Ralph Kirchner at Bristow Rotary Club

EM: We'll have to be real quiet on this now.

(Pause in recording)

EM: [inaudible] He has attained the ripe of age of ninety-one. His father made the run in to Oklahoma territory in--1889?

BK: Ninety-three.

EM: Ninety-three, back here when the state [inaudible].

BK: That's correct.

EM: Brick attended the Oklahoma A&M College, for those of you who are not familiar with that, it's now Oklahoma State University. Brick is also the dean of the Bristow District Rotary Government, having served since 1931 and 1932. There are many more facts about Brick Kirchner that I'd like to bring out is 00:01:00that Brick Kirchner is--or was, at one time--in the newspaper publishing business. Brick Kirchner owned half interest in a newspaper in Ada, Oklahoma. Having seen the error of his ways, he took his money out of the newpaper--

(laughter)

EM: Brick also has--I don't know whether this is a distinction or--but Brick has stood for public office. Brick ran for Congress in the fourth congressional district on the Republican ticket and I think that's the reason I got to introduce you today, Brick, is because I ran on the Democratic ticket about 00:02:00twenty years later.

(laughter)

EM: I asked him what year he ran, he couldn't tell me. He said, What year did you run? I said, I don't remember either.

(laughter)

EM: Without any further accolades, I'd like to introduce to you, our dean of the Bristow Rotary Club, Brick Kirchner.

(applause)

BK: [inaudible] No, I don't care. Am I speaking into this? Okay. Mr. Steward, thank you very kindly for that very nice and very liberal education, and I'm happy that my [indecipherable] section is here, too.

(chuckling)

BK: And the [indecipherable] section's been here for a long time. I thought, too, it was kind of odd, Doc Yourman got the program for Don Kitchens, and Don Kitchens couldn't be here, so Ed McMillan--I mean, Ed Mackenson introduced me for Don Kitchens. Now that beats around the bush a little bit.

(laughter)

BK: But I'm happy to be here, and I want to endeavor to give you some interesting points about the life of a ninety-one-year--of a ninety-one-year-old oilman.

When I got out of school at Oklahoma A&M, I went to work for the Gypsy Oil Company in Tulsa. Gypsy Oil Company was the production department of the Gulf Oil Corporation, and I was in the production department at seventy-five dollars a month, if you please. Not bad! It wasn't--I wasn't there too long until I had 00:04:00an opportunity for a better salary and I went to Collinsville for Mr. J.D. Ward at a hundred-and-a-quarter a month, and then I was in tall cotton. I thought that was something. I got my first production-- (pause) Well, I was with Mr. Ward and he encouraged me, and then he said, You ought to get something for yourself. So I acquired a lease on eighty acres east of Owasso, Oklahoma and I sold it the superintendent of the Bartlesville Yanks (ph) Company, provided he would drill a well and carry me into the tanks and first well. That he did. We got a little well on the Bartlesville, around 7,800 feet and didn't amount to very much. So I was fortunate enough to sell the well and lease and get Mr. 00:05:00Gardstock's (ph) money back for him out of the deal. But nevertheless that was--that was my first real introduction in it where I'd get a little grease on my hands. That, that's oil business.

I [indecipherable] to the Army from Collinsville, and my employer, Mr. Ward, got me a deferment for a while, and then I volunteered in the Army for the--in the F-A-C-O-T-S. That's Field Artillery Central Offices Training School at Camp Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky. I had letters from my employer that when I got out of the Army that he had great things planned. But I had something planned, also. I figured if I had made money for him buying and selling real estate and leases, 00:06:00I certainly ought to be able to do it for myself. So I got my discharge from the army and incidentally I got my discharge and my commission in the same envelope.

(laughter)

BK: Now that's something, too! And I went to Perry. That's my old hometown. And Perry is--was about eighteen, twenty miles--about twenty miles, I guess--southeast of Garber, and Garber was really booming then. Plenty of production around there, but Garber was really booming of that fine, high-grade oil. And my dad was in the real estate business and he would buy royalties. So he and two other gentlemen that I knew bought royalty under the Wolf (ph) farm about two miles south of Garber. And my dad had told me, and so had Mr. Mauser (ph) that they would like to sell their interest if they could get $15,000 for 00:07:00it. So I thought that I'd use that as a starter and I went to Enid and I managed to sell that royalty--represented that I owned its individual interest and could deliver it for $22,500. And that's quite a bit of profit. So I had to buy it first, so when I came home that evening I went to my banker, Mr. John Hanson (ph), the Bank of Commerce, and explained the deal to him and I said, I'd like to borrow the money from you to buy this. He said, Alright, I'll do it. I'll tell you how I'll do it: I'll do it for half of the profit.

