Well I dunno about you folks, but gas is certainly becoming a problem around the Silverhorn Mountain. Oops, let me be a little more clear, I mean gasoline prices are becoming a problem. Gas...has always been a problem around here, especially after the Pork and Beans Suppers at the firehall. Why I remember driving back from one of the suppers a few years ago in Karl's truck, a little Chevy S10 I believe, and gas got to be a problem....man the cabs on those trucks are small.
But anyway, back to the real story. Apparently some drivers in the US, fed up with paying over $3.00 a gallon (poor souls......try about $5.00 a gallon around here) are running out of gas on the freeway. This prompts the Freeway Rescue Unit or some such thing, to arrive and give the stranded motorist one free gallon of gas to get them on their way. So...people in big SUV's are running out all over the place and the government rescuers are giving away free gas, pretty good deal.
It reminds me of something that happened when I was a mere lad here on Silverhorn Mountain. It was the first big gas crisis, the summer of 1974, and everyone was up in arms, it looked like gas was gonna go over $1.00 a gallon....whew, talk about the good old days. Anyway, my buddy Mark and I had small aluminum boats, with small motors, around 10 horsepower. Gas wasn't a big concern for us, because we could run almost a week on about $4.00. But we weren't riding in luxury, and we wern't going very fast, everyone else was blowing past us in their big speedboats, and even if we ducked down to be more streamlined, we still were only crawling along. Then came the gas crunch. They weren't blowing past us as often and when they did, they all had distintive looks on their faces, something that I interpret now as the look a person makes when they are thinking, "Oh my God, this is costing me a freaking fortune." For a period, Mark and I pretty much owned the lake, no one was boating like us, they were all on shore, checking their wallets and pretending they didn't feel like boating anymore.
One particular guy had a sleek looking runabout with a 115 horsepower merc outboard on it. I don't recall his name but I think he owned a company, and wasn't poor. As I recall the boat was a Checkmate, low and sleek, probably the quickest on the lake in those days, but I could be wrong and it doesn't matter. Long story going nowhere.....
Anyway, one sunny warm day late in the afternoon, Mark and I were at the head of the lake in our little boats, running around in our boats, doing whatever 14 year old boys in boats do, (don't ask, you don't wanna know, particularly if you are the parent of a 14 year old boy with a boat) when the guy in the big speedboat blows by us yet again, but this time it was different. He only went a few hundred yards past us before his motor suddenly sputtered and shut off and he coasted to a stop. He was....you guessed it...out of gas...and what do you think Mark and I did?
We towed that big boat 12 miles down the lake, with our little boats, it took both of us to tow him and the going was slow. Meanwhile, he and his party sat back in the comfy swivel chairs in the speedboat, drank rum, and enjoyed a leisurely, free, boat ride. They seemed to be enjoying themselves and didn't mind how long it was taking us to tow them home. They were having a great time, I can hear the laughter coming from his boat even now.
He paid us though, gave us each a couple of cigarettes....Mark and I laughed all the way home about how stupid he was to drive a big gas guzzler to the head of the lake without enough gas to get back......
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