on behavior. I think it was for sketching and writing in my diary instead of paying attention to student presentations.

On the days my mother volunteered at Bethel Baptist Church library, my brother and I had a bit of freedom to raid the refrigerator and eat whatever we wanted. The winner would run inside and lock the other out of the house.

“You lost!”  Raspberry PopTarts are my favorite!” He taunted me through bay windows and patio doors.
“You cheated!”
“You are slow!” laughed Paul as he opened a second pack.
“I need to eat! We have swim practice in 2 hours!”
“Mother will be back in an hour. You can eat then,” he said.
“I’ll get stomach cramps!”
“Haha – isn’t that too bad,” he continued. “Now I’m going to eat my Chef Boyardee macaroni and cheese.”

Like 99% of the other times, I lost. I finally learned to bring money with me and to simply ride my bike down to the Li’l Red convenience store on the corner, where I would buy Butterfingers and Chick-o-Sticks.

Salad and fish fillets were better fuel for swim practice, but I did what I could.

Barbies and Army Men

My brother and I both played with dolls.  Of course, he would not like to see it that way. After all, I had a very elaborate collection of finely wrought dolls garbed in mid-Victorian and
American antebellum dresses which I arranged carefully in the window seat of my bedroom. I also had a collection of Troll Dolls, along with Barbie and Midge, whose little high heels and metallic cloth dresses made me jump up and look into the mirror and wonder what I would look like when I was 25.

Paul’s dolls (okay, “action figures”) were not very elaborate; they were formed of molded plastic, probably a low-density polyethylene, and they were designed to position in strategic formation. So, while I was busily arranging my dolls and ordering their worlds for battle on the dance floor and for the attention of men in the beau monde, my brother was busy unpeeling Black Cats (small firecrackers) to harvest their powder to make something powerful enough to blast out an entire battalion and launch dirt clods into the air. The tiny figurines were expressions of our inner lives, and an opportunity to enact games of omnipotence, or at least explore all the ways why you could just never know everything, nor could you predict how, why, and when things might fall apart.

His improvised explosive devices were often unpredictable. The could be duds, or they could blow up. There were times when he was lucky that no one was around except me, and obviously I did not count, having had my own frustrations and disasters with my dolls, my little proxies, whose hair did not grow back after I cut it, and whose outfits were limited to my fledgling skills with a small sewing machine and a great imagination.

Perhaps we should have changed places and I could have experimented with tunneling and blasting and my brother could have role-played social scenarios in Barbie’s Beach House rather than the mass carnage “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning” types of bravado-infused stories and enactments.
Hard to say.

Lightning in the Clouds, Antique Golf Clubs, and the Whitey Bulger Trial

I've been reading a lot of Wodehouse these days, and enjoy most of the works. They are amusing.

I am in Tulsa watching lightning in the clouds.

The other day, I caught a glimpse of my neighbor in Norman, the quadriplegic who was paralyzed after an accident at some sort of moto-cross race. I was worried he had died. I wonder if he got sort of close to death. He looked very wasted.

This weekend is a retreat weekend in the woods of northeast Oklahoma. I think it’s a stone’s throw from where three little Girl Scouts were murdered in June, 1977. The murders were in the headlines, which made me think of summer camp at Camp Cimarron for Campfire Girls, Camp Kickapoo in Kerrville, Texas, and Camp NunnyChaHa in the Arbuckle Mountains -- all summer camps I had enjoyed when I was young. It was very sad. Later, I worked in Tulsa at the Amoco Research Center one summer when I was an undergraduate majoring in engineering.

Post Oak Lodge always makes me think of the murdered Girl Scouts.

I am pigging out tonight. I’m sort of in the mood for it. Full moon. Foul moon. Storm  and all. Have been enjoying P. G. Wodehouse novels. They make me laugh out loud.

