Oil Field Trash Roughneck Tales From The Rig Floor

This book was previously published as "Oil Field Trash And Other Garbage." It was meant on my part to take a tongue in cheek swipe at the novel. The main story is titled "Oil Field Trash" so I figured that I would beat the critics to the first punch, hence the second half of the book title: "And Other Garbage." It was brought to my attention that many of the men who are in the fraternity of Oil Field Trash-which I'm also a proud member-thought I was referring to them as garbage. Which was not my intent by any means. It's a tough club to join and few men earn the badge of Oil Field Trash. When I broke out in the big boom of 1981 it was a revolving door of weevils. Maybe one guy in twenty lasted long enough to collect a full paycheck. One tool-pusher suggested installing nets to cover the derricks. "Keep them birds from thieving our worms." But I totally understand the confusion and would never throw a brother under the bus or a rig up tandem for that matter. I added two stories to the book, to liven it up a bit at the start; stories of theft, deception, sabotage, and a rig move gone wild. The book is written from the perspective of a roughneck-spanning my eight year career in the industry. First person accounts of breaking out as a weevil and literally working my way up the ladder. The stories chronicle the dry holes, the wild wells, and wilder nights, as well as the profound dangers of the trade. The industry has evolved but oil drilling is still by far the most dangerous dollar in the world. Roughnecks are the front lines of the world's energy industry--soldiers of fortune, hiring on for a hard earned, high risk paycheck. As you are reading this one roughneck will die every five days on average--lives summed up by six lines in their hometown newspaper. Something to ponder the next time you fill up your tank or adjust your thermostat. Unlike oil, men are a renewable resource."