re: People the grew up during the Louisiana Oil Boom in the 1970/1980s, what was that like?

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This is possibly the most Louisiana story ever.

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Ha. Not bad for a guy from Philadelphia / South Jersey. He never left and ended up raising his family right there in the shitty.

Shreveport was rocking

In the 70s the price for natural gas was regulated by the feds. They passed a law that deregulated "new gas". The oil companies started drilling new wells along side the old wells. The old wells, prices regulated, new wells set by the market. The Baker Hughes rig count today is 581, in 1981-82 the rig count peaked at around 4000. Business was booming.
My dad was a drilling engineer for an independent oil company and the gifts from the salesmen was unbelievable. I was in high school at the time. in 1979 Dad got 11 tickets to the LSU-USC game in tiger stadium. It was really crazy around Thanksgiving-Christmas. Booze, wine baskets smoked Turkeys, boxes of steaks, Shrimp oysters what every my dad wanted a salesman showed up with it. Hunting trips, elk hunting in Colorado, Dove hunting in Mexico ducking hunting in Louisiana deer hunting in Texas. All was paid by the service companies, I made my first GI tarpon rodeo around that time when it was just starting to get out of hand.
During college condos in Florida, I may still be banned from a couple of complexes. Dad got a couple of phone calls, he was not happy. good times

I could fill my XR75 up for 67 cents

I was at LSU at the very tail end of the boom but it drove LSU’s heyday as a party school. Guys who had no real intent of graduating would work an oilfield job over the summer and come to school loaded. Tuition was extremely low because it was subsidized by oil money. It was the Animal House era. For better or worse, it will never be that way again.

My parents never really talk about Morgan city during that time so enjoyed reading that moms from Franklin. Dad got moved down there by Walmart from Oklahoma in like 85 I think to remodel the Franklin walmart and met mom. Ended up taking an assistant manager job at the BV Wally World and settled in Patterson. Only place my mom has lived outside of st Mary parish is I think plaquemines parish for a bit in the 70s then moved back.

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but I remember the bust. It seemed like it happened so fast too. Within like 6 months there were rent houses that popped up on our street like crazy. Trashy families moved in

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section 8 turned many small towns into shitholes rapidly

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My parents never really talk about Morgan city during that time so enjoyed reading that

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Ha. Probably because they were good parents and didn’t want to let their kids in on the shennanigans. Mine won't talk about specifics either. All I know is Dad had a shitty apartment in Verdunville because it was all he could afford. Divers were known as a pretty wild group.

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Dad got moved down there by Walmart from Oklahoma in like 85 I think to remodel the Franklin walmart and met mom. Ended up taking an assistant manager job at the BV Wally World and settled in Patterson. Only place my mom has lived outside of st Mary parish

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That's very similar to my parents. Dad from out of state and mom has never left St. Mary. He met my mom while she was working at my grandfather's Patterson Tru-Value Hardware store. Oceaneering laid-off my dad when mom was pregnant with me and he took a temp job working lumber at the Franklin Hill Behan.

ETA: That Wal-Mart eventually forced grandpa into early retirement, but no hard feelings.

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Oh shoot I think we talked about this before. that was the one by the Pizza Hut (game day pizza now) right?

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I think we did.

Yea. It's been a tanning bed for forever since. At least, that's what the sign still says. Not sure if it's still open. I haven't been in there since he shut down.

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I was at LSU at the very tail end of the boom but it drove LSU’s heyday as a party school. Guys who had no real intent of graduating would work an oilfield job over the summer and come to school loaded. Tuition was extremely low because it was subsidized by oil money. It was the Animal House era. For better or worse, it will never be that way again.

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Several guys in my pledge class had no career plans and some of them probably had no intention of actually graduating. They were just there for the party before going back to the real world.