I’m reading The Clicking of Cuthbert now. I like the way that golf reveals one's inner landscape and brings to the surface the true self. Tennis is the same. I discovered all kinds of things about myself -- things I would prefer not to know. One, I hate confrontations, and don't really like playing in matches. I freeze, and feel weird about the opponent's emotional flow (usually negative) and the overt competitiveness. Consequently, I play at a much lower level in matches than in practice. I was somewhat better with doubles, where potential reprisals and anger of teammates forced me to really scramble. Nevertheless, I become tentative when playing matches. I suspect I'd be a poor boxer as well.

I have a hankering to take up golf and play with antique clubs. I love the names of the clubs – my favorites are the “Mashie Niblicks.”

On a different tack…

I think that libertinism is a shortcut to a passionless Puritanism. Abstinence driven by desensitization.

What can one think of the Whitey Bulger trial??? He murdered a Tulsan, Roger Wheeler. What is interesting about this is that Wheeler was a neighbor of the woman I rented a room from in 1978. So, I lived almost next door to Wheeler, and it was possible that I may have unwittingly rubbed shoulders with underworld types.

What intrigues me about the Whitey Bulger trial is Bulger’s perverse adherence to some sort of code, as though it matters and anyone really cares. The Mexicans and the  Russians ruined the old Opera Buffa routine for everyone.

On another topic…

I hate the idea of useless, heartless libertinism, and I would rather run away from it. The utter senselessness of all of it just makes me sad.

I want meaning in life. However, nothing in life can withstand too much emotional pressure. Life itself starts to crumble away, when it's pressured to much. In that case, one's idea of life reveals itself to have been all about sensation-seeking.

No one should have to wake up with their pillow wet with tears.

A Boy and His Dog

Rex was the runt of the litter of black German Shepherd pups on a farm east of Norman that housed a clutch of screaming women and water moccasins under a rowboat. The screaming women turned out to be peacocks, but the water moccasin was indeed a venomous snake, only about a foot away from my hand as it flipped over the rowboat while I hoped for a quick spin around the pond. I’d like to say that Rex melded the finest attributes of screaming women, peacocks, and water moccasins, but he was his own dog, so to speak, and, as my mother was to find out, much too intelligent to obey simple commands. He had to do everything his way. She tried to “yard train” him so he’d poo only in one tiny corner of the yard. He would, but not in the tiny corner she designated, but one on the opposite end.

She tried to discourage him from digging under the gate to get out and menace the mail carrier. Instead, he learned to climb chain link, and rather than simply greeting the mailman at the porch, he took to jumping into the mailman’s truck. Finally, after the neighbors complained about the dilatory and infrequent delivery of the mail, she electrified the chain link fence.

The five-foot high electrified chain link fence enclosed the back yard, and it represented a substantial investment, given that the lot was just shy of an acre, and the fenced-in part around three-quarters of an acre.

Encircling the yard with wire that buzzed, hummed, and made your hair stand on end as you approached it certainly worked as a deterrent to intruders.  I’m not sure what it did to discourage canine (and adolescent) malfeasance, but it soon became clear that subjecting oneself to a daily barrage of electric shocks would do something to a dog’s personality. After five or six weeks of daily electroconvulsive electric fence shock treatments, Rex would amble about the yard, and bark nonsensically at airplanes passing overhead and the occasional squirrel, who was staggering in its own right after a jolt from the fence.

Rex would get shocked at least twice a day. At first, it seemed he would get shocked in the pursuit of freedom.  But, if you observed him closely, you’d start to see that he was lining himself up for a shock when things started to get a little bit boring.  No squirrels? No airplanes? No meter readers? No visitors?  That meant it was time to run to the low part of the fence where the buzzing and vibrating was the loudest, and where he’d race along the side of the fence and the brush the shiny, matted fur over his rib cage along the fence.  He’d emit a little yelp, more like a “Yelf-YIPE!” and gallop along the fence. Then he’d double back and gallop the other direction and get a charge on the other side of his rib cage.

