Filled up the tank tonight and it was $47!!! After mowing the lawn, I felt like driving around and enjoying the cool evening, but after the cost of that fillup, I decided to save the gas and enjoy the evening on my deck.
I thought about 1964. Larry and Judy and Hank and I would pool our quarters and put gas in Larry's 1958 Ford convertible. Gas was between 24.9 and 29.9. We'd often get just 50 cents or a dollar's worth. Then we'd drive around in the hot summer nights with the top down, Jude and Lar in the front, Hank and I in the back. Sometimes we'd go to the drive-in movie. If we had no money, we'd go park by the North Ogden gravel pits and make out. Or we'd drive up Ogden Canyon and around Pine View Dam, maybe come back over North Ogden Pass. Once we went out to Plain City and Lar showed us what the Ford could do on a long straight country road. That scared Jude and me and we refused to ever do it again. But, the fresh summer air was exhilerating, we were 16, and it was entertainment enough just to drive around with our friends until it was time to go home. We didn't have much money, but we didn't need much--just a dollar's worth of gas.
The price of gas has certainly taken the joy out of joyrides. But it's for the best. It's way past time we started figuring out alternatives.
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