No matter how tired we are, my friend Courtney Sacco and I relish in making new experiences in places that we co-habit (first Midland/Odessa, now Victoria, Corpus Christi). So when given the opportunity to see the tiny town of Cuero (pop. 7,000) turn out en masse to watch two turkeys race down the main street, we loaded up in Courtney's jeep and drove north.
Cuero is a tiny town that has benefited greatly from the oil and gas boom of the last few years. A new H-E-B was recently completed, there have been talks to expand the Wal-Mart, and a new gym is springing up at the high school. But now the community, like many others in shale oil plays, is being hurt by the downturn in the oil industry. Prices remain around $50 a barrel, the future remains uncertain, and many companies have announced layoffs. I'm sure that I'll get to cover such issues further, but today wasn't about oil.
It was about turkeys.
Cuero's 3x champion, Ruby Begonia.
Cuero used to be a major turkey hub in the U.S., and like cattle runs of old the turkey farmers would move their rafters (the name for a group of turkeys) down the main drag to get them to market. One November run had as many as 18,000 turkeys strutting down to their slaughter, killed and packaged at a processing plant next to the railroad tracks.
As the industry waned in the 1970s, word got around that Cuero had competition for the claim to "Turrkey Capital of the World" in the form of Worthington, Minnesota (pop. 13,000, about 50 miles east of Sioux Falls). In an attempt to gin up some PR for the respective towns the editors of the respective local newspapers, The Cuero Record and the Worthington Daily Globe, hatched the idea for a turkey race to settle the argument once and for all.
Forty-three years later and the turkeys still waddle down the main drag for 150 yards, their team of coaches close on their heels. This year pitted Ruby Begonia, Cuero's three-time champion, against Worthington's Paycheck.
An adoring fan snaps a shot of Ruby.
The race and festival is nothing but pure Americana, as Courtney put it. The entire town seems to line the five-lane main drag. Local police crack jokes with locals. Pistols are carried by law enforcement and citizen alike on belt holsters. The football team (the Gobblers) are wearing their uniforms sin pads in the hot sun; the cheerleaders are dolled up and ready to go. Miss Cuero (in full wedding gown-esque dress and tiara) joins the mayor and others in welcoming the crowd. The truck carrying the two birds, side-by-side, trundles down the street. Cries of "Go Ruby, go!" echo up and down the drag, the crowd encouraging their bird onward to its fourth victory.
A football player rests as he waits for the turkey race to kick off.
Courtney does what he does best - works.
With a shout the birds are off, their teams of four coaches following behind with rattlers and flags to (try to) keep them on course. Turkeys are no thoroughbreds, but they're no slouches either. Paycheck veered toward the crowd, which backed up against the curb, giving Paycheck's team room to work. Ruby was nowhere to be seen; his group trundled along next to the trotting bird.
Paycheck on the road to victory.
A minute later Paycheck crossed the finish line. A small group of Worthingtonians raised a shout of victory. Ruby continued down the road at a steady pace, finally crossing the line minutes later. One coach cursed, wondering aloud why the bird had been so slow. The answer came in blood spots leading to a ripped talon; the bird had essentially lost a toe tip.
An exhausted Ruby breathes heavily as a coach assesses his condition.
Ruby's blood splatters the pavement after losing Cuero's turkey race.
Ruby shed dozens of feathers after the race, leaving many floating in the wind.
Worthington won handily, but the people of Cuero did not despair. The parade full of police vehicles, the high school marching band, and floats soon made them forget the loss. But soon they will have to turn back to the realities at hand - a local economy that is faltering, a small community that may not be prepared for the harsh economic reality of the coming months, and an oil industry that is going through yet another downturn. Hopefully Cuero's energy business will not suffer a similar fate to its turkey industry.
One year ago I drove the last stretch into Midland in an overpacked Prius with two California plates. I was exhausted from the 1,600 mile journey and nervous of what I was walking into. The pump jacks grew thicker in a landscape devoid of life, tuned grey by years of drought and centuries of desertification.
I passed through Odessa first - low-slung, industrial, and blue collar. I passed by the names of Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger. Their lots buzzed with activity, the roads were packed with semis and trucks. In West Texas, the middle class blue collar dream was still alive - the promise of opportunity beckoned to thousands.
