STILLWATER, OKLA. (Fortune Small Business) -- The drilling rig rose incongruously over the peaceful college town of Stillwater, Okla. It roared and screeched with activity. Roughnecks, slathered head to toe in mud, scrambled and cursed a blue streak as they threw chain and tripped out two-ton stands of pipe. D.G., a.k.a. "Stretch," a good-natured chain hand, weighed in with a salvo of riotously profane slander, largely addressed to his fellow oil drillers. It could have pinned back the ears of the most depraved drill sergeant on earth. It could have peeled paint. "There, write that in your magazine!" he yelled...