oil derrick

A pickup truck with a faux oil derrick flanked by two large Oilers flags, drove laps around the area while fans in the de rigueur orange and blue team sweaters milled about, too excited to leave but too exhausted to do much more than blow on horns and block the sidewalks.

For Anderson’s 2007 mad epic, he walked ranches around Marfa, Texas, before deciding on the knoll where the 90-foot oil derrick would go.

Taken in 1922 by Spence Air Photos, it depicts mostly wide-open fields dotted with the occasional oil derrick and a cluster of long, low buildings fronting the western side of Fairfax just south of Wilshire.

The oil derrick logo team founder Bud Adams brought with him to Tennessee in 1997 was at midfield with the Oilers’ nickname in both end zones and decorated the walls along the field.

Perhaps a rotting oil derrick, it could well be at the bottom of a poisoned sea.