The ever-present pump jack.
And then the Tall City emerged from the shimmer of heat, 100-degrees of sunshine beating down on it. The tall towers of downtown Midland were the tallest buildings between Phoenix and Ft. Worth, with the Bank of America building soaring to 332 feet with a cross on top. At night the cross would be lit up, proclaiming the city's reach towards the heavens.
When I arrived at what was to be my home, I was greeted by Levi, Heidi, and Lance. Tired from the drive, I was uninspired to unpack and so they suggested we go do something else - eat. We packed up in Levi's truck (aka the USS Enterprise) and headed for a quintessentially Texas dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Loaded down with good company, beer, and not-half-bad barbecue, I thought to myself that this place may not be so bad after all.
Well a year and a month later I write this while sitting in Midland for one last time. My car again sits packed, though with some semblance of organization this time. This place, this outpost of humanity in the middle of an inhospitable desert (which some have called hell) has taught me much about myself and humanity.
Midland and Odessa have reinforced in me that one cannot consider people in absolute terms. Some are good, some are moral, some are religious and some are bigoted. All people have a little bit of it all in them, and while some people draw lines of tolerance in the sand, I've found that my lines have become more dashed than bold in my time here.
My next journey will take me to Victoria, Texas, an eight-hour drive east to a spot 20 miles inland from the Gulf Coast. What I will be covering I cannot say for sure yet, but I am excited to be getting the opportunity to cover oil and gas to a level I had been unable to before.
To my friends: keep each other sane, laugh often, and most of all, come visit me!
To my colleagues: Y'all are great people with limitless potential. As our good ol' Ed Todd has put it time and time again, keep them rascals honest!
Goodbye from Midland!
Loyal readers, I will be back soon with tales from the hot and humid Gulf, full of oil, flying cockroaches and maybe a hurricane or two. Until then, thanks for reading.
Needless to say it has been a busy 2015. We were short staffed in the office after our esteemed education reporter Tessa Duvall left for the great Floridian city of Jacksonville. On top of that the price of West Texas Intermediate (the sweet crude oil that gets fracked in West Texas) plummeted after Saudi Arabia announced OPEC's decision on Thanksgiving to maintain production levels. The price of WTI as of this writing is around $50 a barrel, over half what it was in June 2014.
It can be hard at times to keep ones head up through the constant work, the blistering pace of projects and daily copy, but one of the rewarding bits about being a journalist is seeing your byline and hearing from the people about your writing. In a time of extreme uncertainty in Midland, the people here now more than ever before need the information that we can give them in order to have a better idea of what is going on in their oil-dependent economy and community.
What is happening is nothing short of spectacular. The Houston Chronicle estimated that at least 100,000 oil field workers have lost their jobs worldwide, and one economist, Dr. M. Ray Perryman, said last week at a talk in Odessa that Texas is slated to lose around 150,000 oil field jobs, While the state as a whole will continue to add jobs at a rate unseen anywhere else in the country, the slowdown is putting a significant dent on an industry that just a year ago couldn't add enough people.
Desptie this slowdown U.S. production continue to rise, partly because of the geology of shale formations. When propped open using hydraulic fracturing, a process that pushes pressurized sand and other materials into shale to prop the rock open, a fracked well will produce at least half of its output in the first year of production and at a rapid rate. This is why U.S. production keeps growing, as fracked wells are brought online and rush even more oil onto the market. This production growth probably will not drop off for another six months to a year.
The eerie "stacking" of rigs in Odessa.
At the same time, hundreds of oil drilling rigs are being "stacked," with this yard of 30+ rigs growing in size in Odessa.
But some things have fundamentally changed in the oil field. Horizontal drilling allows for a single rig to drill in multiple directions upwards of three miles away from the pad site. Sometimes four or five pump jacks are in close proximity to each other because of this technological advancement. Newer rigs can not only drill four directions at once, but they can now "walk" to their next pad site under their own power, cutting down the amount of time and equipment needed to work on sites that may be only 10 or 20 feet away.
