Oil Futures: Up $1.33 Sunday Evening -- Idle Rambling in the Bakken, North Dakota, USA

"We've" been at $100 oil for quite some time.


Old Rivers, Walter Brennan
Before you young'uns laugh at this, WB's "Old Rivers" became a top 5 hit on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot C&W Sides just two months after release (1962 -- I was 11 years old; very impressionable).

Walter Brennan holds the record for most Oscars for a supporting actor: three.

I will be returning to Boston in a few days,just a few miles south of Lynn. We pass through Lynn every weekend when we drive up to Queen Anne capt. According to wiki, Walter was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, less than two miles from his family's home in Swampscott. Walter Andrew Brennan was the second of three children born to Irish immigrants, William John Brennan and Margaret Elizabeth Flanagan. The elder Brennan was an engineer and inventor, and young Walter studied engineering at Rindge Technical High School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I knew "Old Rivers." Where he is now, there ain't no fields to plow.

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It was a gift to be able to spend the last several months in the Bakken. I depart this week. One of the high points during this visit were the activities I participated in that brought me closer to the North Dakota farmers. I took a lot of photographs, most of which will not be seen by anyone other than me.

I talked to a lot of farmers: most seemed to take the oil companies in stride but complained about them like they complain about the weather. It was a "good" complaint: like the weather, they complained about the boom, but knowing there was nothing they could do about it anyway, they get on with their lives.

I have read that some farmers absolutely detest the oil companies; I never ran into any of those farmers.

I learned a lot about hay and grazing. I certainly learned a lot about the various sizes of farms, and the various sizes of fields.

I will definitely miss the farmers I met.