Memorial Day Reflections

6/4

There's nothing like taking a decent road trip over a holiday weekend, like Memorial Day, to reflect and catch up on some blogging. We went from Bucks County, PA, where gasoline was selling for $3.75 at one local station, and we got a $3.79 fillup without going out of our way. That was quite a relief from the $4 plus prices we saw in the previous weeks. We got to Waynesboro, Virginia late Saturday evening where gas prices seemed to be a bargain at $3.55 a gallon.

On the way home, we bought gasoline for $3.49 in Waynesboro. We had seen a few signs at that price off route 81 on the way south. We noticed that prices near the highway were as much as twenty cents higher than they were just a mile off the road.  Don't blame that on the speculators. By the way, prices off the road at the cheap stations we saw when coming south were now about a dime higher now that we were on the way home.

I saw this phenomenon when I was a truck driver. It's hard to count on prices staying the same even for a day.  It makes me wish for a transparent world where I wouldn't be manipulated by people who take advantage of their special knowledge. I like the internet for that, and CB radios. Of course, CB radios often require the user to put up with a lot of inane chatter to get the nuggets like, "there's cheap diesel another five miles up the road", or "there's an accident in the Southbound lanes but the gaper-block is only a couple of minutes on the opposite side".  There are parts of the big-brother thing that I really like.

As a Vietnam War veteran (USMM 1967) I have mixed emotions on Memorial Day weekend and prefer to think of it as a nice three or four day weekend and look forward to spending it with in-laws who I miss and rarely get to see.

Dennis, my brother-in-law, was considering moving to the San Diego area of California because the people there are more open and tolerant, even welcoming of diverse views. I can sympathize with that since I occasionally lapse into feeling lonely for company of my own kind. San Diego is also a bit more than 85 feet above see level and a one meter rise supposedly won't cause any homes to be lost. (http://globalfloodmap.org/)

I countered by mentioning the advantages of being on home turf when trying to make local changes and improvements. I don't know what's the best choice but homies seem to have a political advantage. I notice that on my Environmental Advisory Council where the guys who went to high school in town form a seemingly impenetrable clique. But, I've been here almost 15 years and I'm not planning to leave before I die, so that gives me some muscle, especially with that majority who moved here (many from Philly) during the great rush to "sprawl". 

I've been the outsider in Miami, and in Fairfield County Connecticut, where I lived for 18 years. Only the families that could trace some DAR history in their ancestry had any real advantage there, unless they were millionaires. It's OK that my parents came in through Ellis Island at the turn of the last century. I'm not a native American and believe that they have first claim to complain about the europeans and other invaders and settlers.

The things I'd like to change most (aside from having everyone being well educated and tolerant) are things that will make ours a sustainable society. That seems to be the universal necessity if my grandchildren (and yours) are to have any hope. I notice that I'm no longer saying, "hope of a better future". I think a recognizable future will be sufficiently acceptable for now.

By the way, if you haven't taken "The Crash Course" you won't have much of a chance to recognize the future, let alone have a chance to make it any better than say,  

"Hell in a handbasket". The Crash Course is at http://www.chrismartenson.com. I can't say that you'll love it, but it's pretty damn good for one person's vision. If you haven't given this idea much thought, it may be time to consider the thoughts on this from someone who has, and has done it brilliantly. 

Those of us who once wanted to leave this world a better place for our children might want to seriously consider where we're starting in from in 2011before plotting a new course.

p.s.

Thanks for putting up with my first attempts at blogging. I'll get the hang of how to do this well sometime later this year. I'm just delighted to see the words up on the screen for now. I've courted a major mistake with each post as I fumble around with this.