Like you, I’m noticing that prices
for gasoline are beginning to rise rapidly. The price increases reminded me of the great Jerry Reed song,
Crude Oil Blues. Every time I think of Jerry Reed, my mind goes back to the spring of 1986.
I was working for a telecommunications equipment manufacturer, installing digital switching equipment in phone company
central offices all over the country.
In the spring of 1986, I was working in Blytheville, Arkansas. The project
supervisor for that project was from Kentucky and looked and sounded just like Jerry Reed. He often went home to Kentucky
for the weekends and come back with stories from home.
One bright, sunny Monday afternoon, the supervisor came into the switch room where the
crew was hard at work. He hollered out in his perfect Jerry Reed voice, “Boys! I
want y’all to come out to the parking lot. I’ve got something that will
light up your life!”
We followed him out
to the parking lot to his turquoise blue Lincoln Continental. He opened the trunk and he pulled out one
of the many Mason jars filled with a clear liquid. As he spun the lid off of the jar, he said, “Boys,
this here is the finest white lightnin’ that can come out of the state of Kentucky!” As he
took a big swig, he handed it to one of the crew members and said, “Here, son! Take a swig.”
As the young man took a sip and swallowed, you could almost
hear it whistle like a World War II bomb and it zeroed in on his stomach. When it hit, the kid’s
eyes bugged out just like a cartoon character.
When
the jar was passed to me, I said, “No thanks, I don’t partake of flammable liquids” and handed it to the
next guy.
Where was I going with
this? Oh, yeah! High gas prices.
While the prices have backed off from the $4+ per gallon that we saw a couple
of years ago, the prices are beginning to creep back to those historic highs – if not higher. This
is not welcome news - especially if one is un, or under, employed and having to pinch pennies in order to make ends meet.
Now, I’m not
the brightest crayon in the box but, I see some similarities between the oil situation today and those series of practical
jokes back in the 70’s. I see opportunities for the brightest minds in America to come up with incredible
inventions that help us grow less dependent on foreign oil. Inventions like insuring that nuclear power
environmentally safe and not vulnerable to terrorism. Maybe they can come up with incredibly clean ways
to drill the vast, untapped reserves in our wildlife preserves and off our shores instead of just letting other countries
drill off of our shores? Maybe someone will develop photoelectric cells with much larger capacity can be
produced?
All
of this is possible and is happening. But, while all this great stuff is happening, our own federal, state
and local governments need to take a look at how they’re impacting the price at the pump. Have you
seen the taxes these rascals have added to the price of a gallon of gas? Whoa, Nellie, it’s a lot!
I know that in my neck of the woods it’s in excess of $0.384 per gallon. That’s insane!
I know!
I know! The state’s portion of that tax ($0.20 per gallon) is to pay for roads.
I have seen the roads that the taxes are supposedly paying for and, all I can say is that the armored trucks that are
hauling all those taxes away must have been so heavy as to create some very rough roads. As to what our
rich Uncle Sam uses the $0.184 per gallon of that tax? Your guess is as good as mine.
I do know this: From what I hear from people much smarter
than me, if gases prices go up much higher, our economy could possibly be severely damaged and result in hurting the budgets
of families and businesses across the country.
That
could possibly lead a lot of people to begin partaking of flammable liquids.