(laughter)

BK: Well, now, he didn't hurt himself any--if seventy-five--that's $3,750 is all he was going to charge me for that $15,000 for about thirty days. And that was our last--I was pleased that I could get the money so I told my dad and I went 00:08:00home and I said, I'd like to buy your Wolf (ph) royalty. He said, You'd like to buy my royalty? Now, how in the hell would you--could you buy it?

(laughter)

BK: Well, I couldn't have that morning, but I--

(laughter)

BK: I could that evening because I had arranged for the credit! He said, Well, I've decided I don't want to sell mine. Now that was a shock to me, first. The other gentlemen that I knew that had that like interest was in Amarillo. I didn't know whether he'd be in, so I did manage to acquire the interest of a gentleman in Pawnee and I delivered it and I got my $22,500, Mr. Hanson (ph) got $3,750 and I got $3,750 out of it, and I thought I had about half the money in the world. Me, with $3,750 and owed no one! I felt mighty good. I wanted to put 00:09:00that money to work.

So I was acquainted with Jim Sloane (ph). Jim was the tool pusher for the Roxanna Oil Company. And a tool pusher--that means he had charge of all their drilling tools, and hiring the men and so forth and operate the rigs. And so Jim and I decided to go into partnership and buy a string of tools, which we did. And Jim was fortunate enough to get his assistant pusher--to get his assistant pusher appointed to fill his position at the Roxanna. Here's the deal: that enabled us to borrow from [indecipherable], this assistant, any tools that we didn't have! So that made a nice deal for me, too.

And we--we'd brought our rig up here north of Yukon, Oklahoma. And we moved it up to Billings where we had a contract for the--for the Billings Petroleum 00:10:00Company. Our company name was Kirchner & Sloan, Inc. And we had to have this well started by September 5 to validate Billings Petroleum Company's leases there. So we rigged up and we run the socket out of the back window that you're familiar with, and screwed onto our big-holed stem to bring it into the rig, put the bit on and starts spudding, and we got it up at about a forty-five-degree angle and this thing broke square in two in the middle. We just pulled the top half of it into the rig and spudded with half of a stem, no bit on it!

(laughter)

BK: Ran the driller, got a little mud out of the hole and dumped it in the 00:11:00cesspit and the lease was validated. Then we were in business, we'd made good.

(laughter)

BK: We had finished that well for the Billings Petroleum Company--finished our contract, I mean--we had no oil. That location that I drilled for them was made by what was called then a doodlebug. A doodlebug were an oil smeller and this doodlebug--this doodlebug or oil finder--he had two black whale bones about that long and about a quarter inch square fastened together at the point with a little bottle on it. And I found out later that little bottle had crude oil in it, and it had crude oil that was produced in the area where he would work. Well, he'd made that location, he said, Now there's shallow gas along here, and 00:12:00there's deeper oil along here, so we'll dig this location right where they cross, we'll have shallow and we can get the gas for fuel, 'course everything was steam then, and at--do future development on the lease. We completed our contract-no oil, no gas, no nothing. And they paid it. But they wanted to go deeper. That doodlebug knew there was oil down there, so we agreed to drill it deeper at $7 a foot and they paid us over 100 feet. Drill it we did, we drilled it 300 feet deeper and they paid us every hundred feet.

But by that time, it was necessary that we got our rig moved because we had a contract with the Getty Oil Company. The Getty Oil Company was owned by J. Paul Getty. This location was on a main (ph) six miles east of Billings. J. Paul owned the Getty Oil Company. His father, Colonel Getty, was the big dog Getty in 00:13:00the oil business at that time. He owned the Minnehoma Oil Company and had mass production in the Garber field. We drove this well for Mr. Getty and we had our bunkhouse there, and it was the cook shack also. Some of the crew stayed in the house and we cooked our meals there. And our meals was either hot dogs or hotcakes. Hotcakes for breakfast and hot dogs at the other two meals.

Mr. Getty came out when we were approaching what was to be the objective sand--which was the Hoover sand--and he--I recall he had a little wax moustache, 00:14:00short, that just stuck square off. And when he opened his coat he had a deputy sheriff's badge on his shirt. He wanted to get some Oklahoma tan to carry back to L.A., so he would walk up and down the highway here up by the rig with his hat off and his shirt unbuttoned to get a little tan. Well, he got the sunburn, anyway! We made him a well at twenty-two-sixty. Twenty-two-hundred-and-sixty-feet in the Hoover sand. Made about sixty barrels of that lovely, high-grade oil.