Vertical rigs are among the first to be cut because of their lack of the horizontal advantage, which is how many of the shale plays are being taken advantage of. Vertical rigs tap into more "traditional" oil pockets: reservoirs of oil that are sucked dry. The horizontal rigs drill for miles into the side of shale formations before explosive charges are inserted to crack the shale, which is then fracked. Because the Permian Basin is made up of pancake layers of shale deposits horizontal drilling rigs are being favored over vertical rigs.
Oil executives like Scott Sheffield, CEO of regional independent Pioneer Natural Resources, have said that this downturn will last between one and two years, and that the recovery will be slow. Recent estimate are that production will not begin reversing itself for another year before tapering off, drawing down some of the over supply that has led to the latest glut. Growing oil stockpiles in Cushing, Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast threaten to destabilize the market for WTI crude further, and potentially drop the price to lower levels as demand sags.
If you want to see more about what is happening, check out these articles that I have written at these links:
Last night our West Texas household got a little smaller with the sudden passing of one of our dogs, Cozmo, for reasons that are still unknown to us.
But I won't dwell on what happened last night, because that was but a short blip in the time that I knew him, and the time that his family had with him.
Cozmo (R) and Yogi
Cozmo was one pup out of 13, and was such a voracious eater that when Levi met him, he said he had to pull Cozmo off of the teat just to give the other pups a chance. Cozmo also ended up being the last of his litter.
In the short two months that I knew him, Cozmo was nothing but a big goofball. A large lab mixed with a Newfoundland, Cozmo was a big dog. A really big dog. So big that the first time I took him and Yogi out for a walk, people would stop me on the street to look at him and ask what he was.
And despite his size, he was the sweetest dog. Even when Yogi was bouncing off the walls (literally) and running all over the place, there would stand Cozmo, calmly ignoring his brother's antics. But when you could get Cozmo riled up, there was nothing happier than seeing him lift his big face in the air for a half-hearted attempt to get a ball that was probably already in Yogi's mouth or wrestling his brother down to the ground.
Cozmo was as quarky as he was kind. No, he wouldn't drink from his bowl unless it had just the right amount of water in it; if that wasn't good enough, he would drink out of the kiddy pool outside. If he was hot, he would simply lay down in the same kiddy pool that he just drank from. And don't stand around when he gets up from there, unless you want to end up like that scene from Beethoven.
Just run away.
Levi and Heidi told me that Cozmo was most in his element when he was in the water, and unfortunately we don't have much of that out here in West Texas. But I found some photos from last year of him in his element and with a much, much smaller Yogi.
So Cozmo, here's to you bud. You lived a good life, you brought a lot to our lives, and we're all going to miss you. We'll be looking for you in that big bright sky buddy.
After being in Midland for three weeks and venturing no further than a mile out of town to check out a new Beer Garden, I took a trip up north to Lubbock to check out a car Lance was interested in. The drive gave me a chance to quite literally expand my horizon as I was able to travel further than my eyes could see in their unobstructed view over the West Texas plains.
Recent rains had turned what usually would be golden dry grassland into green bushy scrub with small, scraggly mesquite trees peppered in between. The rain had also turned the local clay/dirt known as caliche (ka-lee-chi) into mud, and the road north was covered in the soft, slippery soil. Lance complained that during rainstorms trucks coming from lease roads that lead to the rigs would drag the caliche onto the asphalt, making already treacherous conditions even more dangerous.
The trucks weren't the only problem. In land that is mostly flat desert peppered with strips of asphalt and pump jacks, rain is an unusual and violent occurrence. Logic flows in the confines of city halls and engineering divisions in these areas (i.e. Midland and Odessa) that because rain is so infrequent, proper (and expensive) drainage is unnecessary. This means that during rainstorms, which are a combination of torrential downpours and lightning storms, streets turn into rivers and, frankly, everything floods.
Land of the Pump Jacks.
But the road was flanked by more than just red mud and green grass. Row after row of pump jacks bobbed up and down like a drinking bird caught in an infinite loop, pulling barrel after barrel of Texas Light Sweet crude oil out of the Permian Basin's many reservoirs. Two hundred foot tall oil rigs drill into the soft mud and rock that that flat Basin is made up of, churning thousands of feet down and out in search of new pockets of oil. Some horizontal drilling, which hits shale oil on the side rather than from above, can extend as much as 24,000 feet from the initial drilling hole.
An oil rig by the side of the road.
