|
“There was a time in
Oklahoma around about 1934,” Dad was strumming his fingers on the table.
The far away look in his eye made us believe he was looking upon some
scene from a place long ago. “Yep,” he went on, “the gasoline ran along
the bar ditches. It was called drip gas. I guess because it dripped out
from the pipes close to the wells. We used to just take a gallon can and
dip it up. That was when I was a kid and couldn’t stay at home like I
should have been doing. There was plenty of work to be done on the ranch
but you know how it is. Your mother was too beautiful and too much of a
temptation for me to stay out of town. The oil royalties coming into the
family bought us all a car around. Shoot! Ain’t no way we weren’t going to
be dashing around town with all our buddies. We had dances to go to,
church picnics, basketball games. Your Mom was a doll in her shiny satin
basketball suit. It was a bright yellow gold and with her shining black
hair who could have wanted to miss a game with her playing?”
Dad told the story around
the year 1975 and I could identify with his feelings for the automobile
especially since we had been living in Dallas. There was an unending feast
of adventures in that old town. The children and I never tired of dashing
here and there on the plentiful freeways that allowed us to zip around to
any place from the zoo to museums, or horse riding lessons.
All too soon the realities
of my ancestor’s frugal, conservative ways would be upon me. Dad might
make a simple observation like, “Say Girl, with what you spend on dog food
for those labs you could be fattening out a calf,” or, “you can enjoy a
smaller car as much as that big old gas guzzling dinosaur you have.”
“What! Give up this
luxurious LTD? I don’t think so,” I replied. But then, I did. A smaller
compact car worked just fine.
Then came the day I
realized that instead of working so hard at little projects for spending
money I could simply do nothing but stay out of the car and have at least
20 dollars more a day. Getting into the car with kids meant, first of all,
gasoline, and then, treats at the local drive-in. Heaven help me if I took
them in a store. The 20 dollars spent could turn into 100 dollars in a
heartbeat.
We were puttering with
raising chickens, learning about growing things, picking up odd jobs
around the neighborhood and many other jingle, jangle projects that didn’t
mean great amounts of money coming into our life but, on the other hand,
there wasn’t money dropped, either.
Today in 2006 that was
thirty years ago. Was it a rough existence, hard to live through? Heaven’s
no! To the contrary. The money I would have spent on gas we instead, spent
at least one day a week for having folks into our home for a meal. We’ve
made some great, loving friends. I’ve learned to cook a fair bit. The
kids’ love the entertaining we did and still do. Of course, there are
hidden benefits. When you know you are having folks in your home you
finish up small projects, clean up testy places, and have to think about
what can be done in a conservative way to maintain your space, modest
though it may be.
Gas prices, like anything
else, can be a sour lemon to suck on but making lemonade with a little bit
of sugar is our motto and it works. |