And Mr. Hanson, with the present Bank of Commerce, he financed our operation all the way. And I wanted to get the money for the well so I could pay Mr. Hanson 00:15:00and stop that interest. I made out my bill immediately and took that and the log and certificate and I went up to the rig the next morning. And Mr. Whitsun (ph), J. Paul's superintendent, said, Well, now, J. Paul won't be out here. J. Paul's on his way to Los Angeles, and if you don't catch him before he gets away, you're liable to be two months getting your money. I said, Where is he? And he said, He's at the Santa Fe station in Perry. And I hustled right in to the Santa Fe station in Perry. And we had a few [indecipherable] and went in to the waiting room and there was Mr. Getty, and we had a few pleasantries and then I presented my bill and told him the bank and I needed the money. And he said, I'm sorry, crookster, but I don't have any checks on my bank. Well, I said, I can 00:16:00fix that. And I stepped up to the ticket window and I got a blank check on the Bank of Commerce at Perry, changed it to his bank in Los Angeles, and made out--filled in the amount of the bill for Kirchner & Sloane, Inc. and presented it to Mr. Getty, and he signed it. And we were happy.

(laughter)

BK: I waited around with him until his train came in and he left. And I haven't seen him from that day 'til this. But he's done alright, I understand.

(laughter)

BK: Richest man in the world. That was quite an experience. He was very pleasant, and very nice.

(pause) (papers rustling)

BK: Well, I have a lot written down here.

(laughter)

BK: Our next well, after Mr. Getty's well, was for J.D. Means, and it was by the northeast offset to Mr. Getty's. And while we were drilling that well for Mr. Means, Marland Oil Company was drilling in the northeast corner of the section and we were in the southeast corner of that same section. We made a small well for Mr. Means, but Mr. Getty--I mean, Mr. Marland, on his location up there, got a nice well and that was the discovery well for the great Oklahoma Three Sands pool. And incidentally the north offset to that, my dad had some royalty that he 00:18:00purchased under that, too, that offset--that well was dry. The east offset and for a mile and a half or two miles north and south, and a mile and a half wide, was the Garber field, and it was a dandy. [There are a] few wells producing there today.

Now after we finished that well for Mr. Means, I loaded a flatcar. Loaded a string of tool on a flatcar and started for Bristow. And I followed it--that flatcar--in my automobile. And I found out that five bucks here and there in some of these yards will get your car moved pretty fast. It worked in west Tulsa that way--Red Fork, I mean, that way. And we got in to Bristow, there was no 00:19:00trucking contractors then, everything was moved by teams. Most of it was most by teams. So we got Doc Martin (ph), a teaming contractor here, to move us out to Slick, eight miles east and two south of here, for the Caufield (ph) Oil Company. They had claimed this block of acreage there, which acreage and wells in production is now owned by the Krumme brothers. Harlan's here today. By owned by Harlan and George. And I loaded a 14x28 boxcar house for myself and I had the deluxe job: I had a screened-in porch on each end of it and I had a sub-roof over my roof, about eight inches up, where the sun couldn't hit my--the roof of our house directly and the air can circulate under there. So we thought that was 00:20:00pretty deluxe for us. And I built a 14x40 bunkhouse there and I built it right by the bathhouse, and near the boarding house, because all the leases then, if they had any size and employed very many men, they had a bunkhouse and boarding house and a warehouse, just as the Caufield (ph) Oil Company did.

I remember, we had a good boarding house there. And it happened that the driller--a driller that worked for me was the husband of the lady that ran the boarding house, and while I wasn't using him on the rig, she was running him around the country buying groceries for the boarding house! So I thought, Well, he can't be doing his work. I went down there about three o'clock one morning and there he was, sound asleep on the driller's stool, the tools just swinging, 00:21:00motion very slow, just swinging, wasn't even hitting bottom. So I didn't wake him up, I just wrote his check out because you would carry a time book and a checkbook in your pocket then, and fire a man if you wanted to, because you didn't have to account for his social security or any other take-out. So I just wrote his check out and put it in the headache box there at the rig and told his tool dresser, who was awake, I said, Just call that to his attention when he wakes up. I paid him off.

