Just found a photo of my pal, Brian Flowers, standing next to his drilling rig. He was a really funny guy. He helped me drill my 860 foot water well. Now, drilling is tough work under the best of circumstances. He made it fun. When your down around three hundred foot, you inject a soap mixture into the shaft to clear out all the residue and see what kind of water level you have, if any. When it is pumped out, it makes the surrounding area like a fairy land. The soap billows out in an enormous rush, sometimes five to six foot high of suds. Since you have a containment area set up, its funneled away from your rig. Hopefully. On another job, I helped Brian out as mucker. The shovel guy who moves the mud as the drilling head does its job. As the customer is asking Brian a question, the soap deal happens, big time. I couldn’t keep up with it. I climb up on the drillers platform as the suds get higher and higher…Brian shouts out with fake urgency, “Hang on pal, I’m coming for you”! He tosses off his sunglasses and dives into the soap suds, then, starts swimming in the muck and soap towards me. I laughed so hard I lost one of my contact lenses….Another time, one of our helpers had just bought a new truck. He parks it way off this site were setting up on in Aqua Dulce near the Peppertree market. A drilling site has a lot of vehicles. The big drilling rig, water trucks, gravel dumps, mechanics rig, pipe trailers, plus, the workers rigs. This guy didn’t want anything scratching his new truck. About two hours into the hole, we hit a snag. Brian is trying to break a section of pipe loose with this other guy. The rig bucks, flinging a steel pry bar out of Brian’s hands and into the sky. We all dive for cover. It spins like a giant would flip a toothpick. It comes down point first, right through the new trucks roof, sticking in the passenger seat a good eight inches….Brian Flowers drowned at the Kern River a few years ago. I miss him every day…