Three More Incredible EOG Wells In The Bakken, The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA; One Well With 160K In Less Than Five Months

20643, 1,816, EOG, Van Hook 104-1218H, Parshall, t11/13; cum 51K 12/13;
25056, 1,815, EOG, Van Hook 33-1218H, Parshall, t11/13; cum 54K 12/13;
25093, 745, EOG, Wayzetta 150-1509H, t8/13; Parshall, cum 158K 12/13;

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A Note to the Granddaughters 

I mentioned earlier that I completed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I'm now in my Great Gatsby phase, which I imagine will last a few days, maybe a week or so. Some years ago I was in my F. Scott Fitzgerald - Zelda Fitzgerald phase, having read several biographies of both.

I don't recall reading anything by Fitzgerald other than The Great Gatsby but I have a poor memory. The dots that led me here/there started with Lana Del Rey (why? I don't recall) which led me to the 2013 movie. 

For whatever reason, I was curious about the location of the "valley of ashes." Two internet links provided the information I was looking for, both by the same individual:

• photos of the area
• tracking locales of The Great Gatsby

In a different life, long ago, and far away, I spent a lifetime in a suburb of New York City one summer. I was on the west side of New York City and never had the "opportunity" to visit the east side, or Long Island, or Queens.

From wiki: 

Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City, the largest in area, and the second-largest in population. The borough of Queens has been coterminous with Queens County since 1899. The county is now the second most populous county in New York State (behind neighboring Kings County [the borough of Brooklyn]), as well as the fourth-most densely populated county in the United States.

Queens (and Brooklyn) sit on the west end of geographic Long Island. Queens is the most ethnically diverse urban area in the world with a population of over 2.2 million, 48% of whom are foreign-born, representing over 100 different nations and speaking over 138 different languages. If each New York City borough were an independent city, Queens would be America's fourth most populous city, after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn. Queens has the second-largest and most diversified economy of all the five boroughs of New York City.

At the time, I was working seven days a week in Union County, New Jersey, and had little opportunity to see New York City. I remember vaguely, one Saturday spending the day in and around Grand Central Station, but that was it. The last day I was in the area, Mrs Fisher drove me to the airport (JFK?) to fly back home, or at least as far as Minneapolis, where I caught the train and railed back to Williston. 

That was my "summer of '42" but for me it was 1971. Some of the top twenty songs in 1971:

1. Joy to the World, Three Dog Night 

2. Maggie May / Find a Reason to Believe, Rod Stewart 

3. It's Too Late / I Feel the Earth Move, Carole King 

5. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?, The Bee Gees 

6. Indian Reservation, The Raiders 

8. Take Me Home, Country Roads, John Denver 

11. Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin 

14. Smiling Faces Sometimes, The Undisputed Truth 

15. Treat Her Like a Lady, Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose 

17. Mr. Big Stuff, Jean Knight 

20. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Joan Baez 

The summer of 1971 was incredibly challenging for me, perhaps the most difficult summer of my life. Take Me Home, Country Roads became my personal anthem. I never cared for John Denver, except perhaps for that song. Treat Her Like a Lady is perhaps the most memorable. And, of course, #17 above, was the great J. Gatsby himself, I suppose.

I met the "first" love of my life that summer. She did not know that (that she would be the "first" love of my life). But I knew it. We spent less than 120 minutes together, total, over the entire summer. The longest might have been a 10-minute conversation at a garden party. Regular readers know that she passed away some years ago. Willie Nelson would understand.

It's those memories that make The Great Gatsby so personal. 

I don't know why "they" require high school students to read books like The Great Gatsby. High school students are neither ready nor prepared for the novella. The book should come with a warning label, "Dangerous to one's mental health."

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Young and Beautiful, Lana Del Rey