Heading further north the landscape changed drastically. There was more green grass by the side of the road while the flat plains gave away to soft rolling hills. Somethign else also appeared within the greenery: little tufts of white balls growing on short bushes. I didn't expect to find it this far to the west, but cotton fields abounded to the east, west and north.
I must be in the South.
Since my trip I've been told that cotton is one of the crops that survive well out here in West Texas, being hardy enough for the harsh temperatures. Unfortunately for the farmers, the rainstorm that had come through had delayed their harvest, and the federal government was agitating for them to turnover their crops because of the threat of boll weevils moving into the area.
Continuing on our journey, Lance and I reached the small community of Lamesa (pop. 9,400 and pronounced Luh-MEE-suh in the local vernacular), which sits at the crossroads of the major North-South and East-West roads. But Lamesa is a ghost community, with rundown buildings devoid of life flanking the road. No one stopped in the town; everyone was just passing through. I imagine Lamesa is what the post-apocalyptic world will look like. Or maybe that's what some towns will look like when the boom fades and the bust hits.
The area between Lamesa and Lubbock is more agriculture. Cotton dominates, but there were other greens and some wheat interspersed throughout the white balls of fluff. With the recent rains, waterwheels stood still, thankful that the downpours had lessened their burden to keep the parched and thirsty earth hydrated.
Take a break waterwheel.
Throughout our trip we had been pelted on and off with torrential downpours, but when we got north of Lamesa the rain got even worse, making visibility limited and the roads even worse. At one point we came across a totally flooded part of the road. With Lance's guidance we navigated the road-turned-river, following in the path of much larger and well suited trucks. With the flooding forded by the little Prius, we made our way safely north.
Lubbock is a college town with Texas Tech University at its core. For me, my short foray into Lubbock showed me a few things: the town is very much like Midland, but with (somewhat) better roads; the landscape is more fertile; and they have at least one very good Cajun restaurant (which Lance and I took advantage of).
Otherwise, Lubbock was thankfully uneventful. Lance got his car (a 2003 Lincoln Marauder), I got to see another city, and we had a good lunch.
Heading home allowed me to see the landscape from a different perspective and break out my camera. A few miles outside of Lubbock something tall and graceful caught my eye; the slowly revolving blades of large windmills. Row after row of them lined the cotton fields, spinning in the gentle wind, their blades occasionally cutting through a bank of low-lying clouds. Even in a land where the black barrel of crude oil reigns supreme, alternative energy has grabbed a foothold.
Some complain that they kill birds, but they're a sign of change a-coming.
Seeing the land post-rainstorm reminded me of what Namibia looked like through the eye of my brother when he went to Namibia. The arid desert turned green as life burst forth in a desperate race against time and the sun.
Framed by flowers.
Being surrounded by beauty, I came across some things that were so typically Texan. Signs bearing the words "Don't Mess With Texas" lined the road, but rather than talking about trampling on Texan's rights to bear arms/be religious/do what they want, they proclaimed the cost of... littering. I don't think that was the message Mr. Geroge W. Bush was conveying when he used the phrase at the Republican National Convention in 2000.
Just don't do it.
And then, the normal signs that I am indeed in the Bible Belt.
Self-explanatory.
Coming back into Midland felt like leaving an agricultural heartland and descending into an industrial desert. But there's nothing like cottonfields with pump jacks and oil rigs dotting across their greens rows.
The oil is never far away...
And despite the rain, which at some points left oil rigs surrounded by a deluge of floodwaters, the pump jacks, automatons with a single purpose, keep pumping.
Water? No problem.
And then, poking out through the haze was the so-called Tall City, given the name not because it sits at 2,700 feet of elevation, but because it contains the tallest structures for miles around. I was home.
It was a lazy Friday, my second day off from work after working four days on the breaking news beat. A storm had blown through Midland earlier, bringing a torrential downpour, lighting and thunder, and of course flooding. But the storm had passed by the time I hit the road to Odessa, driving 20 miles in the no-mans lands between the two cities. Pump jacks and green bushes, lush with life after two weeks of rain, framed my view as I took the 191 to Ratliff Stadium. Clouds hung in the sky flanked by blue sky. The weather my just hold.
