A drilling rig runs on muscle as much as on machinery, and the muscle belongs to the roughnecks — the crew who wrestle the drill pipe, mix the mud and keep the floor turning through twelve-hour shifts in whatever the plains weather serves. It is loud, cold, hot, greasy, dangerous work, and it pays wages that draw young men from a thousand miles away.

Hands on the Iron

The trade has its own hard hierarchy, from the worm on his first hitch to the driller who runs the floor to the toolpusher who runs the rig. A hand learns by doing, under the watch of men who have made every mistake there is to make and lived to warn against it. Safety, hard-won, is the crew's first religion.

From the almanac's reckoning:

• Drilling crews work twelve-hour shifts in all plains weather.
• The trade runs from the novice 'worm' up to the toolpusher.
• Hard-won safety practice is the drilling crew's first discipline.

When the well comes in, the crew moves on to the next location, and the rig walks or trucks itself to a fresh pad. The almanac counts the roughneck among the toughest of the plains laborers, and reckons that the boom rode as much on his back as on any barrel of crude.