My Thoughts

My Thoughts
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Insider does not drive long distances anymore. It has something to do with his age, but more to do with his vision. Add to his broken eyes the high costs to fill up the 1956 DeSota and that keeps Insider off the major roads. Instead he sticks close to home and regales in the days when he had good eyes and a gallon of gasoline was in the neighborhood of 20 cents. Insider remembers the price of gasoline before he could drive because his mother never learned how to pump her own gasoline. The old guy and his brother always pumped it for her. She would give us a few dollars in change and tell us to fill it up and buy something for ourselves with whatever was left. Insider has long admired his mother for this because this was around the depression and every penny was worth something then. Rather than horde it and use it on other life essentials, mom let us splurge for a yoo-hoo or Goldenberg peanut chew. It may not have been the smartest decision as the head of the household, but it sure was nice.

It was a big deal some years ago when gas stations had to make room for another number on the gas price signs. Those signs were made for two numbers, such as 20 cents. Sign folks had to then work in a decimal point and add another column to make the gallon price $1.02, for example. The old guy wonders what those old-time gas station owners would think of the high-tech electrical signs some gas stations use these days. All they have to do is flick a switch to change the numbers and they all come equipped with enough room for $9.99. Insider wonders what will happen once it surpasses $10. That’s only a matter of time. The old guy predicts it will not happen in his lifetime, but it will in some of yours. Then those filling stations with the electronic signs will be forced to replace the expensive ones they have now with even more expensive ones to make room for the new number.

Things The Old Guy Dislikes: Starbucks; cell phones; people who are addicted to their cell phones; Latte drinkers; cutting down a tree; replacing a television; finding something believed to be lost after buying something to replace it; when business owners complain about sales; a dirty beach and Boardwalk; a weather forecast that’s wrong; a tie with a small knot; torn shoes; the sounds flip-flops make; and low fat milk.