I’m standing next to World Famous Curley’s Café looking at two active oil wells that happen to be located smack dab in the middle of the parking lot, cars drive in and maneuver for their spaces around them. These pumpjacks, as they are known, look like giant metal rocking horses bobbing up and down as they beat out a steady rhythm of ke-chunk noises, sucking the oil from the vertical well beneath them into some underground storage tank. Across the street there is another well next to a McDonalds drive-thru, and up on the hill the wells are scattered in and around an upscale housing development. There are hundreds of wells everywhere; they are next to businesses, houses and whatever happens to be built next to them. This is Signal Hill.

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