Eight Feet Deep

  Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, the mod­ern petro­chem­i­cal indus­try didn’t start with a griz­zled, old hill­billy named Jed shoot­ing up a heapin’ helpin’ o’ black gold.

  No, it instead hap­pened a few miles down the road in Beau­mont, Texas, from where this blog called “eight feet deep” is based.

  Call it the Lucas Gusher or the birth­place of the oil indus­try or what­ever you want but the locals and the few peo­ple who still know his­tory call the event back in Jan­u­ary 1901 “Spindle­top.” It is named so because things have to be named.

 The Gladys City museum near the birth­place of the “earl bidness”

 Now per­haps some of you read­ing this will jump ahead and think that there are some kind of con­nec­tions between drilling for oil and the fact that this blog is based in the town that gave birth to com­pa­nies such as the one that is now known as Exxon­Mo­bil, plus the fact that the blog is named “eight feet deep.”

 You know, eight feet deep as in eight feet under the ground? Maybe you’re think­ing that’s the depth at which oil was first found at Spindle­top? Maybe, but maybe not, more like not even close.

 The well “came in” at 1,139 feet, blow­ing oil 100 feet high, while flow­ing about 100,000 bar­rels for nine days, accord­ing to the “Hand­book of Texas Online.”

 Eight feet deep is just a name because as was men­tioned before, every­thing has to have a name.

 This is just to say that one shouldn’t be look­ing deeper for mean­ings than where they actu­ally exist. It is here that opin­ions are some­times spouted, while at other times some plain silli­ness is just let loose. Then again, the fare might be silly opin­ions or per­haps opin­ions that are silly. Verse visa.

 One shouldn’t read more into things, espe­cially in this blog, than they really are. But if one does and they hap­pen to find some­thing with mean­ing, then it is sup­posed that an old blind sow does find an acorn once in awhile. That’s an old folk say­ing by the way. It sup­pos­edly means some­thing. But one can never be certain.

 This is not an inter­ac­tive blog. But if you want to write an e-mail and don’t get into too much of a snit, you just might receive an answer. Oth­er­wise. Well, just otherwise.