So when last we met we were discussing the "Taco Story". In hindsight it's entertaining. While it was going on...It was less with the hilarity but more with the cursing and crying and punching . The reason it irritated me so much was because I was on the verge of getting the money to do IVF. Okay... I "thought" I was on the verge, what I didn't know at the time was that it would in fact take 9 months from the "Taco" incident to work a deal. 9 LOOOOONG months and then 5 more months to get the money.
Slight back story here. So 3 years ago our neighbor "Bossman" got a lot of the neighbors together and we negotiated a pipeline agreement. After the deal was done he casually mentioned we should all get together and negotiate the next gas leases together too. Casually and in passing he mentioned the biggest thing to take over our lives since...oh I don't know....maybe facebook?
So February of 2010 during the big blizzard we embarked on a rollercoaster of trouble and torment. It would have been easier to rob a bank. Bossman said the other day we should have have a filmmaker follow us around just so we could remember it all. We should have.
It had all the elements of a Hollywood movie. Marcellus Shale gas is discovered...boy convinces girl to help...boy and girl and boy and boy and boy get all the neighbors to stick together....girl takes so many notes she gets carpel tunnel...meeting occurs in which girl calls someone a bad name...more meetings...even more meetings...more paperwork...maps...few more meetings in which we become jaded and probably sarcastic...finally an offer to sign with Chesapeake...negotiations...more negotiations...no Thanksgiving or Christmas...signing date...threatened by lawsuit...signed, sealed and delivered. A lease not a baby.
It would have been easier to rob a string of banks and theft would have required less planning and a lot less paperwork.
And through it all I never told Bossman what I was going to do with the money. I never wanted it affect any of us while we were negotiating. There is business and there is personal. I never told anyone until the day of the signing when at the end of the night I told Dave and Cindy Hall. They are wonderful people. Our first meeting he had 6 weeks left on his lease and he hung with us all that time. You can't buy that kind of loyalty. I told them and she cried.
But just like in the movies there were still some twists and turns. Bossman got punished by our deal because he was the only one they could hurt. So he started a company and asked me join him. I think he was bored and maybe he missed me a little. This is where he would say, "Yeah, right, HA!"
But no matter what happens from here on out we did a good thing...all of us together as a community. There are still good people in this world who think about more than themselves, people who try to protect those that cannot protect themselves, people who help each other out and not try to knock each other down...and those kind of people I am proud to call my family, my friends, and my community!