I do not think my mother had any idea of what was happening with Rex. She did, however, start to wonder if the settings were too high. Each day brought a new harvest of stunned and temporarily paralyzed birds, squirrels, and even a lizard or two. I had been shocked a couple of times, and I was surprised that we did not see the occasional playmate of my brother, knocked out cold on the ground, after having been “accidentally” pushed into the fence. Young boys can play rough.

For some reason, my mother expected Rex to bond with her after her huge investment. She also expected him to respect her as his master.
It was a dream doomed to disappointment.

The truth was, Rex had no master. Rex was Rex. He would continue to be a loud and a very bad neighbor. But, for some reason, my brother loved him, and it was a good thing he did. Never a sleek show dog, Rex’s appearance was taking a turn for the worse. It was probably due to toll that electroconvulsive therapy (even though he practiced it as something of a hobby) was taking on his body. His matted fur was becoming even more matted, and very thin in spots. His tail was half-bald with crusty mange, and one side of his face drooped and one canine incisor was perpetually bared in a half snarl, half drooling pout.

Paul was blind to Rex’s hideous appearance, or, perhaps he liked the contrast: Rex’s “Beast” was foil to Paul’s “Beauty.” Well, perhaps not. Neither one paid any attention to their appearance, much to my mother’s chagrin.

After a few years, the constant upkeep became a headache. My mother de-electrified the fence. I do not think she ever really contemplated the potential liability. It simply no longer met her personal risk-reward metric.

Did living in a yard surrounded by an electrified fence exact a toll? Undoubtedly so, but it might take time to tease that out from all the other mediating influences in one’s childhood.

Scary Pet Zone

Pets had a dismally poor life expectancy once they crossed the threshold into the house on the park-like three-quarter acre lot that adjoined the wilds of Imhoff Creek. One might wonder why we needed pets at all, given the number of “freedom pets” that lived around us. There were cardinals, robins, thrushes, sparrows, squirrels, opossums, rabbits, raccoons, frogs, box turtles, “horny toads,” snakes, and even the occasional rumor of an alligator snapping turtle or coyote.
No. I wanted a pet I could cage and control, who would love me and I would love it, unconditionally and forever (or at least until it met its inevitably premature death). I had the requisite gerbils and hamsters, all with names, which I tried to expunge from my memory as soon as I could after yet another met a tragic fate. Gerbils had a way of plunging to their deaths after I thought they’d enjoy scampering on the top of the piano, and another gerbil lost his battle with the vacuum sweeper as I tried shortcuts in cleaning the litter from his cage.

Fish fared no better. Neons, goldfish, etc. usually died within the first week or so from some shock either brought in from the pet shop or inflicted upon them as I attempted to decorate their tanks.

Perhaps the saddest were the Easter chicks, gaily dyed and jammed together in little crates at the TG&Y store on Main Street. They were cute, and I bought pink and green ones. No one spoke of avian flu, but I can’t even begin to imagine how these conditions could be anything but ideal breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses, and the cute little chickies were perfect vectors of pestilence.

Now for the big question: Why were people buying the sad little things in the first place? We weren’t exactly an agrarian community: in Norman, Oklahoma, the main employers were the state’s largest research university and the state’s largest mental institution. Well. Perhaps I answered my own question. Our house was so close to the university we could hear the marching band practice and also the cheers of the crowd in Owens Stadium on game days. We were far, far from Central State Psychiatric Hospital, which was on the east side of town. That was the side of town where many of the chimps lived who were being raised by professors to learn sign language, or to consider themselves human beings and part of a human family (University of Oklahoma psychology professor Maurice Temerlain’s tragic experiment with Lucy was well documented on radio and in a book)...

I never wanted to have a chimp. Gerbils were fine until I became consumed by a sense of the tragic and decided I did not really like to have “pets.”  It was just too painful to see their innocent little faces as they looked out of their cages, their sad, meaningless little lives punctuated only by the raw fear (and bruising) of a ten-year-old girl’s ungentle man-handling as she dressed her gerbil in a Troll Doll dress, or taught the neighbor’s cat to drink whiskey from the tiny little airplane-issue bottles my dad would bring back with him from trips.