UNCLE ROY, THE WILDCATTER

A LONG-AGO WILDCAT OIL DERRICK

Monday, 7:45 AM.  45 degrees F, wind S, strong (the waves will be bouncing the ferry around this morning).  The sky is again overcast and the sun obscured.  The humidity is 80% and the barometer is trending down, at 29.96".  We got out of our weather rut for a few hours yesterday, but are right back in it again.
   I was heartened by an article I read over the weekend by Gregory Zuckerman that told very succinctly the amazing story of the discovery of vast deposits of oil and gas in the lower 48 states of the US, mainly trapped in shale, and found in Texas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and who knows where else, that within the last five years or so has turned the US from the greatest importer of fuels in the world to the very brink of being an exporter.  Energy independence is here, and when we all truly grasp its significance it will propel us to new economic and geo-political heights.
   The news holds special poignance for me because the deposits were found by wildcatters, not by the big oil companies or the government, both of which were virtually clueless until the oil and gas was already flowing. It is a story to warm the heart of any conservative, and is a thumb in the eye to all the statists and utopians who try to rule our lives. I was heartened also because it offered some belated justification, private though it may be, for the efforts of my Uncle Roy.
  Uncle Roy was a maverick in virtually all  things. There was no king, president, pope or bishop who could ever tell him what to do, what to believe or how to live his life. He usually did things the hard way, but he got them done.  And as did my parents and virtually all my extended family, he toughed out the Great Depression with grit and stubbornness, and although I suppose he may have stood in a soup line on occasion he and his family never received any public assistance and in fact prospered.
   Most people probably thought Uncle Roy was odd, maybe a little crazy.  He built a house for his family, all by himself, then took out a loan on that one and built another.  And another.  He dug the basements by hand with a pick and shovel and a wheelbarrow. He never had any help until my cousin Ed was old enough to follow him around.  For a while he sought his fortune in growing cucumbers; he never did corner the pickle market.  At one point Uncle Roy bought a large printing press that was in pieces, put it together and taught himself how to run it , and then published a weekly paper for his small town.
   But back to why the rags to riches stories of the recent oil and gas discoveries brought to mind Uncle Roy.  He was a wildcatter of sorts.  Somewhere along the line he became obsessed with the idea that there was oil to be found under and around the lakes of southern Wisconsin.  He found a few oil slicks along the lake shores; who knows if they were  seepage from natural oil deposits (as he believed), or from decaying vegetation or some submerged Model T, but he considered it his mission to investigate the possibilities in great detail.  In the process he came to know more about the geological formations of southern Wisconsin than, I am sure, most geologists.  And he paddled more lake shorelines than many an early explorer.  And created his own theories about oil, geology, economics and most everything else in the process.
   Uncle Roy never did strike a gusher in anything but hard work, independence, and an extraordinary family. But in the final analysis that was enough riches for himself, and ought to be for all of us wannabe wildcatters who get even that far.
   But I sure wouldn't be surprised if the next big fossil fuel find isn't right under the footprints left by my Uncle Roy a half century and more ago.