When the month of May arrives and Mother’s Day passes, I begin to anticipate Memorial Day. It’s traditionally the unofficial start of the summer season. I also associate the holiday with the raising of gas prices. Right when we want to get out on the road think about vacations – Bang, up go gas prices.

When I was growing up, we had a family farm. At the farm, we had a buried 500-gallon gas tank which we used for fueling up the tractors, etc. It had a hand crank pump and we kept it locked up with a chain and padlock.

After losing most of a tank of fuel through what we figured was a leak, dad put in a tank at our house. For the new tank, he got a service station style electric pump. When it was installed, the per gallon price on the pump, for some strange reason, was set at something like 43 cents per gallon. That was a very high, unrealistic price for the day.

I remember Dad saying that if we ever had to pay that much for gas that it would be a sorry day. That “sorry day” arrived a long time ago. It’s a good thing that Dad isn’t around to see the gas prices of today.

When the subject of gas prices came up, Dad used to like to tell about going to California as a young man with friends. They pulled into a service station and told the attendant they wanted a dollar’s worth of gas.

The guy asked, “Where are your cans?” Dad said, “What do you mean?” The attendant replied, “I can’t get a dollar’s worth of gas into that car. You’ll have to put the rest in cans.”

I sometimes reminisce about being a freshman at USU in Logan back in 1970. The gas price, as I recall, got as low as 23.9 cents per gallon that school year. Back then, they had “gas wars.”

Despite having access to a supply of fuel at home, I used to continually run out of gas as a teenager. The car I drove at that time didn’t have a working fuel gauge. It was during that period that I learned the concept of siphoning gas.

It was a handy trick on the farm as well as out on the road. People would stop along the highway to help dumb kids like me. Often, one or the other of us would have a hose in the vehicle to transfer a little fuel.

One memorable night, I ran out of gas on the road between Monroe and Richfield. An old farmer (probably much younger than my current age) gave me this sage advice as we siphoned gas from his truck to my old Ford, “You know son, it’s as easy to keep the upper half of the tank full as it is the lower half.” It’s never seemed “as easy” to me – even today.

I was reminded of these events a while back when I read an obituary of a guy from Utah County. Of all the things to mention in an obituary, he was praised as someone who “had the knack of siphoning gas.” Maybe I should make some adjustments to my proposed obituary.

With the price of gas, the way it is now, I almost feel like it might be wise to keep my vehicle’s tank on the low side. I have a feeling that there may be a few people out and about who have “the knack of siphoning” who may feel that they need my gasoline more than I do. No one would actually do that in Sanpete, would they?

During the pandemic, Americans have been driving less. I don’t think that’s a surprise. Bicycling has increased.

I do think we are seeing more walking and bike riding in Sanpete now than we used to see. My wife has become an occasional Highway 89 cyclist when she has the time and the weather is decent. I have only ridden with her once on that highway, outside of a town.

I feel like I’m increasing the odds of our grandchildren having at least one living grandparent on our side of the family by not being on a bicycle out on the highway. Sharing the road with diesel trucks, farm equipment, and speeding cars seems risky.

Eventually, we may see the need for a bike path running alongside Highway 89. As it is now, I believe that a bicyclist has to be very careful venturing out on that road on a bike. My wife is pretty smart about it. You should be able to easily see her in her day-glow yellow or pink on the side of the road. So please move over and give her some space.

Motorcycles and scooters are popular right now from my observation. I sometimes ride our little Yamaha Vino scooter to buzz around town. Me riding that thing may be how my grandchildren lose their grandfather.

I think most of us will continue to pay for gasoline regardless of the price. But, we might get smarter about needless driving. I guess we have to remember that we’re still very lucky compared to many parts of the world when it comes to gas prices.

I checked and confirmed that most of the world pays more than our current prices. As of May 3, 2021, it looks like Hong Kong has the most expensive gasoline at $9.35 a gallon. Other per gallon prices: Norway: $7.77, United Kingdom: $6.67, Japan: $5.10, Saudi Arabi: $2.15, Kuwait: $1.32. Not that I’d want to live there, but Venezuela has the cheapest gas in the world at $0.08 per gallon – second cheapest: Iran at $0.26 per gallon.

Misery loves company. And when it comes to “gas pains,” we are all happily miserable to live in the day of modern transportation and to pay the price for it. — — Merrill

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