Thursday, August 07, 2008
Drainage
It was a beautiful film about a different time in California. When they poked and prodded,'till the earth gave up her oil. Some of my ancestry was a part of this decidedly greedy legacy. I've mentioned them before. My great great grandfather struck oil in Bakersfield in the 1880's. He became a wealthy man because of this, and he added to his wealth when he sold his tract to Standard Oil. They came through and bought much of that oil rich landscape. As did Union Oil and other very eager companies.
And we all know how that played out. It feels weird, knowing that my relatives played any part in creating the angry behemoth that is Chevron today. But as my wise older daughter said: 'It's o.k. We're 'poor' now, so the score is settled...' (I wonder.)
There was a cool moment when Plainview/Daniel Day Lewis is looking to buy up the land surrounding an oil-rich tract. He mentions the names of the families that own the tracts, and Blodget is one of the names. That'd be my great great grand-daddy, Hugh. They drank his milkshake.
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9 comments:
I love hearing about your rich history of making it in the wild west. As to Chevron, I actually kind of like them.....It's Exxon I hate.
i just watched that movie on dvd and I totally loved it so much. The acting was superb and the high pitched violin sountrack was surreal.
I can never stop playing the rebel, can I :). For all of Chevron and the others' global privations, it is their cheap energy that grew this wealthy society of ours. I'd love to see Mankind move beyond the pollution, but I can't first begrudge developing countries their chance. Or Kern County its income.
And Chevron funded my father's comfortable retirement, being as he was a research scientist at the Richmond facility thirty years. Of course, he could have done something else with that PhD: medical research, whatever. And as I wrote when he got sick, he "deserves" that wealth no more than anyone else.
Anyway, my Livermore ancestors sold the farm just BEFORE it was discovered to hide large natural gas reserves. Oh well, huh.
I'm so unhip, I had no idea what movie. Now I know. And based on a Sinclair novel. I'll have to see it.
that is just too fucking cool =)
~ n
xoxox
Don~I grew up with lots of kids whose family members worked for Chevron/Richmond in various capacities.
No aspersions from me toward those that chose that path of employment. Just one question that I have had forever... if they refine it in our backyard, why do we nor cal people pay the highest prices?! :) It's crazy-making.
This connection is amazing. While on The Longest Walk, we traveled through Bakersfield and stayed at a facility right on the oil fields. The day before we got there, I was talking with a woman whose family ancestry was forced away from the beautiful riverside hills where the oil fields sit today. When we arrived there, I had a vision and saw the people living there without the oil pipelines. No reflection either negative or positive on your grand daddy or ancestry, just as I tell my Native indigenous friends, "I didn't do it"
Funny, I'm poor now too, but don't have any stories about any wealth. The Italian immigrants worked on the railroads with the Irish and Chinese laborers, all trying to make a new richer more comfortable life for their families, and if we had only known, so they could buy the oil.
Peace to All.
I am related to the West Virginia Hatfields, and there have been several bad TV movies about the Hatfield/McCoy feud. One of these (reputed to be more historically accurate) featured one breathless Hollywood-hillbilly boy bursting through an elaborate hillbilly-set-designed door, bellowing THE HATFIELDS IS BRINGING THEIR KIN, PA! And rattled off a series of surnames, one of which was my family's. We all yelled YEAH! Hahaha, it's fun to discover your family's role in history. Although I feel weird knowing I am related to people who kept a feud going for almost 20 years, I also keep in mind that the SIZE of this land is probably bigger than certain areas being fought over in the Middle East; it was a sizable acreage bordered by a river and it was their livelihood. Nonetheless, I like to think I've evolved from that rather backward approach to life. (But I don't put them down, they felt they had to fight for what was rightfully theirs. But times have changed, and now I question that ethos.)
And that is probably how you feel about the oil. You get it, but times have changed, and now you question that. :)
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