Odessa's two industries
Ratliff is a name that holds as much meaning to Odessa as oil does. The town of over 100,000 was made famous in Buzz Bissinger's 1990 book "Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream" chronicled the story of the 1988 Permian High School football team as they made their way in a failed attempt to get to the State Championships.
Ratliff Stadium, Home of the Permian Panthers
The centerpiece of that story: Ratliff, which cost $5.6 million when it was built in 1982 and can seat over 19,000 people. Bissinger's book was full of triumph, anguish, and the pride of a city turned destitute after the oil crash in the early 1980s and cheap oil from the Middle Eastern oil kingdoms had bled Odessa's economy dry. Friday night football was what distracted the 90,000 Odessans from their troubles in their dusty, windswept outpost, if just for three-and-a-half months.
But thirty two years has not been kind on Ratliff. The white paint on the hundred-foot tall light poles is chipping away, worn by the beating heat, wind and dust. The press box is a shade of yellow that the 1980s invented, the old shades sagging from age. The aisle numbers, painted on the concrete steps long ago, have nearly rubbed away from the thousands of feet that have shuffled up and down them. But none of this matters, because when it comes to high school football, you only need one thing: a field. And Ratliff's field is the crisp green of a turf field flanked by yellow goal posts and ringed by a new all-weather track. And backing this all up is a massive jumbotron complete with instant replays and close ups of the referees. Some colleges would drool to have such facility.
On this Friday night the mood was different. It was homecoming weekend, and many of the girls, no matter how big or small, wore massive "homecoming mums." Some girls' mums were so long that it was a surprise that they didn't trip over them.
A mum.
Two boys holding a big "MOJO" sign started marching down the track, eliciting cheers and hoots from the crowd. The venerated "Pepettes," the varsity cheerleaders of Permian High, followed in their silver dresses and pom poms. The 120-strong band marched behind them in lock step. They wore white caps topped with white feathers and crisp white and black uniforms marching in step like a unit marching into battle, fearless as the drums rolled.
As the band completed their round of the stadium, the Permian football team, already warming up on the field, gather in the center. One player stood in the middle of the mass of white and black uniforms and the team chanted "Mojo, Mojo." As the players ran off the field to prepare for the opening ceremonies, family members shouted to their sons from the stands. Little kids jumped up and down, each with their own mini-Permian football jersey.
An honor guard made up of young cadets from the junior ROTC marched into the center of the field and were followed by the Permian marching bang, still in formation. As the band started their rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner," a light breeze picked up. The national flag was wrapped upon itself, while the Texas flag flapped happily in the wind.
In the far corners of the field both teams had unveiled their banners. The visiting team, the Coronado Mustangs from Lubbock, had inflated a giant golden helmet emblazoned with a red mustang. On the other corner was a massive banner 15 feet tall with a big white "P" and "Mojo Nation." The banner was held afloat by no less than a dozen students. At the bottom of it read: "Theirs Will Be A Glorious Victory."
A the teams set up to run onto the field, some of the Coronado players and assistant coaches began taunting the Permian side. One Permian player walked out to the goal post to shout back insults. He was soon joined by three more, who shouted at the Mustang's while pulling their comrade back. The tension was already building and the game hadn't even started.
The far side of the field held both school bands and the Permian student section. Aside from the bands and the students, the stands were mostly empty. The opposite side of the field, on the other hand, was packed with Permian fans. White and black dominated, and the white P of Permian was emblazoned on many hat, foldable chair and jersey.
The Mustangs blasted out of their inflated helmet, chasing their cheerleaders down the field in a primal show of power.
The Permian squad, showed gathered behind their banner on the jumbotron, undulated back and forth as one of their players gesticulated like a warrior. Then with a roar they ripped through the banner, chasing their own Pepettes and cheerleaders as they ran down the field screaming with glee. One student ran down the field with a flag that red "MOJO" and below that "7th Flag Over Texas."
As the teams lined up on the field, the sky darkened as the sun set over the dusty plains of Odessa. The lights blazed down onto the field, lighting up the field as if it were day.
High school football is not the epicenter of talent and good play. But Permian held Coronado off for the majority of the game with a scrappy playing style and plenty of swarming the ball. There were some hard hits, which usually resulted in some groans before people cheered the (Permian) player when he got to his feet.