We had a lot of fine experiences out there at that time. I remember at that time the companies--the larger companies--all had oil scouts. And I recall one in 00:22:00particular that came to our rig to get information. They wanted to know how you were coming so that they could buy leases if necessary. I remember one of the Phillips boys--John I think was his name, John Phillips of Phillips Petroleum Company. He wasn't one of the rich ones, that was Waite and his--Waite Phillips and his brother. And this boy, this Phillips, was about my age--around twenty-six I was then. And he came to our rig scouting our rig to see how deep we were, and if he could catch any--take any samples that we had there of sand that we had encountered. And he got to be quite a big shot then.

At that time the companies furnished the rig, pipe, fuel, and water on the location for a drilling well. They'd build a rig, and the rig was all wooden--no 00:23:00steel rigs then, and they had a 250-barrel tank on both sides of the engine house there for water, and they had water the tracked to the tank. It was filled up, the 250-barrel wooden tank.

Well, we got started at Slick. We were on fuel number one, and after we got a little below a hundred feet we went through the line and left the tools in the hole. We had about three feet of line--the line broke about three feet up above the tools. And those drilling lines, as most of you know, have six strands. 00:24:00They're six to nineteen line, they're called. There's six--there's three big strands and nineteen little strands in there. Well, we had the casing rolled down to get over the tools to pick 'em out but I couldn't get over it on account of that size of wire there. And we ran a light down the hole to see what condition it was, because you could look down there and see it with a light in there. And it was frazzled out, and I said, If that wire was cut off at the top of that socket, we could fish those tools out. And one of the men volunteered to go down and I thought, That's a foolish trip. And we had [indecipherable] it'd break our company for sure. So I went down myself. And I put a felt hat on and filled it with waste up there because you could hear chunks go down there and 00:25:00hit the water around those tools and go ka-PLUNK and you didn't know whether it was a big chunk or a little chunk or whether it was a rock or a piece of shale. Nevertheless, I went down and it wasn't dangerous. However, we were drilling an 18" hole and right on top of the ground was cable tools you stomp, you know, and put a little water in the hole and stomp down there and bail out what you've mixed, that's the way they drill with cable tools.

I went down there and [indecipherable] to it, but they let a lantern down on a string so I could see what I was doing and I had a hammer and a sharp chisel and they let me down on derrick line around me so I could stretch out a little bit and sliver myself any time where I didn't figure there was much hazard to it. But I chipped those strands off of there and I [indecipherable] they pulled me out of the hole. However, they did drop the line that had the lantern on it, and 00:26:00it went on down the hole. And then we let the casing roll down over it and put the slips over it and gosh, it came with no difficulty at all getting the tools out once we got over them.

But on the next well that I drilled with was for the Caufield (ph) Oil Company and it was the variant north offset to this first well. And we got to the well--I mean, got to the sand around 2,700 in the Dutcher--and the Dutcher over in the Slick area was black oil around thirty-four to thirty-six gradients (ph). And when the--we'd shoot a well, they shot all of them over there, when they'd shoot on 'em, when they'd shoot a well, they would load the oil--the well with 00:27:00oil on top of the shot right up to where it was running over the control head because if they didn't fill it clear full they'd--when that shot went off it would break the pipe at the top of the fluid. And we tried it once just filling it up into the control head and it broke the control head! So after that, we ran it over. Well, when that shot goes off, it blows that hole full of oil in the air, and that's why it was such a beautiful sight over there. When you come out from Bristow, top that hill by the eight-mile corner--every drilling well was clean, white pine just about the color of that piece of paper, and the producing wells were black because they had been shot, and were all covered with oil. And 00:28:00we used steam for fuel and every drilling well there was that white, crisp steam and it was a beautiful sight. Well that's the drilling well--that fuel drilled up pretty rapidly.

Now that-- (pause) Oh, yes, I'm on the Sewell (ph) farm there--I mean, yeah. Barney Sewell's (ph) farm, that's where this well was. Second well that I drilled for Caufield (ph). And they were putting the shot in. We drilled the well and we were gonna shoot it. We used shots before--did sixty quarts of liquid nitroglycerin: glycerin shells around four inches in diameter and about five feet long. And you would hang it onto the hook there that would stay hooked as long as there was any tension on the line. And you had to be in there when 00:29:00the shooter was there, some of the crew did. And I'm telling you right: when that shooter gets that shell--that glycerin can up there--and poured it down in there, when that hit the bottom of that shell, I mean, it just kind of sets the hair on you a little.

