In The Pipeline:

“I miss the oil wells today. I haven’t been to Huntington Beach in over a month. I want to visit my parents, but there’s so little time left of summer and so much to do. So here’s a picture for me.”

So reads the caption next to a classic shot of a Huntington Beach oil well at hboilwells.blogspot.com, created by artist Terri Hughes-Oelrich. You’ll find all sorts of odes to oil on the site, along with images of art Hughes-Oelrich has created — art that was inspired by the oil wells that, once ubiquitous here in town, for many are a faded memory. Still, there are plenty scattered about, still pumping up the resource that truly put Huntington Beach on the map.

Today, the little girl who grew up mesmerized by an oil well adjacent to her family’s backyard in Sea Cliff is an assistant professor of fine arts at San Diego City College. And though the class of ’85 Mater Dei High School graduate lives with her husband and two sons, ages 4 and 7, in San Diego, she’s back here as often as possible.

“My boys get as excited as I do when we see the wells,” she said. “When they were younger, they’d start yelling ‘Oil Welly!’ as soon as we saw them. I think they get that from me.”

When Hughes-Oelrich was a child, the sounds, sights and smells that emanated from the nearby well made a huge impression on her.

“It wasn’t a bad thing,” she said. “It was impressive. It was this living piece of city history, something really monumental.”

Interestingly, her grandfather, an oil worker, once bumped into another Hughes in the Sea Cliff area — Howard Hughes, who was surveying the property. The Hugheses ended up having lunch on Main Street, talking about — what else — oil. (Howard Hughes’ father, Howard Hughes Sr., made his millions after designing a drill bit for oil companies that could penetrate hard rock.)