But the Permian that I saw on the field was nothing lie what I had read about in Bissinger's book. 1995 marks the last time the Permian's made it to State, losing 31-28 against Converse Judson. The last time they won State was a 27-14 victory over San Antonio Marshall. The lack of good days on the field was marked by a more subdued crowd that struggled to get a rousing "MOJO" chant going and the lack of attendance. But the atmosphere was one of a communal gathering, one where neighbors shout to neighbors, friends plop down next to friends and shoot the shit, and kids run rampant. While the on-field play may not have been spectacular, the atmosphere was still lively.
With 1:30 left on the clock in the fourth quarter, and Permian ahead 14-12 and with the ball, I decided that I had seen enough. It didn't help that I hadn't eaten dinner and my attention was quickly slipping, but I was about to sorely regret my decision. A I left, the people around me gave me loos of amazement, as if it was crazy to leave in the waning seconds of the game. They were right.
Permian was unable to run the clock out, and the Mustangs were able to put together run and get to the Permian 37 yard line. With seconds remaining they made a desperate 44-yard field goal kick that knocked off of the top of the field goal bar and went over. With that, the Mustangs won 15-14. I can't even imagine what the feeling was like in the stands.
And then, when the teams came together in the middle of the field, they got into a melee that has embroiled both teams in controversy over who threw the first punch. What was caught on camera was Permian players swarming a Mustang, and a Mustang player using his helmet as a hammer against a Permian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l89OUNFg3_Q (I couldn't embed the video for some reason)
Needless to say, the tension and intensity that was rippling across these teams from the beginning show how, even though football may be far past its prime, the machismo and importance that is put upon these teenagers still lights the fire of passion and intensity that Bissinger saw all those years ago. It's an intensity that I never experienced at my own high school in Palo Alto, and one that, like the flares that light up the night sky over the oilfields, still lights the Friday night skies in the fall.
The sky lit up and rumbled from distant lightning as the patter of rain hit my window. When I first drove out into the dry, dusty plains of West Texas, where dust storms hundreds of feet high can sweep across unabated and coat everything in a fine layer of dirt, rain was the last thing I'd expect to see a lot of.
Since I've arrived in Midland at the end of August, where average temperatures hovered in the high 90s, the temperature has dropped to around 65, the clear blue sky has turned into a dull grey, and the air has gotten thicker with humidity. The skies oscillate between a gloomy Portland-esque covering of grey clouds to spectacular towers of soft white spires rising miles into the air.
Midland has been described by my roommate Lance as a chili bowl when it comes to weather. We'll look out into the distance and see massive storm systems trundling towards us, many of them coming down south from Canada along with cold fronts. Grey sheets of rain will fall on the distant plains. But when the storms hit the city limits, they split apart as if Moses stood in the middle of Midland and rammed his staff into the hard packed clay.
But sometime the storms overcome the prophet's will, and Midland gets drenched in a torrential downpour. In a matter of minutes cracked and potholed streets flood as the recently released water finds that it has been caught in the confines of Midland's non-existent drainage system. Suicide lanes, treacherous enough in normal conditions, double as drainage ditches, and unlucky and unaware drives regularly plow into four inches of standing water. Sections of downtown become so flooded that crossing them on foot is simply not an option. During one storm I had to drive all the way around the block just to get access to a downtown office building because an entire block was sunk under a foot of water.
One underpass leading south out of town floods so bad that 16-foot-tall water marks are posted on the pylons so that in a major storm drivers don't turn their vehicle into a submarine.
For most residents driving their pickups and SUVs, fording such watery obstacles isn't much of a problem. For those of us without lifted suspension, we cross ourselves before we go out and hope our bumpers don't meet a watery grave.
The wet weather also doubles as a form of entertainment, with those around me giving advise to avoid certain roads and to be careful going through intersections. Some people suggested I take the 250 Loop (a "highway" that goes around the northern and western edges of town) as the Loop doesn't flood. I braved that storm and took city streets back home. I made it home with my Prius intact.
When the weather gets really bad, I'll post some videos and photos of it. But so far we haven't had severe flooding or lightning strikes... yet.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for my next post on Friday Night Lights.
Twitter: @druzin_journo
Website: rdruzin.wix.com/journo
Work: www.mrt.com