(laughter)

BK: It looked scary to me! Well, we had a little more gas in that Sewell (ph) than we did in the fuel, and we were putting the last shell in. We got down in the hole a ways and the shooter--the shooter operated the reel that lets the shell down the hole--and his line went slack, which showed that that shell was 00:30:00coming up the hole. And it had unhitched! That gas with [indecipherable] gas in there is gonna blow that--have a good chance to blow that shell out of the hole. And it started going pretty good. The shooter hollered, Catch that shell! And I said, Hell on earth.

(laughter)

You catch your own shell if you want--

(laughter)

And I did like he did, and all the rest of them: I ran!

(laughter)

And sure enough, the shell came out of the hole and blew the Caufield (ph) Oil Company's rig down. Clear down. None of us were hurt, fortunately, and that wasn't so bad, except for the delay in production and the dollars that it cost to replace this rig. It didn't hurt my tools any. And-- because those shots will go off naturally in seventy-two hours at that depth and in that area. In 00:31:00seventy-two hours that shot will go off by itself due to the heat and pressure on it. And that's what happened on this well of [indecipherable] out there.

(Break in recording)

BK: --he said, No sir, mister, [indecipherable], said, We done closed the rolls.

(laughter)

BK: [Indecipherable.] --my partner in Kirchner & Sloane, Inc. was Jim Sloane (ph). Jim wanted to continue drilling on a contract basis. I wanted production. So we dissolved partnership and dissolved the corporation and I got--and divided up the tools. We had two strings at that time. And I got a lease on the Henry 00:32:00Fisher farm south of here, and many of you are familiar with the Fishers and some of 'em buy their eggs there, I imagine. But we drilled a well on it, I sold some interest in it for to raise a little money to drill it with and I sold Art Stone (ph) on the interest on those. And Art was out there the day we were to hit the sands. And I was in to fifteen-ten (ph) and it was looking good, and I sold Art Stone a ninety-sixth (ph) interest for $3,000 on the derrick floor there just by a shake of the hands--and that's the way many, many deals were 00:33:00closed, just by a shake of the hands. And it wasn't an hour until we'd hit--until we hit the sand. And when she started smoking gas we started out of the hole, but the oil beat the tools out of the hole. And did we feel good! And so we had the tanks up anticipating a well, and we had the tanks up so we got out of the hole and tools and closed that control head and turned it into the tanks and it was flowing into the tanks. And we went home that night, nice little fortune between the [indecipherable] bungalow. I figured, I think we're rich. What in the world could we do now for our poor relatives?

(laughing)

BK: And I went out the next morning: Lo and behold, there's a hundred and 00:34:00thirty-six barrels in the tank and eighteen hundred feet of water in the hole and the well had stopped flowing.

(laughing)

BK: And, well, we put tubing rods in it and produced it for a while, but it would never pay off. I think I was the only one that got my money back out of the deal on it, and that was on account of that $3,000 I got offered by Art Stone.

(laughing)

BK: Let's see. The next one--I moved from there over to [indecipherable] 15-10 for the Gotham Oil Company. The Gotham Oil Company was out of Washington, D.C. And M.M. Wyville (ph) was the major holder in the Gotham Oil Company. And M.M. Wyville (ph) was secretary to William Jennings Bryan when Bryan secretary of war under Woodrow Wilson, to give you a little line-up on that. We drove that well 00:35:00for, for Gotham and when she started smoking gas--we had the control head on--we turned it into the pit, turned the well into the pit in case it wouldn't flow. And Mr. Wyville (ph) and I went to Bristow to order out the tanks. We did, we ordered out a full tank and two 250s. Tanks then were all folded tanks, they weren't welded like they are today. But when we got the tanks set--the well'd flowed twice into the pits when we got back. When we got the tanks set we picked up 450 barrels of good oil out of the pits. And [indecipherable] wanted to drill the well six inches, and we tried to hit the string on six inches--six inches 00:36:00above the clamps--and clipped it to the clamps, and it didn't change the motion at all. And when it drilled off, it came out of that hole. That well made 450 barrels. That was sixty-one years ago now, today. Sixty-one years ago and that well is still producing between seven and eight barrels in the Meisner sand.

George Fargo (ph), who was superintendent for the P-O-N-G, Prairie Oil and Gas, he wouldn't believe it that we'd only drilled it that far in. When he--he drilled the offset for his company and he drilled it in two feet. His well was plugged in a year and a half, he got it in the water too far! And this one, I think--this one makes water now, but it still produces between seven and eight barrels. And I drilled a seven-hundred-foot well there and we pumped the water 00:37:00into that, that Boomer (ph) sand, I think it is.

