Somewhere out there a derrick hand is 90 feet up in the dark making a connection. A pumper is checking a well by headlight on a lease road nobody paved. A rig crew is turning to the right on hour three of a twelve. And a truck driver is hauling water down a washboard road with 400 miles left and a sunrise he'll meet on the job.

The rest of the world clocked out hours ago. The patch doesn't have a clock.

Nobody's filming it. Nobody's clapping. The work just gets done in the dark by hands that'll do it again tomorrow, and the country that's sound asleep runs on every hour of it.

To everybody still out there tonight...we see you.

If you're on shift right now, check in. Say where you're at and what you're running. The night crew ought to know how many of them there are.