Let's see now. (pages rustling) Man, alive. Well, some of you'll want to know how we--how do you get your money for your oil? When you got a tankful, you call the gauger, he comes out and gives you a written--gives your tank top and the bottom and then peeks at it to see how much b.s. and water there is in it and if there's too much of that basic sediment and water in there, why the gauger'll say, Clean your tank, like they told us on this ticket here.

(laughter)

BK: It says, Clean tank. And they gave you a ticket for each tank and they would pay you on about the twenty-sixth of the month--the twenty-sixth of the following month. Rotary is much faster than drilling with cable tools, so Claude 00:38:00Freeland--which some of you know, he built that home first--home west of the Presbyterian Church here in Bristow. Claude Freeland drilled a well out in the Poor Farm area, which was discovered--the Poor Farm area was discovered by Albert Kelly, Levan's dad--discovered the Poor Farm pool. Claude Freeland had a well that had started off with 10,000 barrels a day of this black Dutcher oil. A grand well. Carter had the offset. They wanted some of that, so they moved a rotary in. That's the first rotary that was in this country, on that offset. And they drilled it down there, set by to drill the hole dry and drilled the sand and made ten million in gas. No oil. They let it blow wide open in the air thinking that it would blow onto oil. But it didn't. You can't blow one open 00:39:00that way today, the Corporation Commission'll be on ya--you got to shut that well in. If you don't they'll shut it in for ya and charge ya. (noise) Pardon me.

And, well--this well of Claude's--and Claude would ride with me out to the rig once in a while and we'd visit--he told me about that particular well. He said, That well made a million dollars' worth of oil in sixty-seven days and never made another barrel of oil. Not a million barrels' full, a million dollars' worth. And I imagine then that oil was worth about $2.45 a barrel. That'd be nice to have in the family, believe me.

(laughter)

BK: Bristow was a--Bristow was a real boom town and my time's about gone, but I 00:40:00wanted to tell you some of the things that aren't here now that I saw here. We had three refineries here. A Bristow Refining Company out here on the Kelly farm here right at the north edge of town. Wilcox Refinery across the railroad track east of it. And then the Sun Company Oil Refinery up on the hill--one of the old [indecipherable] refineries. We have no refineries here now.

We used to have the Republic Supply Company here--that's an oilfield supply company. Across the street was the Oil Well Supply Company. Then after that was the National Supply Company. A couple of blocks north and a half east was the--

UM: Producer.

BK: Producer Supply Company. The [indecipherable] was here. Also the American Tool Machine Company and the Bristow Pipe and Machine Company run by Mr. Cushing. Mr. Cushing had a son, Chester--when you'd go in there for any fishing tools, old Chester--you'd tell him what you want, Chester'd say, Oh hell you don't want that, you want to have this, show'd me this or that. But after Chester got to drilling for himself he found out that the people that knew pretty well what they wanted when they went in there. And Chester drilled a well for himself just about a quarter of a mile south of this new project on south Chestnut and a quarter west up on the hill. He drilled it with cable tools 'til the [indecipherable] broke sand, made a little, well, and his wife dressed tools for him on that well. Drilled it in daylight, and his wife dressed tools. That's something.

I only want to give you interesting things, I think.

Out northwest of town we had some big wells. I recall one that was drilled on the Abraham, the Ed Abraham farm out there and it got away and went into the air and the wind was right that it blew oil from that well into Bristow and spotted clothes that were on the line, and oil spots on your car. Three miles away!

(papers rustling) That's all of it.

(laughter)

UM: [Inaudible.]

BK: No, I don't want to shoot the breeze all afternoon. I'm too [indecipherable] have to go, it's time to go on and [indecipherable] around here. Well let's see if there's anything else that I think you, you can't live without.

(laughter)

Yes, I tell you what it is! Bristow was a boom town, the streets were full and the sidewalks were full, in fact I've seen teams lined from Slick two miles north to the eight-mile corner of a morning. Just teams loaded out with pipe and rig stuff. And people would like to see--individuals would like to see people mill up and down those sidewalks, and some of them would park their car at a point of vantage and walk home, and then walk back downtown and get in their car in view of the people walking up and down the streets and sidewalks because it was that interesting. That's the Bristow that a lot of you have never known. 00:44:00Thank ya.

(applause)

Tape ends.